One of the least surprising political decisions of the year has come to pass, as Jeremy Hunt today provisionally approved News Corporations bid for full control of BSkyB.
The great fear of other media companies - from the BBC to BT to the Telegraph Media Group - is that this will give Murdoch's company the ability to bundle online newspaper subscriptions into Sky packages and thus fatally undermine his competitor, at the same time as securing more power from which he can undermine public service broadcasters such as the BBC and Channel 4. The decision was described as Britain's Berlusconi moment.
That the decision has been passed demonstrates yet again that this government preaches localism, Big Society and the importance of competition when it relates to the public sector, but will conveniently forget all these tenets when it comes to their powerful corporate allies.
Is it a co-incidence that the government chose today of all days to make the announcement? Well, that's up to you to decide...
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