In Praise of Rupert Murdoch

My Dad was a big fan of Rupert Murdoch ( I won't mention my mothers views on the subject, that's another matter!). There were several reasons for this. Both were brash Australians. From my fathers experiences in the RAF in World War II he had a deep mistrust and dislike of the British ruling classes and establishment. He saw a kindred spirit in Murdoch. Not prepared to bend over and take it from "his betters". When my mother (a Guardian reader) used to criticise the Sun, my Dad would gloatingly point out that if you went into any cafe in London, you wouldn't see anyone reading the Guardian. My father well understood why a squaddie in a far off land would enjoy looking at the Sun rather than a more high brow paper. He always claimed that the best journalists in the world were employed by the Murdoch media. My father found it hilarious when Murdoch bought the Times as he felt this was the ultimate two fingers up at the British Establishment.

I'm sure that if he'd survived until 1989 when Sky was launched he'd have approved. He'd have loved the Cricket coverage. Sky TV has revolutionised the coverage of football. It has brought many sports to air that never got a look in previously. It is also fair to say that Sky News is arguably the best British News channel. So when we criticise Murdoch, what don't we like? The fact he has a successful formula for mass media papers? The fact that he had the vision to launch the worlds best satellite broadcasting service? The fact he sitcks two fingers up at those who he doesn't have respect for?

Is he too powerful? Probably. If the rumours about destroying emails are true, then him or someone in his organisation must be held to account (ie Time in clink for perverting justicve), but that doesn't detract from the fact that the main reason people here hate him is because he's so successful and so good at what he does? I suspect that my father was right in his analysis of Murdoch -  the British Establishment don't like him because they are a bunch of snobs.

As for the rest of the country? I'd bet a weeks wages that the sales of the Sun haven't suffered and the final edition of the News of The World sells more copies than last weeks.

I don't particlarly like tabloids (especially right wing ones) and I think the stuff the NOTW got up to was repulsive. I might read the sun over a bacon sarnie in a cafe, that's about it. Why am I writing this? Because I am sick of the hypocricy of all those people on the radio who have spent the last day slagging of all things News International, whilst bending over backwards for them for the last god knows how many years? Murdoch isn't a problem, he's just a symptom. Is anyone shocked that Newspapers pay PC plod for Tip offs? How do you think the Paparazzi always manage to turn up when someone is getting nicked? I've heard a few horror stories from victims of such behaviour over the years from friends in the music business. It is the way of the world. A friend of mine was blown up by the IRA at Victoria. She was hounded by the press for her story and it wasn't just Murdoch press. I doubt I'd write a blog if I thought the press did their job properly on a local level (although to be fair, they've done a good job on Metpro recently).

Locally there has recently been an industrial dispute at the Barnet Press. The cause? The owner was running the paper into the ground and the journalists felt they couldn't serve people properly. Murdoch, Maxwell, The Barclay Brothers, Richard Desmond, The Rothermere's. These are the people who largely control the written media and to some extent set the agenda. I don't think that any are necessarily better or worse than each other, they are just perhaps a bit more or less successful than each other. It is all rather depressing really isn't it.

Guest Blog - Rupert Murdoch gets green light totake over Sky TV

Guest Post by Allan Grote,

The Government has decided that Rupert Murdoch can gain control of one of Britain's largest news corporations.  Let's flood our politicians with tens of thousands of messages telling them we want Murdoch’s hands off our democracy: You can send a message to help stop this by clicking here -

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_rupert_murdoch_uk/?cl=968449309&v=8532





Murdoch has used his vast media empire to push war in Iraq, elect George W Bush, and block global action on climate change, and if he wins this week in Britain he will use his networks here to undermine all the issues that we care about. He has manipulated US, British and Australian democracy for years, but now he wants more complete control. In the US, most of the likely Republican presidential candidates are actually paid employees of Murdoch! When his Fox News Network was shunned by Barack Obama as a mere propaganda mouthpiece, it spawned the far right "tea party"and broadcast constant, often hate-filled attacks against Obama and his healthcare and peace agenda -- resulting in a huge win for Republicans in the 2010 congressional elections.

Murdoch media staff have trampled laws and standards when gathering news. Several News Corporation executives approved phone hacking and, when a formal investigation began, they had regular secret meetings with senior police officers who then failed to investigate the full extent of the scandal. Our government should punish such an organisation, not allow it monopoly powers over our media. But if Rupert Murdoch is allowed to buy all of BSkyB this week, he will soon own half of our newspapers and television. This should not be allowed in any democracy.

