{"id":14789,"date":"2012-04-26T08:09:44","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T13:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=14789"},"modified":"2012-04-26T08:09:44","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T13:09:44","slug":"rupert-murdoch-the-secret-ruler-of-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2012\/04\/26\/rupert-murdoch-the-secret-ruler-of-britain\/","title":{"rendered":"Rupert Murdoch: the secret ruler of Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"

At least, it’s quite clear that most of the chattering classes consider Murdoch to be the arch-manipulator\/secret ruler of British life. Brendan O’Neill<\/a> disagrees:<\/p>\n

So there he was, the secret ruler of modern Britain, the dark, rotting heart of the British state, the man who has wielded his \u2018extraordinary power\u2019 in order to \u2018manipulate officialdom\u2019 and extend his influence over \u2018politics, the media and the police\u2019. I hope you weren\u2019t fooled by Rupert Murdoch\u2019s diminutive stature or his octogenarian demeanour as he appeared before the Leveson Inquiry yesterday, or his denials about using his \u2018political power to get favourable treatment\u2019. Because this small, old newspaper owner is, in fact, the mastermind of a \u2018shadowy influence-mart\u2019 who has exercised a \u2018malign influence on our politics for the past 30 years\u2019. And now, thanks to Lord Leveson, we finally have an opportunity to \u2018banish\u2019 this \u2018tyrant\u2019 from our shores and a \u2018glorious opportunity for meaningful reform\u2019.<\/p>\n

At least, that\u2019s what the Leveson cheerleading squad, the media and celebrity groupies of this inquiry into press ethics, would have us believe. These people are rapidly taking leave of their senses. Their depiction of Rupert Murdoch as the dastardly puppeteer of the British political sphere has crossed the line from rational commentary into David Icke territory, sounding increasingly like a conspiracy theory about secret rulers of the world. And their claim that Murdoch singlehandedly ruined British politics — that he is, in the words of one commentator, the architect of modern Britain\u2019s \u2018heartlessness, coarseness and spite\u2019 — speaks to their inability to get to grips with the true causes of political crisis today. Yesterday\u2019s shenanigans made it pretty clear that Murdoch-bashing has become a cheap substitute for grown-up debate.<\/p>\n

It is of course true that Murdoch is very influential, as you would expect of a man who, in Britain alone, owns both the newspaper of record (The Times<\/em>) and the bestselling tabloid (the Sun<\/em>). But not only do the Murdoch-maulers overestimate how influential he is; more importantly they misunderstand the origins and nature of his influence in modern Britain. It is not that Murdoch set out to create a \u2018shadow state\u2019 that could \u2018intimidate parliament\u2019, as madly claimed by Labour MP Tom Watson. Rather, it was the increasing alienation of parliament and politicians from the public which boosted Murdoch\u2019s political fortunes, making him the go-to man for ministers and MPs desperate to make a connection with us. In other words, Murdoch didn\u2019t destroy British politics in his scrabble for greater influence — it was the already existing death of British politics, its loss of meaning and purchase, which, by default, made Murdoch influential.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least, it’s quite clear that most of the chattering classes consider Murdoch to be the arch-manipulator\/secret ruler of British life. Brendan O’Neill disagrees: So there he was, the secret ruler of modern Britain, the dark, rotting heart of the British state, the man who has wielded his \u2018extraordinary power\u2019 in order to \u2018manipulate officialdom\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9,28,53],"tags":[127,86,213,101],"class_list":["post-14789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-britain","category-law","category-media","category-politics","tag-conspiracytheories","tag-criticism","tag-newspapers","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-3Qx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14789"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14789\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14791,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14789\/revisions\/14791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}