Glaxo-Smith-Kline’s Board just issued a statement, in which the following quote is used:

‘”James Murdoch has decided to stand down from the board with effect from this year’s AGM,” GSK Chairman Christopher Gent said in a statement.’

I can reveal that Gent has been nervous about where the Leveson and CM&S enquiries were leading, which is a polite way of saying he didn’t find Murdoch Jr a very reliable witness. Although Reuters reports that ‘Murdoch took the decision to focus on his current duties as Non-executive Chairman of  BSkyB’, sources close to Gent admitted that this was an excuse, not a reason, for the parting of the ways. James Murdoch has only been in the role for just over two years.

In an oddly worded end to the release, GSK said it would ‘watch investigations into the phone-hacking scandal engulfing his family’s newspaper business’. Wrong tense, I would’ve thought.

I’ve posted about this in the past I know, but it is becoming increasingly apparent in this the second decade of the 21st Century, that the barometer of who is or isn’t guilty has moved away from the police and legal systems to senior corporate business. It may well be a reflection of the long-term decline of the Nation State, and the rise and rise of the multinationally monied.

Either way, the death knell is sounding for Jimbo. I doubt if he will grace these shores again.