Pressure continued to mount on James Murdoch before next week’s AGM of BSkyB, with major investors being lobbied to vote against his continued chairmanship.

Labour MP Chris Bryant had written to 40 major shareholders urging them to vote against his re-election as chairman. Bryant says he is “deeply concerned that the re-election of James Murdoch as chairman would do serious damage to BSkyB and to the overall reputation of the UK’s standards of corporate governance”.

He alleges that Murdoch may have misled parliament about what he knew about the phone-hacking affair and reckons investors share his concern. “Whether you consider James Murdoch has misled the committee, as I do, or instead consider that he failed to investigate and manage this issue competently, I believe that shareholders must hold him accountable. In any other FTSE 100 company failure on this scale would merit removal.”

The board has already backed Murdoch’s continued tenure.

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