Lance Price, in his book from last year, has a relevant take on what’s currently happening to the  Murdoch empire, and in some ways it has been prescient about all this current sturm und drang.

Politicians and the media (especially print media?) have always enjoyed/suffered relationships which are either fractious or full of (sometimes sinister) synergies, but the last thirty years or so of the Dirty Digger’s imperious ascent has produced the foetid state of affairs we have today. Power really has been perverted, reaching into every sinew of both the private and public spheres, the highly immoral moral tone of the New Right seeking commodified bits of people’s lives to satisfy both a need to sell newspapers and stimulate moral panics, often in the service of an overt neo-liberal economic agenda  (whilst simultaneously following the delusional, post-imperial neo-con instincts of someone like Blair to boot).

Price is both a chronicler of past and first hand observer during the last decade or so. The rot set in when Thatcher waived through the Digger’s takeover of both the Times and Sunday Times in 1981, which should have been referred (even then) to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission, but wasn’t, and the political gerrymandering is very reminiscent of the sleights-of-hand we’ve seen with Jeremy Hunt and co (after Vince Cable’s balls-up):

Any impartial reading of the 1973 Fair Trading Act suggested that Murdoch’s takover must be referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. It was not. The government intervened to protect Murdoch’s interests, something that was to become a habit under both the Conservatives and Labour. The trade secretary, John Biffen, used his powers to exempt those businesses that were deemed ‘uneconomic’. He insisted that he had come under no pressure form Downing Street to reach such a conclusion, an assertion that was greeted with widespread incredulity in parliament and in those sections of Fleet Street that Murdoch didn’t already control.

p252

Harold Evans, his tenure short, tried to assert The Times’ independence and was stopped by ‘Murdoch’s wish that the Times should be valiant for Thatcher in Britain and stalwart for Reagan in the United States’

Further on:

Nobody holds court quite like Rupert Murdoch. Despite having no vote int he UK, carrying an American passport and living abroad, Murdoch’s vast media holdings have allowed him to become accustomed to British political leaders seeking his benediction. He tends to view politicians as little more than a barrier to his commercial interests; there to be overcome by whatever means necessary. They see him as a man with whom they have no choice but to do business.

p332

He goes on to chronicle how Blair did this, which is all pretty depressing, and one wonders how much of the above  really came quite easily to Blair. I can imagine him supping with this malign pontiff of print, his Catholic tendencies sub-consciously in overdrive as he reached for power of his own.

Either way, for now there’s a glimmer of hope that some form of plurality can be developed in the (UK) national press, though I’m not holding my breath (Richard Desmond, anyone?). That the Digger can be transformed into the folk devil (of the political classes at least), is ironic indeed, and I hope this extends to Becky and Jim too. Excellent piece yesterday by Deborah Orr, which begins to acknowledge how much the power we’re talking about here is part of us all, as much as any sad-sack in Wapping.