The media frenzy over the Prime Minister’s scrawl and the queasy manipulation of a grieving mother by the Wapping machine tell me that Rupert Murdoch will demand a high price from David Cameron for doing the Conservative leader’s dirty work.
The Sun king and his British title are, of course, terrified the Tory Party will fall short at the general election – the ailing Labour Government it abandoned when 14 points behind in the polls is not yet as dead as Monty Python’s parrot.
So the Tory tabloid will be deployed to get what Murdoch wants because, without Cameron in Downing Street, the Conservative leader will be unable to fulfil his side of the bargain.
Cameron’s sudden announcement he’d scrap the broadcasting regulator Ofcom was the coincidence of the decade, if it wasn’t a deal – the Tory leader singling out Ofcom for the axe after it threatened Sky’s commercial interests. Call me an old cynic if you wish, but my money is on a link between the Cameron-Murdoch call and Ofcom’s ruling Sky must sell its stake in ITV and cut the cost of selling sport to other satellite networks, including Richard Branson’s Virgin.
Murdoch’s ability to manipulate politicians by hiring out his newspapers to them like mercenaries has served the
mogul dubbed “The Man Who Owns The News” far better than it has served British democracy.
Tony Blair granted Murdoch immunity from regulation, indeed gave him the green light to move into terrestrial TV, in a one-sided deal when Labour would have won in 1997, 2001 and 2005 without the grudging support of the right-wing Aussie-American who’d win the competition to be the most reactionary dinosaur in any political gathering.
Unite joint general secretary Tony Woodley’s public ripping apart of The Sun at the Labour conference in Brighton – personal declaration of interest: I work for the Daily Mirror – in its curious way lanced a boil. The labour movement, save a small clique in “new” Labour, was uncomfortable from the start with the tainted Murdoch link.
If there is one figure capable of rallying the Labour Party around a badly bruised Gordon Brown, it is the Dirty Digger. The exploitation of the mother of a dead Grenadier Guardsman is an act that confirmed the belief of many Labour MPs (and a fair few Liberal Democrats and Tories to boot) that Murdoch’s an unsavoury individual best avoided.
By my reckoning, The Sun, The Times, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph, Daily Star and Daily Express lean towards or cheer the Conservatives. The Independent is in the Lib Dem camp. The Financial Times is difficult to pigeonhole, wobbling after first recommending a Labour vote in 1992 when Neil Kinnock was leader. While The Guardian doesn’t read as if it knows what it’s doing, if I have to stick my neck out, I’d bet on it advocating a loose Lib Dem-Labour vote.
Which leaves the Daily Mirror as possibly the sole national daily newspaper (other than the Morning Star) proposing a Labour vote next spring.
On reading an interview in a magazine called Shortlist with Alastair Campbell in which Blair’s former spin-doctor hinted he would be part of Labour’s election team I was reminded of an entry in his Diaries. Campbell’s media strategy was to run Labour through The Sun and News International. In August 1994, Campbell, according to page10 of his memoir, declared: “The Mirror needed Labour more than Labour needed the Mirror.” I’m not sure it was true then, but recent events prove it’s untrue now.
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I was delighted to be invited to speak at the Labour Party North West regional dinner in Southport’s Royal Clifton Hotel. The honour of the invitation wasn’t lightly accepted and, as a reporter based in Westminster, I welcome opportunities to get out of the Mock Gothic Fun Palace on the banks of the River Thames to re-enter the real world and thus avoid institutionalisation.
International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander provided the politics on Merseyside and I came up with a few jokes, which it’s for others to decide were funny or otherwise.
What struck me as the evening wore on was that dozens of union activists and party stalwarts who are, let us never forget, the
flesh and blood of the Labour Party, are suffering a gnawing frustration with ministers who they increasingly feel have given up the ghost – a red box brigade lying prostrate for the post-mortem before voters have actually pronounced them dead.
The lack of fight in the ranks of the Government is sending members on the ground up the wall and leaving them crying out for a leadership that’s sadly lacking in many of those who sit in the back of ministerial cars awaiting a bus pass.
Come the result in spring 2010, the Labour crown wobbling on the head of Gordon Brown will be up for grabs in the following months or years, depending on the result.
Wannabes are jostling for position and, after talking to Labour people in Southport, I propose a single test: Whoever fights hardest to save this Labour Government should be the next party leader.
A minister or MP who sits back or manoeuvres for position before a possible (perhaps likely) Labour defeat must be punished.
Victory for Cameron’s Conservatives would be a disaster for working people. Labour leaders who fail to pull their weight deserve to pay the price of losing.
