A lucky escape from Murdoch

Rupert Murdoch's plan to take over a British school were cooked up in secret meetings between Tory ministers and former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks in a hotel room, according to papers I obtained in a freedom of information request.

Brooks was arrested last year by police investigating illegal phone-hacking.

This week she appeared in the Old Bailey to be told that she will go on trial both for phone-hacking and attempting to pervert the course of justice.

The papers I got show that she was central to government-Murdoch plans for a school run by his firm News International - a woman now being prosecuted for the perversion of justice was then considered the best person to talk to about schoolchildren's future.

The papers I received were not passed to the Leveson inquiry into press behaviour.

Leveson's inquiry, established after revelations of illegal behaviour by Rupert Murdoch's newspapers and police collusion in the conspiracy, did look at the proposed Murdoch school.

But these new Department for Eduction papers give more details.

The 2010 bid for News International to run an academy school in east London ultimately did not proceed because of government funding cuts.

The way Murdoch's News International papers in Britain - or Fox News in the US - pump out offensive and untrue stories full of sleazy attacks or cheesy titillation was no bar to his involvement with schools.

Conservative Party politicians were too happy with Murdoch's right-wing propaganda to worry about the morality of letting him get close to kids.

The papers show how closely Brooks, London Mayor Boris Johnson and Conservative minister Michael Gove were involved in plans for a school which could have showcased technology from Murdoch's education firm.

Emails from September 2010 show that Johnson suggested Gove consider "speaking to News International about becoming involved in the academies programme."

Mayor Johnson has been a Murdoch defender even as the phone-hacking scandal has unfolded.

Gove (below) is a former Murdoch employee whose career was boosted by his column in News International's Times newspaper.

Gove got his Schools Minister Lord Jonathan Hill to talk to News International.

Hill's handwritten note of a conversation with News International says that Murdoch's firm wanted government funding for a Wapping school which would use "eco-media-technology."

This was one month before NewsCorp bought up schools computing firm Wireless Technology.

Murdoch tried running a school around the same time he went into the education technology business.

According to the emails, Hill, a former lobbyist for Bell Pottinger, got "an invitation to News International do at conference" and would "see Rebecca" at the Conservative Party rally.

The officials consistently mis-spell Rebekah Brooks's first name and sometimes refer to her under her maiden name, Rebekah Wade.

A subsequent email informs the minister that "Rebecca Wade will be in the Hyatt Regency in rm 905 9th floor for the meeting with Lord Hill this afternoon."

Hill's hotel room meeting does not appear on official lists of minister's meetings. After meeting Brooks, Hill arranged for the department's top schools officials to "meet with Rebecca Wade," insisting Gove should "feed in first" before civil servants spoke to News International.

By October 2010, with the News International meeting approaching, several emails refer to Gove's desire to go with his civil servants to Wapping and "attend the meeting with them."

It seems Gove did not trust his civil servants to do the right deal with his former employer.

The civil servants are not sure if Gove will go, but say they are "sure that the CX [chief executive], Rebecca, is one of the attendees."

The Department for Education says it is withholding "correspondence and notes of discussions between ministers about the News International proposal, as well as policy advice from officials to ministers about the issue."

We cannot be totally sure how Gove felt about a Murdoch school. But a note of a phone call from Gove's special adviser Henry de Zoete gives a strong hint.

According to de Zoete, Gove did join civil servants meeting Brooks at News International.

De Zoete told officials Gove was "very keen to take advantage of their interest and present them ... with a list of options, including potential premises/sites in their area of interest."

A worried-sounding civil servant says Gove "did ask for us to pursue this some time ago and is expecting a pretty worked up proposition (or propositions) to put to them, which he has asked to see tonight. I'm afraid I have lost track of where this has got to..."

Education officials' failure to jump quickly enough to Gove's orders slowed the Murdoch schools project.

Then it hit what the emails call "capital constraints" - Murdoch wanted government subsidy from the Building Schools for the Future scheme which Gove cancelled in government cuts.

Civil Service slowness and coalition cuts stopped the Murdoch school getting started before the hacking scandal exploded, which was probably a lucky escape both for the children of east London and Gove himself.

For now the prospect of a Murdoch school in Britain has retreated, although his firm - renamed Amplify - is still trying to take over schools in the US.

Immortal message

British music-lovers are getting a rare chance to see intensely political rapper Immortal Technique. His first two albums were called The Revolutionary, Vols 1&2 and include a track titled The Poverty Of Philosophy, after Marx's critique of Proudhon, so he is of interest to Morning Star readers.

In shorthand, if you liked Public Enemy, go to see Immortal Technique. He is wordier and less shouty than Public Enemy.

In another shorthand, like a much less mellow, rawer - and sometimes offensive - Gil Scott Heron.

This might make Immortal Technique sound like a musical-political lecture - which would be fine by me - but he didn't get his name because Mr & Mrs Technique had a son they called Immortal.

His name comes from the way his words flow and his acrobatic wordplay.

Immortal Technique plays Brighton, Brixton, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow, and Belfast and Southampton in October.