We can turn the tide on this powerful threat to our democracy. In the end the News of the World phone hacking scandal forced David Cameron’s communications director to resign. And a mass outcry from Canadian Avaaz members recently prevented a Murdoch-style TV network from getting taxpayer funding and stopped the Canadian government from removing the journalistic standards that would prevent this new network from spreading lies to the public. The fight against Murdoch has just begun, but already we've begun to win. Let's do the same in Britain! Click below to send an urgent message and send this on to everyone:

Across the Arab world and beyond, people are coming together in common cause across all boundaries. Murdoch's power is the ability to divide. His networks spew fear and misinformation, dividing left from right, citizens from foreigners, muslim from western, immigrants from non-immigrants, etc. Murdoch knows that democracy must be divided before it can be conquered. This week, let's show him what unity looks like.

Sources:

Murdoch close to deal with regulators over Sky
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a40fc482-4060-11e0-9140-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1FHWHwqJE

If Murdoch gets BSkyB, it will be a victory for monopoly capitalism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/feb/27/rupert-murdoch-bskyb-monopolies

'News of World' bosses dined with Met chief
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/news-of-world-bosses-dined-with-met-chief-2222814.html

Who is Rupert Murdoch?
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2004/07/b122948.html
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Allan Grote is a local environmental activist. Guest blogs are always welcome at the Barnet Eye. Just send via the link in the sidebar

Do you think Rupert Murdoch and the Sun have visited Barnet Recently

"The Sun" has come out in favour of the Conservative party. Let me remind you of what the Party Rupert Murdoch supports has done in Barnet, where it has power.
* Imposed a budget cut to abolish Sheltered Housing Wardens for the Borough's Elderly and Infirm
* Spent millions on consultants to write reports about reports about reports, none of which seem to lead anywhere
* Lost £27.4 million by borrowing money to invest in high interest accounts in Icelandic banks, which went bust
* Spent £15,000 on Tellies for senior Council officers
* Increased allowances for Councillors so that they now cost over £1 Million
* Overspent by £11 million on the £12 million Aerodrome Road Bridge project, leaving another huge hole in Council reserves
* Used depleted reserves to artificially keep Council Tax low, in the year before an election, despite describing the previous Lib/Lab administration as "criminally negligent" for doing the same
* Spent taxpayers money to put  video clips of people making neo-nazi statements on You Tube, proclaiming anti-semitic propaganda. (This was only removed following pressure from the Bloggers of Barnet)
* Spent Taxpayers money sending Council Leader Mike Freer and former CEO Leo Boland on jollies to America.
* Spent Taxpayers money sending Council officers on Jollies to the South of France to attend "property development conferences".
* Raised Council tax by levels many times higher than inflation
* Raised the cost of burying dead babies by many times the rate of inflation, hitting bereaved parents where it hurts at their most vulnerable time possible
* Used Taxpayers cash to launch a standards complaint against a solicitor representing the elderly and disabled of Barnet, purely for doing too good a job

What sort of people are running the Conservative Party in Barnet?

Council Leader Mike Freer - Describes his opponents as Nutters and claims they masturbate while criticising him, during a recorded interview (podcast) as Council leader

Mayor of Barnet, Brian Coleman -  The first Mayor of Barnet to be found guilty of a breach of the Standards Code whilst in office. What did he do about this to make amends? He went on a Champagne fuelled binge to celebrate

Hendon Parliamentary Candidate, Former Deputy Leader Matthew Offord. Boasted about arranging Contractors for Aerodrome Road on the Hendon Conservatives website. Those contractors were responsible for the £11 Million cost overrun. As Cabinet Member for community safety has allowed areas of the Borough to become no go zones.

Deputy Leader Lynn Hillan  - Claims that Barnet Council listens to residents. Ignored the 85% of residents who took part in the Sheltered Housing Warden consultation who said "Keep our wardens". According to Councillor Hillan "We know best"

And then there's the Tory Councillor who described the whole of the Labour group as freaks, there's the one who said "residents expect us to wipe their arses" (forgetting that many Council carers do just that for the disabled), and the one who said he didn't want to talk to elderly residents who are facing the loss of their wardens because "it was too upsetting".

I must confess I don't know any of the Tory Councillors too well. I can't tell you what they are really like, but the man they chose as Mayor, Brian Coleman said they are all completely self obsessed, whilst under oath, talking  to a standards investigator. And how does Mr Coleman view himself? I'll leave the last word to him. This is what he said about the Tories picking him as Mayor (this is bottom of page 8 in his witness statement).

