News Corp UK execs threatened British Members of Parliament

Anyone want to bet against the same thing happening in the US? How long do you really need to think about it before you come up with a story about ridiculous attacks on Democrats?

This bullying behavior has to stop.

Lib Dem insiders say NI officials took their lobbying campaign well beyond acceptable limits and even threatened, last autumn, to persecute the party if Vince Cable, the business secretary, did not advance its case.

According to one account from a senior party figure, a cabinet minister was told that, if the government did not do as NI wanted, the Lib Dems would be "done over" by the Murdoch papers, which included the now defunct News of the World as well as the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times.

The accounts are only now coming to light, say sources, because the minister involved feared the potential for damage to the party, which was already suffering a dramatic slide in popularity after going into coalition with the Tories. They chime with reports from senior figures in the Labour party who say that Murdoch executives issued threats to Ed Miliband's office after the Labour leader turned on NI when the news broke that murdered 13-year-old Milly Dowler's phone had been hacked into by the News of the World.