September 30, 2009
Put the Billionaire Back in his Box
So The Sun has come out for the Conservatives. Good. The Murdoch Empire just played its hand too soon. This now represents a golden opportunity for Labour.
When Parliament reconvenes on October 12th, there should be one priority for the final months of this government: to break up Murdoch’s control of key British media. After all, there’s nothing to lose anymore. The Sun will not volte-face and switch back to Brown; hostility from it – and eventually, The Times and Sky News too – is now inevitable. The election will be affected – and possibly dictated – accordingly. So Labour has absolutely nothing to lose by biting back.
The retaliation should go like this. The top legislative priority from October onwards must be to pass laws which make it impossible for one person – or better, parent company – to own more than one major national media outlet in the UK. No doubt, the details of how to do this will need to be worked-out by people far better informed than myself (how to target Murdoch’s Sky-Times-Sun set-up, whilst not preventing Trinity Mirror from owning local newspaper titles as well as The Mirror, for example). But where there’s a will, there’s always way*.
The aim should be to create legislation which offers an ultimatum to Murdoch: if you want to keep control of The Sun, and the massive political influence it wields, you must relinquish your other media interests.
The Murdoch press will cry that this is an attack on free speech and democracy. But there’s nothing democratic about one ultra-rich Australian press mogul using his media influence to so brazenly interfere with our political system. Whilst it would be undemocratic to interfere with The Sun itself (in a free country with freedom of the press, vile, lying demagogic shit rags just have to be tolerated) it’s quite a different matter to ensure that power in the media be dispersed, to reduce the overbearing influence of unelected, unaccountable foreign billionaires on our politics.
If the Tories have any sense, they will actually agree. The pendulum of Murdoch power may have swung back to them as of this morning, but they’ve been kept in the cold for 12 years at least in part by the influence of the Murdoch press. It’s not good for any political party to have to pay homage at Murdoch’s temple, and have their policy dictated accordingly. It’s certainly not good for our democracy.
Of course, preventing Murdoch from owning more than just The Sun will not prevent that particular publication from having the reach and influence that it does at present. That is just a fact about life, unfortunately: whoever owns that paper will wield an unbelievable amount of unaccountable power and influence in our politics. But by breaking up Murdoch’s British media empire, Labour can reduce his reach and influence, which currently extends way beyond The Sun. It can encourage the formation of rival power centres, whilst preventing its further concentration in a few select hands. Labour can kick back and say: “No Rupert, the elected government still runs this country, not you”.
The party will have to be brave, and shake off 15 years of deference, kowtowing and fear. But this is a unique opportunity to put the billionaire back in his box. Take it now, the chance won’t come again.
–
* And where there’s the House of Lords, there’s the Parliament Act.
Liberal Conspiracy » Sun’s backing for Tories could backfire said,
September 30, 2009 at 4:11 pm
[...] Sagar at Bad Conscience thinks it time the party cut Rupert Murdoch down to size: When Parliament reconvenes on October 12th, there should be one priority for the final months of [...]
Kentron said,
September 30, 2009 at 5:14 pm
Was this not promised in 1997?
David said,
September 30, 2009 at 7:46 pm
“And where there’s the House of Lords, there’s the Parliament Act.”
Is there time to use the act before the election to push through legislation introduced in Autumn? And it’s useful to remember that there are times when using the Parliament Act is rather unwise — for instance when the Lords blocks something by a huge majority, such as it did over 42 days.
Other than that, I’m all for regulating size and ownership of the media — I can just see it being a thorny issue.
David said,
September 30, 2009 at 7:49 pm
“Was this not promised in 1997?”
I’m not sure, but something may have been vaguely proposed by the Tories. Certainly, it wasn’t promised by Labour, after all the efforts they put into wooing the Murdoch Press.
Kentron said,
September 30, 2009 at 8:46 pm
I’m aware that by ’95 Murdoch was heavily courting Blair. However, I could have sworn he said something in the early ’90s about media ownership being too concentrated. (Found nothing on Google). As late as ’94 Darling supported a Commons motion condemning a Murdoch price cut as predatory, saying “The newspaper industry is not only an important business but also a vital organ of the democratic process … predatory pricing, with the intention of forcing rivals out of the market, will reduce choice and undermine competition”, and signed by 81 Labour MPs.
As for the Conservatives, Schedule 2 of 1996′s Broadcasting Act has some cross-media ownership rules, such as restricting a company to own no more than 20% of the television market if it owns 20%+ of the newspaper market. Not perfect, but a foundation that Labour could have built upon.
David said,
October 1, 2009 at 12:11 pm
Yeah, I expect Blair did say something of the sort in the early 90s — he wasn’t leader back then, so wasn’t in the process of trying to court the Murdoch press. As for Darling, was he even a frontbencher back then?
The Sun and Labour: Who gets hurt the most? | Left Foot Forward said,
October 5, 2009 at 12:58 pm
[...] namely to get even and not angry. One possible way of doing this is to follow the advice from Bad Conscience, that Labour has nothing to lose by reawakening the question of media concentration – a [...]
Richard T said,
October 6, 2009 at 2:13 pm
And while they’re at it, how about crucifying the Murdoch empire for its tax avoidance? Asset stripped and done for 10 years’ back taxes would be fine by me. The trouble is that I know the cowardly (rhymes with bankers) won’t even try.
Who will reform the PPC? « Bad Conscience said,
October 16, 2009 at 1:21 am
[...] to make the idiots vote for Dave Snooty, so that one is lost. If you’re not prepared to take him on directly, then why not at least impose some sort of meaningful regulation on the industry he, Paul Dacre, [...]