A Deal With the Devil? Murdoch and New Labour (Part 2)

0:28Thanks for listening to The Rest is Politics. Sign up to The Rest is Politics. in New York. If you can get the son, then that was going to be politically helpful. He is not really a Thatcherite at this point, and he becomes a Thatcherite because Thatcher is there, but it's also good copy. She's using him and he's using her. Rupert is a hard bastard, and he only respects you if you're a hard bastard too. You can do deals with Murdoch without saying that deal's being done. And I kind of think that's where we were. The man who has existed in opposition to the establishment is creating a new system.

1:00Murdoch is a man of method, a cold-eyed manipulator. Everyone thinks they can be the one to get him to behave, to stick to doing what he said he would. It will never work.

1:18Hi there, it's Anastasia. Part two of our series on one of the most powerful men in recent memory, Rupert Murdoch now continues. This week we're looking at his involvement with British politics in the main at the end of the 20th century. First with Margaret Thatcher and then yes my own interactions with him and Tony Blair and the way he chose to support us. Here's a clip from that episode. To hear the full thing and get the whole of the mini-series and the benefits of a Trip Plus membership sign up at therestispolitics.com. And meanwhile back in my country we have the arrival of Margaret Thatcher.

1:54My view about this thing about Murdoch's power, and of course I think Murdoch loves the fact that this line gets run, Murdoch has always backed the winning side in UK general elections since he first started in our media. I think he backed Margaret Thatcher out of ideology, whereas when we get on to our time later I think he backed us because he knew that we were going to win. But Thatcher's role was important. Larry Lamb, who was one of his first editors, later knighted by Thatcher for services to pro-Thatcher propaganda. He was the guy who relentlessly slammed this thing about the winter of discontent, the label for the time, the end of Labour's term in office before Thatcher.

2:34And also, she realised, I think, straight away, that having this tabloid media support, and becoming a bit like the New York Post had become for Koch, if you can get the sun for her in the same way, which my God, she did, then that was going to be politically helpful. Yeah. I've always had the feeling that Murdoch's politics are being shaped at this point. I mean, he is not really a Thatcherite at this point, and he becomes a Thatcherite because Thatcher is there, because Thatcher is articulating what he may sense, what he may feel, but he hasn't gotten to that point yet. And then she comes along and I think he says, you know, this is, I think he says, thinks two things.

3:25Well, this makes sense to him politically, but it's also good copy. You said it in the first episode that the whole thing about his political profile was driven by money, his business interests, and his understanding that you needed politics at certain stages. And of course, that becomes absolutely the case when it gets on to trying to buy the Times and the Sunday Times. The Times, I mean, today it doesn't have the same reputation, not least thanks to Murdoch, I would argue, but generally seen as the paper of record, the paper of the establishment and so forth. And the Sunday Times then being edited by this, I think, great journalist, Harry Evans, who'd won all sorts of awards, run amazing campaigns.

4:03And Murdoch already has the beginnings of the reputation that he now has in terms of editorial interference and using newspapers for commercial purposes, etc. But he has by now this relationship with Margaret Thatcher. And the one thing that could stop him, he thinks, other than the other bidders, getting the Times and the Sunday Times is a referral to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. So his goal is to get the papers without that. And he's got a very, very important ally. I mean, there's an interesting thing, too, because you might logically ask, here's a guy who has been successful. I mean, we know him.

4:39We know his main interest is success. His main interest is in money. Where he has proved himself is in the tabloid business. So why would he want the Times? Why would he want this paper that is the opposite of a tabloid? And I'm still not sure because even to the extent you say, well, because he wants influence, but he believes his influence comes from success, from mass market. But here he is. So why does he want this? Why does he want prestige? You said in the first episode that he wants a sense of global domination. if you've got a very successful well-read tabloid that is speaking quotes to the working man and woman and you've got a broadsheet that is speaking to the for one of a better word the chattering classes the rest of the media the politicians the establishment you've got a very very powerful megaphone and i agree with you i don't think he was a full-on reaganite thatcherite conservative at this stage.

5:52But I think he became it because of this melding, as you say, of his business and political interests. No, I think it's true, but I think that there's some other divided thing that goes on here. His character is much more times-like than it is sun-like. He is not a sun reader, personally. No interest in sport. None. No interest in pop culture. None. Loves gossip, though. Yeah, he loves gossip, but he's not interested in that kind of gossip. He's interested in insider kind of business, political. So he is a Times reader, not a Sun reader. So I think that's part of it. But hold on, is he maybe resenting?

6:39So this is the period with the news of the world and the Sun where he became known private icon, this phrase, the dirty digger, which he doesn't particularly like. Is this the place where he kind of doesn't quite like the image he's got and that the times isn't just about power? It's also about – because I've always got the sense he doesn't really care about that. You know, I think that there's another thing going on about the establishment. You know, he's obsessed with this idea of the establishment. Wanting to be part of it or wanting to bring it down? Well, I think that's it. He doesn't want to be part of it.

7:09He wants to reject it. But I've always felt he wants to reject it because he thinks that the establishment is inauthentic because he's the establishment, because he is the real thing. And I think it just gets mixed up in his head who he wants to be. And it's always this kind of going back and forth between respectability and rebelling from respectability. So he gets the paper. The Monopolis Mergers Commission does not have this bid referred. He gets the papers, the Times and the Sunday Times. And just a background, you know, it's owned by the Thompson family, a Canadian family who has been put through the ringer by the Times and by the unions.