The NHS isn't NICE

I just flew back from a 2 weeks in Florida this morning. A bit of business and a lot of pleasure. I always enjoy trips to the USA and I'm always pleased to get home. The highlight of the trip was snorkelling off the Florida keys. Apart from the Great Barrier reef in Australia, there are some of the worlds finest reefs in the Keys. Swimming out to see the statue of "Christ of the Deep" (Pictured left - modelled on Christ of the Abyss in Naples Harbour) was a truly awesome experience.

Unfortunately I also spent a fair bit of time watching the coverage of the healthcare debate on the various news channels. Watching FOX News in particular reminded me why I don't buy papers published by Rupert Murdoch. I have a theory as to why the American right is so vehemently opposed to a government run system of national healthcare. I believe that they've realised that once the American public gets it, they may just twig that all the right wing nonsense about the superiority of the free market will be exposed for the load of old tosh that it is. I'm not completely blinkered about the merits of some aspects of capitalism. I've run a successful business for 30 years. I do it better than any of the council run initiatives I've seen. It's just that there are some things the state unquestionably does better. A quick hop over the channel to France shows what a properly funded nationalised rail system can do. This has delivered huge benefits to the nation. Closer to home, it is patently obvious to just about everyone (apart from our supposedly Socialist government) that the Post Office is something that just has to stay in public hands. As to putting men on the moon, only a government backed program at NASA could have done that.

The most obvious system though, isn't rocket science. The NHS, for all it's faults serves the population of this country superbly. I've got a sister and a brother-in-law who work in health provision in Florida. My brother in law was a top guy at one of the biggest healthcare providers in the USA, with responsibility for the healthcare of the US congress in the mid 90's. He's a fantastic doctor, who has saved more lives than many people on the planet have had hot dinners. He worked in emergency medicine for many a year and when he expresses an opinion I listen. His view? That the system in the US fails to deliver for an alarming number of people. Many others are stuck in jobs they hate, just to ensure their family are covered by a health scheme. The American system is, to my mind, a system of quasi serfdom.

Due to the spells of showers during our stay, I watched many of the live Town Hall meetings on CNN and FOX news. What outraged me was the way the networks, especially FOX, would edit these. The most telling interjection I saw was watching the live coverage of failed Presidential candidate John McCain taking a town hall session. Possibly 90% of the audience were supportive of his "anti (Obama's reform)" stand. If you watched FOX's edited highlights, you would most certainly have missed the most telling contribution. Early on McCain started running down the NHS. He said that with the NHS and NICE (the committee that decides whether we can get drugs), some Multiple Sclerosis sufferers have to wait up to 2 years in the UK for treatment. There was howls of outrage from the audience. This clip got widely shown in the edited highlights. What wasn't shown was a woman who stood up and told how a relative of hers in the USA had to wait 20 years for treatment until she qualified for medicaid, by which time she was totally bedridden. Other commentators told all manner of lies about the NHS. One lie which came out time and time again was that people over 70 are denied treatments and operations under the NHS.

I know this to be untrue. My mother, who sadly passed away last year, had an operation on the NHS to fix a degenerating vertebrae in february last year. The operation was a complete success. My mother suffered from cancer in 1970 and was cured by the NHS. She would have been uninsurable in the USA after that. My folks ran a small business. They would have been financially destroyed under the US system.

Time and time again, right wing US pundits slagged off NICE as a "Death Panel". Sure, there is a degree of rationing of life saving drugs. There is rationing of healthcare in the USA as well. The way it works there is that if you are poor and uninsured, you don't get the care you get if you are rich and in a scheme.

Before my mother had a massive stroke which robbed her of her eloquence in 2000, she was a fierce and passionate defender of the NHS to all and sundry. She remembered the days before it was introduced, when families were broken by the cost of paying for treatment for sick children. She was nearly killed by diptheria in the 1930's and so she was a passionate believer in immunisation and the good of public health schemes.

What disturbs me most about the US healthcare debate is the fact that they pay twice the amount of their (much greater) GDP than we do for health, but a whole section of their population has been failed by this system. The defenders of the private system shriek "freedom and choice" as their clarion call. People like my mother who got cancer have no choice. They just get dropped in America. Children of the poor have no choice in America. The rich and the powerful have a fine choice, but I judge a society by how it treats its weakest, most unfortunate members, not how it looks after it's richest and most powerful.

That's why I'm glad to be home.