I know we're all ending this week desperate to find common ground with Rupert Murdoch, so I hope to be of assistance. After all, arguably the most striking feature of the News Corp boss's testimony before the
Leveson inquiry was his radioactive contempt for the politicians with which he has been so inconveniently saddled. As someone who has long treated a change in government as the shuffling of junior personnel, Murdoch appears to have concluded that you really can't get the staff any more. And as an electorate that has concluded that you really can't get the overlords any more, we might ironically sympathise.
The list of things for which you could blame Rupert is hardly under-aired at present, but only the most piously naive would think self-interested politicking was worthy of a place on it. Blaming Murdoch for attempting to influence policy in his commercial favour is like disagreeing with gravity. He should be expected to behave like a rapacious corporate monster because that is what he is.
Where people have a right to expect far more, however, is from those notionally elected to look after their interests. The trouble with the Christian right is that it tends to be neither, runs a popular diss, and you could say the same for our "political elite". They are as cackiavellian as they are bottom-flight.
Indeed, Murdoch's contempt for politicians seems largely borne of the embarrassing ease with which he is able to persuade them to fawn over him. "I wish they'd leave me alone," he lamented of a succession of prime ministers during last year's select committee testimony.
For Leveson he removed one glove, sweetly observing that Gordon Brown was unbalanced, but reserving his most insouciantly withering dismissals for the current prime minister. Did he find David Cameron a "lightweight" on his first meeting, he was asked? A pause. "Not then," came the reply. Cameron's needy dash to pay homage at his holiday yacht was treated with the faux-pity it deserved. "Mr Cameron might have thought stopping in Santorini might impress me, I don't know," Murdoch sighed – the unspoken "It didn't" hanging derisively in the air.
(Incidentally, if Cameron still is nursing even the vaguest glow after his
aggrandising visit to Washington, he may care to watch the clip of
The Daily Show's Jon Stewart voicing incredulity that not only did the PM humbly call on Murdoch, but that the only way on to the old boy's yacht was a freebie trip in his son-in-law's plane. "In the States we're not even allowed to give congresspeople T-shirts and hats," Stewart marvelled, "and our country's corrupt as
!")
Needless to say, the hapless Gordon Brown would have swum out to that yacht had he been furnished with its co-ordinates – just as he'd have raced Cameron to Simon Cowell's holiday boat, which has on at least one occasion been anchored right by Murdoch's. Yes, in a most unfortunate coalescence of circumstances for the political class, this week's Leveson revelations coincided with the publication of
Tom Bower's biography of Simon Cowell, the TV music mogul in whom two successive PMs have invested astounding flattery. The book reveals that it is a Murdoch family member who introduces Cameron to Cowell, and thereafter the fawning seems to commence. "His easy manner and grasp of Cowell's career secured the star's sympathy," we learn.
Brown had long been greasing up, you'll recall, claiming he wanted to create
"an X Factor Britain", so the rivalry for Cowell's affections intensifies. "Anticipating the general election", Brown and Cameron give the tabloids opposing views on Jedward. Meanwhile, a
Brown aide tells the Mirror that Cowell might expect a knighthood post-election. The Labour leader is clearly antsy. "Hours after he was seen in Westminster with David Cameron," Bower relates, "Brown personally telephoned Cowell to check whether the Tories had sought his political endorsement." It doesn't end happily for Gordon, I'm afraid – but even Cowell is surprised to find the Sun splashing on election morning with a few quotes Rebekah Brooks has asked him to toss off in support of Cameron.
Other highlights of another edifying week for the top flight? I suppose you'd include the
home affairs select committee calling Russell Brand to testify on drugs policy just so they could get their mugs on the telly. And Alex Reid – the erstwhile cagefighting husband of Katie Price –
being invited to Westminster by Labour's shadow education minister to spearhead some school dinners campaign. Inevitably, Reid announced his desire to be an MP – and one has to ask, could he honestly do any worse than most of the incumbents? My records show that this is his third official visit to Westminster in seven months, making him a more familiar face than, say, Gordon Brown.
So you might be approaching the issue from a slightly different angle to billionaire mogul Rupert Murdoch, but chances are you hold your so-called betters in similar regard. "Cancer has Murdoch", ran the Private Eye headline when the old boy had some bother with his prostate 12 years ago, and a similar ironic reversal now seems apt. "Murdoch finds political class distasteful" certainly puts the governing elite into perspective.
Rupert Murdoch - a better world without Mr. M.?
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Originally Posted by Kanaric
