Re: News International – the story continues : Thu May 31, 2012 9:42 am  

So Jeremy Hunt says that having a meeting with Murdoch wasn't right but having the same conversation over the phone was fine.
I have heard some double talk but that tops the lot.

Re: News International – the story continues : Thu May 31, 2012 12:56 pm  

Browsing through Peter Oborne's outstanding "Rise of the Political Class" I came across an interesting and relevant snippet:

"[Newspaper]Proprietors were treated with the same care and attention that was extended to trade union barons in the 1970s. They were given special favours, handed unique priveledges, handled with near total deference by the [Blair] administration. Editors were cultivated on a scale never before approached by any serving Prime Minister. Piers Morgan, editor of the Daily Mirror, boasted in his dairies that he had enjoyed 'twenty-two lunches, six dinners, six interviews, twenty-four further one-to-one chats over tea and biscuits plus numerous phone calls' with the Prime Minister in under ten years'. It should be borne in mind that Morgan's top-level access, though extraordinary, was derisory compared to red-top competitor Rebekah Wade, editor of the News of the World and the Sun. This intensive face-to-face cultivation of tabloid editors was something completely new in British public life, and had not occurred before during either Labour or Conservative governments. Again and again civil servants, military leaders and others who glimpsed Tony Blair's government from the inside expressed amazement at the extent that decision-making was dominated by the press.

While it was the case that Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Party devoted great care in cultivating the Sun from the 1970s onwards, Thatcher herself met the paper's editors Larry Lamb and Kelvin McKenzie relatively rarely.

But more important I think is the following quote:

"In a parallel but closely connected development, the post of chief whip was downgraded. The chief whip had been one of the notable and powerful figures in both Labour and Conservative governments: keeper of secrets, enforcer of rules, the crucial link between Downing Street and the parliamentary party, sometimes the PM's closest confidant.

... after 1997 the power and status of the chief whip sank sharply, and the role was converted into little more than harmless drudge. The position of enforcer which previously belonged to the chief whip was grabbed by the Prime Minister's press adviser (Alastair Campbell)."

Re: News International – the story continues : Thu May 31, 2012 1:04 pm  

What has become clearer than when Oborne write this, however, is that Thatcher met and maintained a good relationship with Murdoch – to the point of handwritten notes from at least one to the other.

Re: News International – the story continues : Thu May 31, 2012 1:13 pm  

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danie ... self-harm/

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danie ... self-harm/

Re: News International – the story continues : Thu May 31, 2012 1:27 pm  

Hunt has been 'beaten like a ginger step-child' http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomch ... ntin-hunt/

Hunt has been 'beaten like a ginger step-child' http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/tomch ... ntin-hunt/

Re: News International – the story continues : Thu May 31, 2012 1:34 pm  

Mintball wrote:

What has become clearer than when Oborne write this, however, is that Thatcher met and maintained a good relationship with Murdoch – to the point of handwritten notes from at least one to the other.

No one doubts that News International and Thatcher were in a relationship. But whilst the two shared common interests and worked to achieve such Blair went two steps further and integrated the press (and, more importantly, the industrial, financial and technological corporations who provide the bulk of their advertising) with government whilst bypassing the civil service.

The Tories and Big Business worked together. New Labour and Big Business were effectively indistinguishable.

Re: News International – the story continues : Thu May 31, 2012 1:55 pm  

Indeed, Blair took things further – just as he did with Thatcher's neo-liberal policies.

But the point remains that that – and the links with Murdoch – were begun on Thatcher's watch. As I've mentioned elsewhere (and major hound has also commented on), Bernard Ingham was known, at the time, as a spin doctor.

And as has also been mentioned, given the need to win certain sections of the press over to your side if you're going to stand a chance in an election, then perhaps Blair had little option, given the position Murdoch was in (partly thanks to Thatcher) by the late 1990s.

Re: News International – the story continues : Thu May 31, 2012 7:29 pm  

Re: News International – the story continues : Thu May 31, 2012 8:59 pm  

Mintball wrote:

Indeed, Blair took things further – just as he did with Thatcher's neo-liberal policies.

But the point remains that that – and the links with Murdoch – were begun on Thatcher's watch. As I've mentioned elsewhere (and major hound has also commented on), Bernard Ingham was known, at the time, as a spin doctor.

And as has also been mentioned, given the need to win certain sections of the press over to your side if you're going to stand a chance in an election, then perhaps Blair had little option, given the position Murdoch was in (partly thanks to Thatcher) by the late 1990s.

Hang on a second. I'm not condoning the Tories' activities but the co-opting of modern media can be traced all the way back through the Callaghan administration to the Great Strike and Lord Reith. However, it's one thing to court the favour of media magnates, newspaper editors etc. It's quite another to give them direct control of government policy. If you can't recognise this and accept New Labour outrageously re-wrote the rules for the process of government in this country your impartiality is suspect to say the least.

Re: News International – the story continues : Thu May 31, 2012 10:08 pm  

Mugwump wrote:

Browsing through Peter Oborne's outstanding "Rise of the Political Class" I came across an interesting and relevant snippet:

But more important I think is the following quote:

Surely these are opinions not facts. And Oborne is not exactly renowned for being a great Labour supporter. I don't condone what Blair did re Murdoch, but he was only doing what the Tories had a;ways done before, and not just with Murdoch, but with Beaverbrook and Rothermere giong back to the twenties and thirties. What really got under the Tory skins was that this time it was Labour cosying up to a press baron - rightly or wrongly.
Blair listed policies on which Labour went ahead that were contrary to Murdoch's views including a greater involvement in Europe.
I would say that Hunt's evidence points straight at David Cameron. Cameron knew Hunt's views about the Murdoch Sky deal. He knew that Hunt was biased in favour of Murdoch and yet he replaced Cable because of his anti Murdoch bias with a minister with the opposite view. If anyone should be resigning it's Cameron, not Hunt. He probably now regrets his actions at the time, but then I don't suppose he ever thought that they would see the light of day.