Too Big Not to Fail

Today, the prime minister chided Ed Miliband for "chasing conspiracy theories" and claimed it was really Gordon Brown who had been in the pocket of the global media billionaire [Rupert Murdoch].

  UK Guardian

Now that is really quite pathetic. Perhaps he was, but it’s not Gordon Brown who hired the Murdoch agent Andy Coulson and gave him a security clearance unheard of (low) so that he wouldn’t have to undergo in-depth investigation, now was it Mr. Cameron?

Meanwhile, News International pundits and others with their own reasons to stem the flood of revelations have been loudly insisting that the political clout of Murdoch's corporate colossus has been exaggerated. The hyper-regulated BBC is the real media monopoly, they say, and in any case the current fixation with phone hacking has meant no one is discussing bankers' bonuses and the threat of another financial meltdown.

Yeah, that really should have been pretty good cover. My guess is they’d better tread carefully here, though. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the Murdoch hold on government is entangled with bankers’ bonuses – and at least with financial meltdown.

The scandal has lifted the lid on how power is really exercised in 21st-century Britain – in which the unreformed City and its bankers play a central part.

[...]

Murdoch's overweening political influence has long been recognised, from well before Tony Blair flew to Australia in 1995 to pay public homage at his corporate court. What has been less well understood is how close-up and personal the pressure exerted by his organisation has been throughout public life. The fear that those who crossed him would be given the full tabloid treatment over their personal misdemeanours, real or imagined, has proved to be a powerful Mafia-like racket.

[...]

Barely a fortnight ago, Ed Miliband was warned that Murdoch's papers would "make it personal" after he broke with the political-class omerta towards the company. The same vow of silence meant that when Rebekah Brooks told MPs in 2003 her organisation had "paid the police for information", the bribery admission sank like a stone.

Of course, and this is why I cannot understand the short-sightedness of politicians who are lured into lurid entanglements. Surely they should realize by now that someone has the goods on them and that it will be used to blackmail them.

Murdoch is a case apart, not only because of his commanding position in both print and satellite TV, but because of the crucial part he played in cementing Margaret Thatcher's political power and then shaping a whole era of New Labour/Tory neoliberal consensus that delivered enfeebled unions, privatisation and the Iraq war. His role in breaking the print unions at Wapping in the 1980s by sacking 5,000 mostly low-paid workers is still hailed in parts of the media as a brave blow for quality journalism.

[...]

As we now know, [News International] has also suborned politicians and the police and operated as a freelance security service – not to expose the abuse of power, but to carry it out.

Which is why the Murdoch dynasty needs to be destroyed.

Good luck with that.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.