Faint scratching noises as the bottom of the barrel is scraped

As the sons set on Rupert Murdoch’s empire (ⓒGeorge Galloway), perhaps the most unedifying sight in a thoroughly unedifying political arena is the view of Alex Salmond’s apologists attempting to shift blame by pointing at Blair, Thatcher, Brown, Cameron and their past courting of the media godfather. 

On blogs and on networking sites, aides and supporters of the isolated Salmond have been using the ‘they all did it’ argument in frantic attempts to distract attention away from the fact that they didn’t all do it, and in fact no one did it at the same time and in such a way as the dear leader.

Of course it is true that party leaders at Westminster and Holyrood have much to answer for in the shameless cultivating of support from Murdoch’s tabloids. And some people have been warning for some time - back at least to Thatcher in the UK - that this is a subversion of democracy. Often this has been at much risk to their own careers and private life. Indeed, Tom Watson MP has been one of those politicians who has ploughed a lonely and risky furrow in opposing the power of the Murdochs, often in opposition to his own whips office and party hierarchy. The least he deserves is a serious hearing when he suggests methods of lancing the boil, rather than Salmond’s curt dismissal that he ‘does not need any lectures from Tom Watson’. Recent experience - not least the revelations of phone hacking of Scottish politicians and media figures - suggests otherwise.

Of course, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s report was prepared by politicians, and will be subject to partisan views. But Alex is a politician and his supporters are no strangers to partisan views. Mind you, I’m not sure how many of them will be too keen on his refusal even to back the majority view of that report and to throw in his lot with the Tory minority in failing to condemn Mr Murdoch’s ‘fitness to run a media empire’, In the absence of a BSB takeover to lobby for, maybe defending Murdoch on this will be a sufficient ‘quid pro quo’?

'Is anyone watching?

For despite SNP activists attempts to fling mud  (apparently being photographed reading the Sun equates to writing messages of support for it and leaking the date of the referendum to it), there is a huge difference between the actions of Thatcher, Blair, Cameron et al and that of Alex Salmond. It is this. Salmond’s activities are taking place now. After the revelations of the Millie Dowler and other phone hackings, after the exposure of editorial complicity in police bribery, and after every leader in the rest of UK politics has realised the damage their associations with NI were doing (even Jeremy Hunt had the grace to hide behind a tree!), Mr Salmond scheduled new meetings with the tycoon, and made it clear he was open for a closer relationship. 

And the lack of understanding, attempts to excuse the inexcusable, to brazen it out, and to fall into the age-old nationalist rant of ‘blame Labour’, is what will cause the damage. Oh, this might be seen as still significantly a debate amongst the chattering classes, but (in particular) the hacking of a dead schoolgirl’s phone will always make sure that the distaste for Mr Murdoch and his editorial placepersons spreads wider than that.

It is a shame that the many good people in the SNP remain so quiet on this one. Party discipline is normally something to be recognised and even applauded, but not when something as wrong as this is going on (as Alan Cochrane said the other day in the Telegraph). The normally sure-footed SNP machine has mishandled this one, and mishandled it badly. The problem with elevating leaders to semi-divine status, is that their feet of clay all too often melt!

Tak a long spoon…

Tom Watson MP was at the Glasgow Libraries' Book Festival, 'Aye Write'  last night. He was talking about his long (and at times scary) campaign to expose the over powerful ‘Sir’ Rupert Murdoch, and his media empire, News International.

He came across as a generally sincere and likable backbencher, with principles. One of which was that the closeness of the Murdoch media with politicians and the police bordered (!) on corruption. As a member of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee - he loves films and football! - he took a particular interest in the media. He had also had previous experiences with the Murdoch press, who have doorstepped him, put a private eye on to follow him, raked about in his (and his neighbours) dustbins regularly, and (by admission from a News International journalist) had Rebekah Brooks out to get him, since he resigned as a Defence Minister and ‘damaged her Tony’.

