It is hard to think of anything more to say about Rupert Murdoch. It is certainly impossible to say anything nice about him, but almost everything bad that can be said about him and his evil empire has already been said. At last there is something new and bad about Murdoch to report: the return of his son James as chair of Sky TV.
If the alleged God moves in mysterious ways, then Murdoch moves in entirely predictable ways. Following the phone hacking calamity at the News of the World, culminating in the hacking of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone, you may remember the Dirty Digger himself displaying contrition before the House of Commons select committee. “This is humblest day of my life,” he said, sobbing his way through a full box of man sized tissues. But then, when the dust had settled, Murdoch appointed former NOTW editor Rebekah Brooks, on whose watch the hacking occurred, as News UK CEO. It was almost as if he wanted to rub our noses in it and if he did, then he succeeded, with interest. But if you think that was enough for him, think again.
In the week when Levi Bellfield finally admitted he had murdered Milly, James Murdoch was reappointed chair of Sky. Coincidence or not – and we have to genuinely hope it was – I can only imagine how the Dowler family must feel about this. He is the football hooligan: “I’m Rupert Murdoch, I do what I like.”
And he can do what he likes. The main guests at Murdoch’s christmas party were the prime minister, the chancer of the exchequer and most of the cabinet. He is not a man with friends in high places. His is the highest place.
In terms of numbers, Murdoch does not have a monopoly in the media but in reality it’s becoming a close thing. And who will claim that, genuinely, we have a free press? Our newspapers are free from government control but with the exception of the Guardian, they are all owned by corporations or rich oligarchs and tax dodgers. Only those personally screened by the owners can write what they like. The Sun, for example, employs solely right wing columnists like Trevor Kavanagh, Jeremy Clarkson, Kelvin MacKenzie and that well known socialist Rod Liddle. The Mail gives us Richard Littlejohn and Katie Hopkins. Most of them are on the far right of the Tory Party and some further to the right than that. It seems they dare not employ someone of a less right wing disposition. Or perhaps their owners won’t let them? I see the current make up of the media as seriously unhealthy in a so called democracy. (I have long argued that we actually live in an elective dictatorship where people have no say whatsoever in the five years between elections.)
For Murdoch to reappoint his own son to run the company shows nepotism of the highest order, a contradiction from the master of contradiction who disdains the establishment that he actually dominates and it flies in the face of the meritocracy he pretends to believe in.
His enduring power is confirmed by how quickly things have returned to normal following the phone hacking scandal. It’s as if nothing ever happened. It’s certainly like Leveson never happened, as his report lies gathering dust, and everything stays the same in Fleet Street.
Rupert Murdoch remains a plague on our houses and an increasing threat to what democracy we have left. There is no point in trying to appease him or to court his support, as Labour did in the mid 1990s. (They’d have won by a landslide with or without Murdoch in 1997. He’d have supported Labour because anyway he always likes to be on the winning side.) It is said that one day every bully will meet his or her match and there will always be a bigger bully just waiting round the corner. With Murdoch, I am not so sure about that. If he can get away with having his own employees hacking into the telephone of a dead teenage girl, he can get away with anything.
