Rupert and James Murdoch before Parliament

By Bagehot

"THIS is the most humble day of my life," Rupert Murdoch told members of the House of Commons, after the media, culture and sports select committee summoned the global media tycoon before them to explain the phone-hacking, police-bribing, politician-bullying ways of his British press titles. Having established his humility, Mr Murdoch then spent more than two hours telling the MPs that he was—in essence—much too important and busy to have known what his feckless underlings were up to.

Mr Murdoch repeatedly stressed how ashamed and sorry he was that his Sunday tabloid, the News of the World had snooped on the voicemails of a mobile phone belonging to Milly Dowler, a 13-year-old schoolgirl whose abduction and murder became front-page news in 2002. He talked of his father, a great reporter, bequeathing him his first newspaper with instructions to use it for good purposes. At times, especially when struggling to hear questions, he looked all of his 80 years. But again and again his defence rested on the idea that he was simply too grand to know about the ethical lapses in one of his newsrooms. That is probably a shrewd legal strategy, but it is unlikely to help Mr Murdoch much in the court of British public opinion.

It was gripping human theatre, despite the best efforts of many of the assembled committee members to blow their big confrontation, asking open-ended or irrelevant questions (my prize for worst question goes to the MP who asked what sort of coaching the Murdochs had had before their parliamentary appearance).

Some have written that Rupert Murdoch came across as a frail, diminished figure, comparing his appearance to the final moments of the Wizard of Oz. I disagree. Thumping the table with the palm of his hand for emphasis (despite nervous signals from his wife to stop) Mr Murdoch showed flashes of something I can only describe as raw power, notably when any MP seemed about to patronise him.

Thus when an MP suggested employees had kept Mr Murdoch in the dark about the phone-hacking scandal, Mr Murdoch came to life, growling:

Nobody kept me in the dark, I may have been lax in not asking, but [the News of the World] was such a tiny part of our business.

The tabloid represented less than 1% of his company, he explained. He employed 53,000 people round the world. At his side, his son, James Murdoch, took the same line, arguing that at one point a six figure pay-off to a victim of phone-hacking had been too small to need the approval of his father, "as chairman and chief executive of a global company."

If they make a movie of the scene, perhaps Jack Nicholson could capture the glowering menace and dark comedy of some of the older Mr Murdoch's lines, but few others. Asked by an MP, primly, if he had frequent meetings with British prime ministers, Mr Murdoch replied, with the faintest hint of a smile: "I wish they'd leave me alone."

Another moment of telling cynicism about the wickedness of the world was provoked when a Scottish Labour MP asked if he regretted the high cost to his company of the phone-hacking scandal. The MP referred to the way Mr Murdoch's global company News Corporation was forced to abandon a bid to increase its stake in BSkyB, a highly profitable satellite television network, from 39% to 100%, by the threat of a parliamentary vote against the takeover.

At this mention of a deal worth hundreds of millions of pounds, Mr Murdoch's mood of contrition seemed to fade a bit. A lot of people had different agendas in building "hysteria" around the deal, he said, with a sort of resigned, weary disgust: "They caught us with dirty hands and they built this hysteria around it."

Just for a moment, I wondered if we were watching the echt Rupert Murdoch. Then James Murdoch (smart suit, soft American accent, a lawyerly manner—Tom Cruise to his father's Jack Nicholson) quickly jumped in, assuring the MP that his firm had been "very clear" that "very serious allegations" had been levelled at the News of the World and this was a matter of "huge and sincere regret". The moment passed, and we were back to smooth denials of knowledge of wrongdoing, and assurances of full co-operation with future investigations.

A few MPs asked good questions. The surprise star was a Conservative newcomer elected in 2010, Louise Mensch, also known as Louise Bagshawe (the author of breathless "chick-lit" novels). I confess I have not been that impressed by what I had seen of Mrs Mensch previously. But after her waffling, pompous colleagues it was a relief today as she asked sharp, precise, coolly scornful questions. She asked about pay-offs backed with confidentiality clauses, about when precisely the Murdochs had known that phone-hacking involved victims of crime like Milly Dowler, and about whether, given the enormous reputational damage being done to News Corp, it might be time for James Murdoch to read through all the emails from an archive appearing to show rampant law-breaking among some employees, rather than referring to a sample he had seen. James Murdoch was left stammering by that one.

Her last question elicited the best answer of the day from Rupert Murdoch.

Mrs Mensch, looking and sounding like a clever young prosecution barrister, reminded Mr Murdoch that he had said Les Hinton, a former chief executive of News International (News Corp's British newspaper subsidiary), had resigned because he was the "captain of the ship" when wrongdoing took place. Is it not the case, sir, that you are the captain of the ship, she asked the elder Mr Murdoch? The magnate's pride seemed piqued, and he rose to the bait. "Of a much bigger ship," he rumbled.

Mrs Mensch did not blench. "It is a much bigger ship, but you are in charge of it. And as you said in earlier questions, you do not regard yourself as a hands-off chief executive, you work ten to 12 hours a day. This terrible thing happened on your watch. Mr Murdoch, have you considered resigning?"

"No," said Mr Murdoch.

"Why not?" said Mrs Mensch.

"Because," Mr Murdoch replied. "I feel that people I trusted, I'm not saying who, I don't know what level, have let me down. I think they behaved disgracefully and betrayed the company, and me. It's for them to pay. I think that, frankly, I'm the best person to clear this up."

For them to pay. That phrase pretty much summed up the whole session. It will not have done the Murdoch family many favours.