After a short recess, Murdoch, now jacket-less, was told by one of the committee members he had shown "immense guts". Another lawmaker, long one of his most bitter critics, later jokingly complimented his wife on her "very good left hook". That televised cameo, and the emotionally worded statements from the Murdochs on their personal remorse and will to clean up the mess at the News International newspaper unit, may temper some of the public and parliamentary fury aimed at a man who has been courted and feared by British leaders for decades. "You couldn't make this stuff up. It could have turned the whole situation around for them," said Andrew Hawkins, chairman of polling company ComRes. "The combination of his father's age and the custard pie attack will have elicited a tremendous amount of sympathy. I suspect that in the weeks to come we will probably look back at this moment and think it was pivotal for them."