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The BBC’s programme about Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch – Battle With Britain, you might have thought would be the ultimate hatchet job.
Murdoch, the BBC’s arch enemy, right wing, Thatcher supporting, the BBC’s most dangerous political and commercial rival…but he was also everything the BBC loves….an immigrant bringing innovative, radical, revolutionary ideas to break the Establishment monopoly, a Leninist Labour supporter who gave the People a voice.
In fact the programme was probably a big disappointment for the Guardianistas who must have choked on their own dismay as they watched in shock the BBC undermining myth after myth that have fed and nurtured the Left’s hatred of Murdoch for years…even this morning Toynbee was blaming Murdoch for a conspiracy against Press regulation proposals based on Leveson….ignoring the fact that just about every newspaper and publication are also against them.
The programme exonerated Thatcher for allowing Murdoch to buy the Times…..a meeting that was supposedly a secret stitch up between Thatcher and Murdoch was shown to be nothing of the sort and that even the most vocal critics of the deal said Murdoch was the best candidate.
Steve Hewlett , presenting the programme, let the objectivity slide a bit though….as after having conclusively cleared the deal he then said that of course there might have been a secret deal…but we’ll never know because that is the nature of a secret deal.
That’s pure speculation that feeds the conspiracy theories…and the facts he had just presented showed otherwise…he had the minutes of the meeting which revealed it was entirely innocuous.
The programme carried on in that vein…the worst that could be said was that it concentrated on the ‘sleaze’ aspect of the Murdoch stable’s output….ignoring the upbeat nature of the Sun, certainly when contrasted with the downbeat, miserable leftwing Mirror.
However the one problem with the programme was one that must raise a few questions about the BBC and it’s relationship with the Labour Party.
Hewlett told us that there was a crisis so serious that it threatened to destroy everything Murdoch had built….a period of crisis that became the worst days of his life.
That was of course the phone hacking scandal, especially the hacking of Millie Dowler’s phone and Leveson.
But how did Murdoch come to be under such a concerted attack by his numerous and politically motivated enemies?
That we never learned from this programme…once again the sins of the Labour Party have disappeared, hoovered up by the BBC’s clean up squad, 13 years of tragic corruption and incompetence quietly disposed of.
The programme does tell us that Blair and New Labour joined forces with Murdoch….no Murdoch no Sun, no Sun no New Labour victory.
Strangely however, no mention of Murdoch’s support for the Iraq War.
Andrew Neal told us that there was no question that Murdoch’s relationship with Blair and Brown was far closer, far more intense than it ever was with Mrs Thatcher…..at least 25 people from each side, government and News International, were deeply involved in an intermeshed, close, deep relationship.
And?….nothing…absolutely no examination of who and when and what resulted from all that intermeshing of personnel….not even a peep about all those weddings, pyjama parties and meetings.
For a start Hewlett could have looked at Tom Baldwin, Times Journalist, who planted stories in the Times for Labour. Where does he now work? For Ed Miliband as his chief spinner…or ‘intevention coordinator’
Instead the next we heard from Hewlett, skipping those 13 years, was that…‘the blurring of boundaries continued with David Cameron’…..in fact, he said, the relationship was possibly even deeper.
But what was the most startling omission? The fact that the Sun had declared that it would not support Labour at the next election and that an enraged Gordon Brown then declared war on Murdoch…once again not a peep….astonishing given the seismic reaction to that declaration by the Sun.
This is from the Mail which reports how upset Brown was about the story of his son’s illness and other ‘criminal’ activities of News Corp…and yet he did nothing….
Gordon Brown today laid bare his family’s anguish after Rebekah Brooks revealed she had seen his baby son’s medical records – and intended to publish a story about his illness.
In an extraordinary interview, the former prime minister described how he and his wife Sarah had been in tears after speaking to the then editor of The Sun in 2006.
Mrs Brooks had told Mrs Brown that she knew four-month-old Fraser had cystic fibrosis – something which was thought to be known only by the family and medical staff – and that the paper intended to run a story.
The Browns were devastated. Speaking to the BBC today, Mr Brown said that he was ‘incredibly upset’ at the thought his son was going to be ‘broadcast across the media.’
