Murdoch: A Tory Trap

The report of the Culture  Committee has been pretty damning about the quality of the leadership and management of News Corp and News International, as well as its ability to be truthful. Whether it was wise to add the fit and proper person bit about Rupert Murdoch himself is a matter of heated argument.

Certainly the resultant split giving the report majority, rather than unanimous, status, does not, as the Tories are claiming, rob the report of its authority. A majority verdict by three to two judges is no less valid, whether in a court of law, or in the award of a prize. Laws passed by a parliamentary majority are not less enforceable than those which go through unopposed.

Maybe Tom Watson did go a bit over the top. Maybe the report would have been better without that line. Nevertheless he has done more than anyone to bring this whole sorry affair to light and the Tories on the committee would have been wiser  to back him rather than Murdoch.

Because to the extent the public cares and it cares about other stuff a good deal more, that is how it will look. The Tories backing their friend. Moreover, while the split was on party lines, significantly not as in government against opposition. Here the Lib Dem went with Labour. The Tories were on their own.

Coming on top of claims by the Home office that immigration queues were exaggerated (until Cameron blew his top), Hunt and all the other bits of the ever growing omni-shambles (what a good word!), this will project as yet another example of the increasingly unpopular Tory party being out of touch with the public mood, while they cavort with their wealthy and influential friends. Add to that, increasing uncertainty about the success of their economic policy to the extreme extent that more and more people think Ed Balls, no less, is talking sense, and you have a gathering electoral disaster.

Only Boris seems to know what he is doing.

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