Feeding frenzy

Tell me Wendy, what first attracted you to multi-billionaire Rupert Murdoch?

I haven’t had this much fun since Maggie Thatcher cried when she left No10 Downing Street for the last time.  The news is usually a litany of despair, more pain for the poor, fatter wage packets for the obscenely wealthy, famine, disease and war.  Of course the horsemen of the apocalypse are still with us, but at least recent bulletins have been leavened by the latest humiliation for some of society’s least popular figures.  I can’t remember a time when so many hate figures were getting such a fearsome kicking.

On the whole, I actually like Aussies which makes the loathsome Rupert Murdoch such a repellent aberration.  To see him pursued by the press is a particular pleasure – how does it feel when the boots on the other hoof Rupert?  The singular feature of his fall from grace however is the enthusiasm with which he is being vilified by politicians who previously queued to kiss the hem of his cloak.  It’s a feeding frenzy.  From the moment he became vulnerable, it’s been open season with politicians of every stripe realising that Emperor Rupert is a paper tiger, that if they all attack him with equal ferocity, then his king-making days are over, that his power is illusory.  Now there’s a novel sight.

And it gets better.
The Metropolitan Police have been a barely reined in vigilante force for years.  From the blatant corruption of the sixties and seventies, through the murder of Blair Peach, the shooting of Steven Waldorf, the botched Rachel Nickell murder investigation when they fitted up the hapless Colin Stagg to the shocking execution of John Charles de Menezes and the killing of Ian Tomlinson, the list of their cock-ups seems almost endless.  Now we get to see the calibre of officer who has allowed this situation to prevail.  Andy Hayman’s performance before the Home Affairs Select Committee was worthy of Monty Python and it was perhaps not surprising that members of the committee were reduced to helpless mirth at times.  You have to sympathise with him though, who could possibly question the man’s honesty just because he patently cocked up an investigation into News International by whom he was subsequently wined and dined and for whom he now works?  Apparently one of the other witnesses called before the committee, John Yates, who also managed to botch an investigation into the phone hacking is regarded as one of the finest officers of his generation.  So, best of a rotten bunch then, not necessarily the highest accolade.

Finally, the politicians.
What an unedifying sight it is to see both Tories and Labour scrambling to claim that they were less cosy with Murdoch than the other lot.  Frankly, a plague on all your houses.  You scraped and fawned with equal fervour and proved beyond any doubt that you have no moral scruples whatever, that power for its own sake is your raison d’être and in for both Labour and Conservative it didn’t matter that Murdoch was a bastard as long as he was your bastard. But enough fulminating, let’s just luxuriate in the moment
because before you can say status quo, hostilities will cease, the Met police will carry on as before, Murdoch will probably succeed in buying the rest of BSKyB and the politicians will be cosying up to News International once again.  Enjoy the feeding frenzy while it lasts.





One Comment

  1. Baz wrote:

    Welcome back, John, your rest has done you good.
    So we are to have an enquiry into the activities of Murdoch and his minions, both those he employs full time like Coulson as well as those he hires on a more temporary basis like police and politicians. Two cheers for that.
    But what about the people whose support gives Murdoch his power – the great British public? We talk about democracy and the power of the people – well, here it is in action. Murdoch has giiven his readers what they wanted, from boobs to the health secrets of a PM’s child and in return they have given him what he wanted, the power to pick and discard governments. This particular press baron may now be slowed down for a while or even stopped, and his methods may be modified but the way is clear for another, perhaps worse, megalomaniac to follow..
    How do we put this one back in the bottle?