Is this the British spring, or will the waters close quietly over our heads again once this perturbation is passed? Murdock père et fils before the select committee were clearly in highly coached water-smoothing mode, successfully to judge from both the muted newspaper coverage the next day and the six per cent rise in shares in News Corporation on the New York stock exchange. Yet whatever the answer to my question, it is interesting to wonder what the Murdoch empire is actually for.
Although it might give the impression of being a ruthless commercial enterprise, and has set its sights on complete ownership of the highly profitable Sky, News Corp is not outstandingly successful in commercial terms. It is of course an impressively built up empire and provides handsome rewards for some glitzy individuals, including Elizabeth Murdoch, whose production company Shine was bought up by New Corp for a rather stellar $615 million, even more than the $580 million paid for MySpace, which was later sold for $35, but not in the Dow Jones league, bought for $5.7 billion, with $2.8 billion subsequently written off.
The Murdoch family owns just thirteen percent of the issued share capital of News Corp but controls forty percent of the voting rights, making it possible for them to follow their family ambitions, which have a dimension beyond the merely financial.
As the Murdochs were anxious to point out to the select committee, the News of the World and all the British newspapers represent a very small part of their total empire. Yet the value of those titles to the Murdochs goes beyond any sentimental attachment of Murdoch senior to old fashioned newsprint. With anything approaching Fox News being impractical, for the time being at least, in this country, the Murdoch red tops embody his ability to exploit and manipulate public sentiment and through that to influence the political agenda of government.
Murdoch has famously had the key to the back door of Number 10 since Margaret Thatcher’s time, with perhaps the exception of the last days of the Major government when he was already in Murdoch terms dead meat. Our political classes like to portray themselves as reluctant hostages of New International and a fine example of outstanding spinelessness in this regard was provided by Jonathan Powell, formerly Tony Blair’s chief of staff, in an article in the Guardian a few days ago. Powell seems to think that Lord Justice Leveson will be intimidated in his enquiry into practices and ethics in the British press by the prospect of crucifixion in Murdoch papers, citing the experience of Lord Hutton and the Kelly enquiry. Hutton was of course criticised by serious and non-Murdock papers as well, but the image of the noble lord finding the comfort of his retirement seriously impaired by what the Sun once said about him is laughable.
Politicians are far from being reluctant Murdoch hostages; they are not even simply willing accomplices. In our increasingly oligarchic society they are naturally comfortable bedfellows of the Murdoch press, indulging in very much the same kind of misleading and manipulating of public sentiment, as we saw pre-eminently with the Blair governments. Whatever clipping of Murdock wings is achieved in the present debacle, there is little prospect of change in political circles beyond a new degree of caution in their dealings with the press.
New Corporation’s two ambitions in this country were the complete take-over of BSkyB and the severe trimming back of the BBC. The first is now spending a period in the long grass, but the second remains a very active collaborative project between Murdoch and government. I would expect Murdoch to have ambitions to spread his broadcasting empire in this country across the whole spectrum, from reality shows to something equivalent to a broadcast version of The Times. If the BBC could be reduced to a sub-Reithian rump that would be an ideal accompaniment to the transfer of his newsprint grip on public opinion from a declining to a rising medium.
Cameron, whose background is in PR, where the conception of the long-term is something a little bit more calculated than the rabbit’s stare in the headlights, has embarked on the job. Transferring the World Service financing to the BBC licence payer in a few years, and provoking a few immediate cuts to demonstrate to the BBC the hostile reaction that will not enable it to starve the World Service of funds to bolster domestic broadcasting, is a neat tactic.
Cameron’s conspicuous after-thought in adding the BBC to Lord Leveson’s remit strikes me as a clear message to the Murdochs: “Look, we’re compelled politically to back away from you now. We have no more alternative than you eating humble pie in the House of Commons, but we’re still all on the same side.” Lord (Norman) Tebbit came in from his pasture yesterday to write in the Guardian that no “rational person believes [Cameron] is corrupt, bought or intimidated by the Murdoch empire”, but I find it less rational to believe that, with more political embarrassments due to emerge from the woodwork in the next months and maybe longer, Cameron is any less anxious to secure the goodwill of the Murdoch titles than he has ever been, or his predecessors before him.
There will be much relish amongst politicians at the embarrassments of the Murdochs (which may result in the loss of their grip on the direction of News Corporation), but those in government will be anxious to have attention focussed as much as possible on the newsrooms rather than Christmas lunch parties in Berkshire where no conversation was 'inappropriate', but unless we can change the philosophy and behaviour of the political class spring will not dawn on England’s pastures green.
