He may have labelled phone-hacking victims "scumbag celebrities" (he has since apologised to Hugh Grant), but Rupert Murdoch seems to be in a more charitable mood about his business rivals. Murdoch was asked on Twitter what he thought about disgraced former Telegraph owner Conrad Black's comment that the News Corp chairman is "a psychopath ... like Stalin, except that he doesn't kill people". His response – unlike much of Black's abrasive output this week – was the model of diplomacy: "Saddened. Conrad was first class publisher of Telegraph, but tricked in dodgy stuff in Canada by bad partner." If only the US jury in Black's fraud trial had seen it that way.