His presentation last night was a lesson in warnings for Alex Salmond. Apart from the admissions of illegal payments to the police, hacking into news subject’s phones on an ‘industrial scale’ and muckraking journalism, he believes that News International had become too powerful in terms of media ownership in the UK, and that Prime Minister after Prime Minister either courted or went in fear of Murdoch.

The fact that he includes in this litany everyone from Margaret Thatcher onwards, and does not spare his own party leaders means, I think, that his warning to Alex Salmond last night (and again in todays Daily Record column) should be taken very seriously. He admits to having admired Salmond and his aptitude to ‘tell the truth to power’. He said he was very surprised that Salmond leapt straight into private meetings with ‘Sir’ Rupert, as one Scottish Government communication erroneously called him. Writing a tribute to the launch of the ‘Sun on Sunday’ in its first issue and allowing the paper to ‘scoop’ the referendum date have tied the first minister into the News International octopus as surely as Andy Coulson’s appointment has done with David Cameron.

It will come back to haunt him. Unlike David Cameron, Alex Salmond’s snuggle up to the old media fox, comes at a time when his papers are under a number of criminal investigations - one by Strathclyde Police. It is in the middle of the Leveson inquiry, which is showing signs of probing even deeper; and a variety of other groups are asking queries about whether the Murdoch clan in general are ‘fit and proper people’ to run media companies.

Should the results of the Leveson Inquiry and/or the corruption inquiries prove to be as damaging as they could be, then the mealy-mouthed excuses of the First Minister’s spokesperson that it is ‘all about jobs’, will be exposed as dangerous delusion. It already seems that it is more likely all about getting the Murdoch media to give Eck their support, as Rupert (I can’t help remembering Denis Potter’s name for his tumour) casts about for some damage to do to the British state that has (finally) turned on him. As Tom Watson said ‘One thing’s for sure, Murdoch is not doing this for the good of Scotland or the Scottish people.’

It is slightly surprising that an experienced campaigner like Salmond (and even more so the SNP media machine that surrounds him) would go down the same road as Blair and Cameron before him. Especially after the experiences of those associations. But he does have previous in cosying up to tycoons. Rupert Murdoch, however,  is not Brian Souter or  even Donald Trump. Tak’ a long spoon? I suggest a ten foot tarry bargepole might be more appropriate.

...and populist shall speak peace unto lobby group?

Good to see a incisive article by Ian Bell in Saturday’s Herald on Dave Cameron’s pal, Jeremy Clarkson and his colleagues, and in particular the spat over insults to Mexicans and Mexico that provoked a particularly half-hearted apology from the BBC - not one from Top Gear, you'll notice.

As Ian says, the dinosaurs from Top Gear ain’t clever and they ain’t funny, but they are popular, and therein lies one of the main reason for the appallingly hypocritical and/or racist statement from the BBC that national stereotypes are legitimate targets for humour. This is one of the most worrying developments in the saga, and shows exactly what many have suspected - that the current BBC management are quite prepared to abandon the corporation’s long-held reputation for fairness and impartiality when the subjects of the accusation are powerful, or popular enough.

Leaving aside the debate about how ‘national stereotypes’ become stereotypes, the BBC’s mealy-mouthed reaction on behalf of Hammond, Clarkson et al is another nail in the coffin of Auntie’s reputation.

Following on the rejection of the Palestine Emergency Appeal broadcast by the Disasters Emergency Committee - at the behest, or in fear of, the powerful Zionist lobby; the craven sneak into 10 Downing Street by Mark Thompson to debate/agree/warn Dave of the way the BBC will report the ConDem cuts agenda, and the poorly judged and appallingly handled Question Time publicity stunt for the BNP (incidentally why is the shift to Glasgow the issue concerning the QT team? Given recent poor panels and inability to read the local issues, I would have thought that cancellation would be far more of a fear) it is now a matter of real concern that Thompson’s weak-kneed bending to every powerful lobby is compromising fair and proportionate decision-taking in one of the major news and information providers of the West.