He also accused News International of using the ‘criminal underworld’ to obtain information and said that the company’s tactics had been totally ruthless and ‘disgusting’.
Brown said: ‘I just can’t understand this – if I, with all the protection and all the defences and all the security that a Chancellor of the Exchequer or a prime minister, am so vulnerable to unscrupulous tactics, to unlawful tactics, methods that have been used in the way we have found, what about the ordinary citizen?’
And yet he did nothing….why?
There must be little doubt that if Murdoch had continued to back Labour the phone hacking scandal may never have seen the light of day. After all even when Brown believed the Sun had obtained his son’s medical records and when his bank account was accessed…he hadn’t pressed for an investigation of Press behaviour.
The Sun’s defection was probably the major turning point in Murdoch’s relationship with Labour, the one that set him on a collision course with a group of rivals intent on destroying him and his News empire…and that included the BBC which actively campaigned against him.
A major turning point that Hewlett completely ignored…after dealing comprehensively with Thatcher’s relationship with Murdoch.
How is it possible to miss 13 years of such a close and intense relationship between Murdoch’s business and the Labour Party and the eventual massive falling out which was so destructive?
A relationship that must have had enormous consequences for the country if tales of the influence of Murdoch are to be believed.
Once again the BBC has buried inconveniently difficult revelations about Labour and its shameful record in government.
It is utterly remarkable how Labour, and especially Gordon Brown, get wiped from history…their economic record barely acknowledged, the effects of their policies ignored or downplayed and Labour’s economic plans continually endorsed.
As part of the media anti-UKIP agenda, we were shown a picture of a UKIP candidate supposedly making a (left-handed!) Nazi salute. That picture of McDoom looks a lot more convincing.
When John Prescott put his hand up to try and stop an egg from hitting him.
That too looked like a NAZI SALUTE.
I just happened to catch the final few minutes of Today, just in time to hear Toynbee say:
“First thing the Tories did this morning is bend towards the Sun and Murdoch on Leveson. They have withdrawn. They’re going to think again and look again at the presses own charter. The influence of Murdoch and the Barclay brothers on this has been quite toxic. They’re playing games, and of course come the election they’ll swing back and support the Tories, but in the meantime they’re giving them a real battering, particularly on Leveson.”
Of course this was accepted by the BBC without balance or question, and told as one might – among chums. Exactly the viewpoint that they want to convey.
Of course, we’ll all pretend that phone hacking is a far more serious crime than the abuse by paedophiles, aided and abetted within the BBC, and then attempting to cover it up.
Now they want to cover up the cover up, by just skipping past it, ‘lessons have been learned’, and getting on with what they do best – demonizing everybody that doesn’t fit into their agenda.
Speaking of charters, the BBC should be inspecting their own.
What foul insidious scum. They are the very worst in our society – the lowest of the low.
The Independent and Guardian accepted Leveson. Toynbee and the Jones gob on a stick. So did the BBC. And Miliband. Harman. Labour. Clegg and the Libs. Anybody spot a pattern yet?
All the others have proposed a new charter.
Now a proper debate can take place and Mr Cameron needs to take his time this time. Nothing he does in his political career will be more important for Democracy.
now, for legal reasons comrades,,,, i will be very carefull what i say here,,libel is a serious offence to commit so when dealing with libel the word (alleged) is very important,,,,ok i will cut to the chase…i have heard alleged rumours for about 2 years now that the deputy speaker to the house of commens conservative mp nigel evans has been involved in alleged serious sexual assualts and rape against unamed males,,,these are just alleged accuasations that must be fully investigated by the police,,,but,,and i mean a big but,,,there must be no goverment establishment cover up here if one of there own is accused of alleged serious sexual assualts,,,as is the law in this country,,,your innocent until proven guilty,,,i fully support that comrades,,,but i mean,,and i mean a big but,,there should be no cover ups by goverment even if one of there own get accused of seriuos alleged sexual offences as nigel evans stand accussed ,….one word up here to finish comrades,,,the mps expense scandal,,,i rest my case………………..
@ pedro.very good advice there mate,using the word alleged is very important when covering comments involving blogs or other media outlets on the internet.legally you are 100% right.
Just because Murdoch is a ferocious competitor doesn’t mean that he doesn’t harbour Labourite tendencies.
