Labour leader Ed Miliband is calling for Rupert Murdoch's UK media empire to be broken up, despite the News International boss insisting he will "put right our wrongs".

News International has, for the second day, published full page adverts in a range of newspapers declaring there should be "no place to hide" from the police investigation into phone hacking.

The adverts also say the company will cooperate fully with the probe and pay compensation to those affected.

In relation to the police inquiry, it says: "There are no excuses and there should be no place to hide. We will not tolerate wrongdoing and will act on any evidence that comes to light."

The advert concludes: "Apologising for our mistakes and fixing them are only the first steps."

Although Mr Murdoch closed the News of the World last week, he still owns the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times, and 39% of BSkyB.

And Mr Miliband has said that is not enough and he wants media ownership rules to change.

''I think that we've got to look at the situation whereby one person can own more than 20% of the newspaper market, the Sky platform and Sky News," Mr Miliband told The Observer.

"I think it's unhealthy because that amount of power in one person's hands has clearly led to abuses of power within his organisation."

The Labour leader has been emboldened over the last two weeks because his call for Rebekah Brooks to quit News International, considered rash by many commentators at the time, proved to be in step with public opinion.

He hopes to capitalise on that by turning his stance into a broader theme about the need for the powerful in society to take more responsibility.

Labour's deputy leader Harriet Harman praised Mr Miliband's stance.

"It was testament to the overwhelming power that Murdoch had that neither the Labour Government nor the previous Tory Government took the action that was needed to be taken...

"There was just a sense that it was too difficult to take on the Murdoch empire because it was too strong," she told Sky News' Murnaghan.

"Now Ed Miliband has just broken through all of that and just said 'this needs to be done'. He's the first political party leader to do that and I think it's going to bring very positive change."

Critics may argue Mr Miliband is yet to explain how exactly he thinks Mr Murdoch's media interests should be split up - or if he is suggesting some are closed down, how to maintain media plurality.

Defence Secretary Liam Fox said Mr Miliband should not go "jumping on bandwagons and getting today's headlines".

"I think politicians would be wise at the moment not to over-react, that there is a definite feeling of politicians wanting to, if you like, get their own back on some elements of the media," he told Sky News' Murnaghan programme.

Earlier, Foreign Secretary William Hague defended David Cameron, saying he was "not embarrassed" by the extent of the Prime Minister's dealings with News International.
It has emerged Mr Cameron met its top executives 26 times in the 15 months after he took office.

Mr Hague also defended the PM's decision to entertain Andy Coulson after the latter quit as Downing Street Director of Communications over the NOTW phone-hacking scandal.

He said it was a "normal, human thing" to invite Mr Coulson to Chequers to thank him for his work, adding it showed a "positive side" to Mr Cameron's character.

Rupert Murdoch, the News Corporation chairman is to be questioned by MPs on Tuesday alongside his son, James, the chairman of News International, and Rebekah Brooks, who quit as chief executive of NI earlier this week.

MPs want to quiz the trio about phone hacking claims, the suggestion police were paid for stories and why out of court settlements were apparently paid to victims of the scandal.

All three deny any knowledge of the wrongdoing and James Murdoch said he did not know all the facts when he authorised the payments to victims.

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It seems that all the people that helped to put the UK in deep shit and most out of work, are now in the same shit but deeper. What goes around comes around. Poor old Mr Milliband the Sun newspaper never liked the way Labour fucked up the country for 14 years and put them out of office. Closing down the Murdoch empire will not get him in as PM if it does i will leave the Country to him and his comunist mates.

Yes denu i have just read about W R Hearst, it seems that Merdoch took over the torch. You are correct it is an echo.

Be well IAN 2411