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"Labour is attempting to gain cross-party support to push through an emergency change in the law to prevent Rupert Murdoch&amp;#039;s News Corporation from renewing its bid to take full control of Sky.  The party is calling on the government to allow ministers to block Murdoch from reopening his bid to acquire the 60.9% of Sky that he does not already own. Shadow culture secretary Ivan Lewis intends to introduce what is known as a negative motion in parliament next week, which, if it gains sufficient support, could go through without a vote.  Murdoch&amp;#039;s News Corp opted to withdraw its bid to take full control of Sky last month in the wake of the devastating phone hacking scandal at its Sunday tabloid, the News of the World.  However, it is widely thought that the billionaire&amp;#039;s longterm goal is to get hold of the multi-billion pound revenues at pay-TV giant Sky, despite questions over whether he is &amp;quot;fit and proper&amp;quot; to even hold a 39.1% stake.  The Guardian reports that Lewis and the Liberal Democrat culture spokesman Don Foster have written to culture secretary Jeremy Hunt outlining their proposals.  The MPs want to introduce a revised public internet test applicable to all media barons trying to make significant acquisitions that factors in their conduct. Labour is proposing an amendment to Section 58 of the Enterprise Act 2002, giving ministers the power to ask regulators such as Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading to apply the public interest test.  Under the proposed arrangement, ministers would also be able to intervene in the process should new evidence or information be uncovered. The negative motion will be put before both houses of parliament when they return on September 5. In his letter to Hunt, Lewis said that ministers should be not be involved in the approval process in the long term, but added that this emergency solution was essential to prevent Murdoch from simply bidding again to take control of Sky. &amp;quot;These measures are necessary to ensure that while we wait for the outcome of the [Lord] Leveson inquiry [into phone hacking], no changes in media ownership can occur which are not in the public interest,&amp;quot; said Lewis.  &amp;quot;It is essential we learn lessons from the Sky fiasco so that media integrity is the top priority when considering future ownership and merger changes. &amp;quot;Ultimately, there is a strong case for removing politicians from media ownership and merger decisions. But, in the meantime, we must act to address the legal ambiguities which allowed Jeremy Hunt to disregard growing public concern and damaged public trust in the credibility of the decision-making process.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/media/news/a337742/labour-wants-law-change-to-block-future-rupert-murdoch-sky-bid/>