Lord Leveson’s inquiry into the British press yesterday tackled one of the most pressing mysteries facing government and the media: how on earth does Rupert Murdoch ever get anything done?

By his own, often amusing, account, the 81-year-old head of News Corporation never asks for favours from politicians, does not give orders to his editors and has very little charisma. Given this, it is a puzzle how, over 43 years, he has managed to build the UK’s most powerful media company and break his way into US newspapers, television and film.

The polite way to describe Mr Murdoch’s evidence – on the heels of his son James’s disclosures about private communications with the office of Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary – is implausible. It was belied by his presence – droll, dismissive and impatient, he was not the “deaf, doddery, proud old man” observed by Tom Watson, the Labour MP, in parliament last July.