7:57Yeah, and that becomes significant later. And I mean, Harry Evans, we're going to talk about Harry Evans now, who was the editor of the Sunday Times, the Lodidomide investigation that people still talk about, a real kind of bit of a legend in British journalism, then the editor of the Sunday Times. and one of the things that Murdoch wants to do or seems to want to do is to get him to be editor of the Times probably partly because he's a good journalist but I think more because he wants to avoid Harry Evans becoming a force of opposition during the takeover process. So he gets this, he takes over.

8:31You knew Harry. Very well, yeah. And what's your... I like Harry a lot. I thought he was a great journalist. I genuinely thought he was one of the last great journalists. I think he was probably never going to be successful under Rupert Murdoch, because I think Harry was somebody who actually wanted to believe. There's a great phrase, I can't remember again, whether it's your book or somebody else's, where somebody talked about the thing with Murdoch is this thing where you're aching to believe. You're aching to believe that this time he's going to keep to his promises, this time he won't interfere.

9:03And I think Harry was aching to believe, but very quickly established that probably Murdoch didn't want him, had never really wanted him, and pushed him out. I always think that Harry kind of another one of those people who wanted to be like Rupert Murdoch, who wanted to, who saw himself as well as a journalist, a mogul, a manager, a mogul, a mocker. We're going to need a glossary at the end of this. And so he sort of thought, well, Rupert Murdoch, we're not that far apart. I can get along here. And Harry, who would also come to the U.S. and achieve significant position. As did Tina Brown, his wife.

9:48He became a CEO. And then his wife, Tina Brown, who also cut a figure in New York. And I too, I liked Harry in New York and used to see him on occasion and he would then often say the same thing to me. We would exchange pleasantries and he was a fan of my Murdoch book and I was a fan of his Murdoch book. And then Harry would say, but my wife really hates you. that's probably because you said in your book ah yes that she vied with murdoch for cynical amorality i thought that was way over the top i've got to say listen let me one of the um this is a great observation ronald mcdonald who was the publisher of the melbourne age who was also a cousin of rupert murdoch and he says everyone thinks they can be the one to get him to behave to stick to doing what he said he would i played with him as a boy i know him it will never work.

10:50Just to add, all of his wives thought that. All five of them. So he makes all these promises. He makes all these commitments. They're underpinned by law. Let's be very clear. He goes into the Times. The whole Times deal is dependent on him saying that he will not interfere editorially. Now, let's just, in in hindsight. Day one. Let's think about this. Him not interfering editorially is like, do we have to do the scorpion and the frog at this point? I mean, Harry is sadly now dead, but he used to say that he interfered on day one. And he did it, he tried to change something very minor in an editorial.

11:37And he said, it was basically, instead of saying that, couldn't we say it this way? And it was just a way of saying, if you really think I'm not going to interfere, forget it. And at the end of Harry's book, Good Times, Bad Times, he lists all the promises that Murdoch made on editorial freedom. Nobody but the editor can hire and fire. Nobody but the editor can extract journalists. The editor has to have a set budget to work within. And he then quotes something that Murdoch said to one of Harry's senior executives. I give instructions to my editors all around the world. So why shouldn't I in London?

12:07And the guy replies, because you gave legal undertakings. And he says they're not worth the paper they're written on. So that's the jujitsu of the stillest. And he's done it to Thatcher with her help. It's not even jujitsu. At least jujitsu seems to think, well, you don't see it coming, but you see it coming here, even more so. So he does this. He violates every aspect of this. This agreement is thrown out immediately, ignored. It's traduced. It has no standing or bearing. immediately 30 years later he will make the same agreement with the wall street journal and they accept it totally they usher him in with the red carpet there's always harry had some great observations the other thing by the way that the thatcher thing does is it signals to her cabinet and to the rest of the political establishment this guy has to be treated differently and of course that's something that he'll exploit many times harry said this maxwell who we talked about in episode one.

13:06Maxwell was the meat axe. We're back to the same stiletto. Murdoch is the stiletto, a man of method, a cold-eyed manipulator. Issues promises as prudently, he says, as the Weimar Republic issued Marx. But he's now there. He's now there. Essentially, he's breaking the law, by the way, in hiring and firing, interfering editorially. But he's now got impunity. But why does he have impunity? I mean, that's always - Because Thatcher has brought the line that these papers are essential to her political success. So she's currying favor with Murdoch. She's using him and he's using her. Okay. Which is the perfect balance that you want.

13:54I mean, if you're Murdoch and if you're Thatcher. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and they would both say to themselves, we're not doing anything wrong. We have this. We'll come on to this when we talk about my time with Tony Blair. We're not doing anything wrong because she would say, I'm not giving him anything on policy because actually I think it's probably quite a good idea if he owns the Times because he's going to be on my side. She's thinking that's politics. He's thinking I give her the support. So everybody is working the system. They're creating and working the system. Creating the system. Yeah, yeah.

14:25So he's creating the man who has existed as in opposition to the establishment is creating a new system, therefore a new establishment. And they're all convincing themselves that they are insurgents and they're agents of change. And in many ways they are. Okay. Thatcher was an agent of change. You can hate it, but she was. To hear the full episode, sign up at the rest is politics.com.

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