Anyone watching Sky news today, or reading The Times or the Sun during the years of the Blair junta, would see Murdoch in quite a different light to that in which the donkey jacket brigade regards him.
Alan is quite right. The BBC is trying to airbrush Brown out of the Kremlin balcony pictures, both because he was a disaster and because so many of the party it wishes was in power were part of his cabal..
‘pure speculation that feeds the conspiracy theories’
And there’s the pity.
The BBC has the staff, talent and resources to do a lot of ‘reporting’ well, but it then inevitably gets run through a filter created by the vast market rate management structure that either adds stuff they feel enhances the narrative or, as further described, quietly omits what does not suit.
Both serve objective, accurate professional news education and information poorly.
‘How is it possible to miss 13 years of such a close and intense relationship between Murdoch’s business and the Labour Party and the eventual massive falling out which was so destructive?’
Anything is possible if you control the edit suite, and are unaccountable in what is produced. Ask Lord McAlpine. If a private medium stitched anyone up they’d pay the consequences, in audience trust to legally. Best I can judge, the audience paid for Newsnight to live to ‘fight’ on another way, and a few heads simply side-stepped for a while.
Propaganda backed by censorship is bad enough. Being compelled to pay for its reward4failure cultural imposition is about as unique as it gets.
Good post Alan, how could they not mention New Labour? Unbelievable.
Also, I wish I could find the comment made here a few weeks ago by about the effort and money Murdoch put into his enterprise, risking everything, getting new smaller discs from Europe etc. It was good info.
Span Ows
If it was stuff about how Murdoch and his team totally outplayed the BBC and ITV in planning for the start of satellite TV – it was probably something I posted some months ago. I can’t remember the context !
Hi Jon, yes you are right and it was you. I can’t remember the context either (!!!) but yes, it was displaying how BBC etc failed miserably and RM, at considerable personal expense and risk, with satellites and untried discs, started Sky etc.
There was a lot of misinformation, if not outright lies at times, over the phone hacking purely with the intention of whipping up hysteria. There were dubious allegations made whilst hiding behind the protection of Parliamentary Privilege. I seem to recall allegations of the phones belonging to families of dead soldiers being hacked but, and I may be wrong, cannot recall even one such incident being shown to have occurred.
With the Millie Dowler hacking the most damaging assertion was that after her voice mail had been hacked, on behalf of the Sun which was the paper giving, by far, the most support to the case, that the calls had then been deliberately erased thereby hindering the police in their investigation. It turned out that there was nothing to support that accusation and, from information given by the provider and which the police could easily have discovered at the time, the messages would have been automatically erased as part of the systems routine. The person who admitted to the hacking denied erasing the messages and I can see no reason for him, in view of what he did admit, to lie about not erasing them.
Likewise with Brown. The loudly shouted allegation was that the Sun had illegally “hacked” into the hospital computer to obtain the records of his son. With far less coverage it later transpired that the local Health Authority apologised to Brown because it was believed the Sun had not hacked the system but that the records had been passed to them by a member of the hospital staff. The story was possibly not in the best of taste but since when has that been a crime?
The only person with a real grievance was the man in Bristol who the whole media, not just News International, leaped on with totally unfounded hints and suggestions, if not quite allegations, that he was not only a murderer but also some kind of pervert and engaged in paedophilia, none of which was in the slightest bit even near being accurate.
Virtually all the rest had been quite happy to use and manipulate the press and the media to suit their own PR circuses when it suited their purpose but then threw tantrums if the press and media didn’t follow their script with many exaggerating their supposed suffering out of all proportion to reality.
Some were not only happy to see their PR machines help and encourage the press and media to tear totally innocent people, and their families, torn limb from limb to keep themselves in the public eye but then screamed foul as loud as they could when the press dared even hint that their own integrity might be slightly questionable.
Many, if not most, of those appearing before Leveson were not seeking any form of justice but were merely intent on wreaking vengeance for having the tawdry parts of their lives, which did not conform to their carefully polished public image, exposed to public view, even when they had behaved in a disgusting manner in a public place and had be prosecuted for those activities. Their hypocritical outrage was, and still is, wonderful to see because it exposes them for the self-important egotists they really are.