In case you might think this is over-egging this particular pudding, consider this. Given the above history, do you think similar ‘national stereotyping’ of Israelis and of Israel would have been a similar ‘legitimate target for humour’? Would anything like that even have got into the broadcast programme? Whatever the outcome of a confrontation between the populist (Top Gear) and the political (Israel) lobbies over such an event, the suspicion will always now be of a broadcaster who takes decisions on the basis of such pressures, not one with the aim of impartiality, accuracy and responsibility.

The BBC does have a responsibility for its decisions, and no-one is suggesting that it is in the same category as Fox News and their exhortations to violent attacks on people Rupert doesn’t like, but at least Sky acted decisively when a programme presenter suggested that women linespeople didn’t know the rules! 

Mark Thompson has presided over this denigration of the BBC, and should go now, while there is still a (slim) opportunity to rescue our public service broadcaster.

Cable gaffe does not mean Coalition in trouble - just the LibDems

Vince Cable’s ‘gaffe’, and those of other LibDem ministers, has - as many commentators have speculated - shone a light onto some deep fissures in the ConDem coalition.

However, it is not between the LibDems and the Tories that this split has widened, but in fact between the social and the economic Liberals - between the ‘Orange bookers’ (including Mr Cable, himself) and the local populists. Now we see why those of us in Glasgow, have little or no memory of Mr Cable’s period as a Cooncillor. He just wasn’t that good!

His excessive outburst about Murdoch -  does he really want to wage war? - means it is the liberal marketeers - in both the LibDems and the Tories - who are rubbing their hands. And it is why they can still support the old buffer. How else could they allow Mr Murdoch to increase his stranglehold on the UK media?

I can’t think of any politician - of the right or the left - that thinks (in public anyway) that News International gaining unfettered control of another major media organ is good news for us or for politics. But to the free marketeers, anything that stands in the way of millionaire businessmen spending their money the way they want, is bad economics. And, despite all the arguments to the contrary, they are predisposed to let Rupert have his way. That is, those who are not already predisposed to suck-up to him anyway. Vince has now allowed this to happen.

To all those who speculate about Vince’s resignation, or enforced reshuffling and any consequent split of the coalition, I would point out the overwhelming desire amongst key LibDems to cling onto power at all costs. Even at expense of the party itself, which is now far more at risk. Don’t overestimate the loyalty of Clegg, Laws, Alexander et al.

Any split will almost certainly not happen for a while if at all. The illusion of power is probably the hardest one to wake up to - particularly if your party hasn’t experienced it in living memory. But this latest affair has exposed the differences between the Orangeers - Nick Clegg, David Laws and Danny Alexander et al - and those party members who grew up during the period of the Liberal (in particular) campaigns on local democratic issues.

The Orange Bookers have far more in common with Cameron and Osborne than their election pronouncements would lead anyone to believe. The BBC  in 2008 reported Clegg as ‘advocating a huge increase in private sector involvement in schools and the health service. "Marrying our proud traditions of economic and social liberalism, refusing to accept that one comes at the cost of the other - on that point, if not all others, the controversial Orange Book in 2004 was surely right."’

He argued for the creation of schools financed by just about anybody - parents, charities or voluntary and private organisations, suggested radical reform of the NHS, allowing patients to be treated free in the private sector and opposed tax increases.

So, don’t be surprised that if splits come, they are in the LibDems, rather than between the LibDems and the Tories. But this will not, of course, mean a split in the government. Nick & Co will be as at home (maybe more so) in the Tory Party than their current abode. 

And don’t think that even this will happen soon. Vince has fed the story that the LibDems are a ‘radical wing’ in the coalition. It may be an illusion, but don’t bank on any LibDems waking up to it soon.  Power is - after all - what all those shiny-faced newbie party workers came to work for the party for!