`Sycophantic' Labour loses media vote

Inside Parliament

Labour endured taunts of a policy U-turn over cross-media ownership last night as the Broadcasting Bill was given a second reading in the Commons.

Virginia Bottomley, Secretary of State for National Heritage, said that in arguing for a still more relaxed ownership regime than the Bill proposes, Labour had lurched from "paranoid terror" to "sycophantic devotion" to media groups.

The Bill eases restrictions on cross-media ownership and paves the way for digital television, but Mrs Bottomley said there was no commonsense justification for moving at one bound to wholesale deregulation. Both the Mirror Group and News International are excluded from control of ITV companies, because each has more than 20 per cent of national newspaper circulation.

But shadow Heritage secretary Jack Cunningham said the Government's position was "perverse". The 20 per cent threshold allowed United Newspapers and Associated Newspapers to buy Channel 3 licences but "miraculously", prevented Mirror Group from doing the same.

Gerald Kaufman, Labour chairman of the heritage select committee, described the ownership rules as "petty, silly and almost certainly unworkable". However, an amendment criticising the Bill as treating newspaper groups "unfairly" in their access to broadcast markets was rejected by 297 votes to 267.

Earlier, at Question Time, John Major declared himself dug in for the political equivalent of a record final wicket stand as Tony Blair exploited the Conservatives' humiliation in the South East Staffs by-election.

With Brian Jenkins, who cut Mr Major's majority to just one, waiting in the wings to take his Commons seat, Mr Blair repeatedly pressed the Prime Minister to explain the defeat then supplied his own answers - "People don't trust the Conservative Party any more".

Mr Major, on the other hand, failed to make full capital of Labour's mixed messages on tax. Clare Short, the transport spokeswoman who dared to speak her mind, was on the Opposition front bench for the exchanges. Mr Major said he was delighted she had been "untied and ungagged" but went easy on her suggestion that those on pounds 34,000-plus should pay more.

Tory Geoffrey Clifton-Brown asked about a newspaper article claiming Mr Blair had told journalists tax would be raised for those on pounds 30,000. The figure was then raised to pounds 40,000 and subsequently denied altogether by Labour spin doctors, he said. But this gift was snatched from the Prime Minister's hands by Speaker Betty Boothroyd with a reminder that questions must relate to Government policy.

It was left to former Tory Cabinet minister Peter Brooke to offer Mr Major a refuge in his favourite world of willow and leather. "Does the Prime Minister take encouragement from the fact that this summer at the Oval will see the 50th anniversary of the longest and largest stand for the last wicket in the history of English cricket?"

A Surrey supporter, Mr Major said he was aware of the anniversary. "I look forward certainly at the Oval to seeing many performances like that by Surrey, perhaps by England. And I have absolutely no doubt that politically we will see their equivalent."

Fortunately for the Tories, nobody on the Opposition benches had a Wisden to hand. The record last wicket stand of 249 at the Oval in 1946 was scored by the opposition - by CT Sarwate and SN Banerjee playing for India against Surrey.