THERE is no qualitative difference between having a dominant interest in BSkyB and securing outright ownership of the satellite broadcaster. Either way, Rupert Murdoch gets to call the shots.

Even so, Vince Cable is surely right to insist that News Corp’s £8.2bn offer for the BSkyB shares it does not already own be given a perfunctory once-over by Ofcom.

The regulator does not have a reputation that ranks it among the ballsiest kid on the block. Yet it did earlier this year order Sky to cut the wholesale price of premium sports channels, so a presumption of utter spinelessness on its part might just be unfair. We shall wait and see.

The point is that the business secretary could hardly have allowed himself to appear less stringent than his predecessor Peter Mandelson was in 1998, when Mandelson referred BSkyB’s bid for Manchester United to the Competition Commission.

Cable will also be mindful of widespread opposition to Murdoch’s latest move, which has united the Guardian, the Beeb and the Daily Mail in signing a round robin decrying the implications for media plurality.

 What I do find worrying is that the cabinet were split on the issue. The Conservatives, it is reported, would have been happy enough to let a deal go through on the nod.

After all, they arguably owe Murdoch a favour after that ever-so-handy endorsement from The Sun at the last general election.

Even if he gets a knock back this time, it will be fairly inconsequential. Were an issue of genuine importance to the Dirty Digger at stake, the suspicion remains that the cave in would be instant.

True, Tory abasement is not as complete as was New Labour’s under Tony Blair, when Murdoch could simply ring up Number Ten and get the prime minister to sound out the Italian government on his behalf.  

But the tax-avoiding Australian-born American national still ranks among the most powerful men in the country, without even the pretence of democratic endorsement. To rewrite an old anarchist slogan, whoever you vote for, Rupert Murdoch still gets in.