Three of the five people who dined together in Chipping Norton last Christmas are now at the heart of the disgraceful scandal at the News of the World in particular and News International and News Corp in general.
I am assuming that Mrs Cameron and Mrs Clarkson are not involved, but David Cameron, Rebekah Brooks and James Murdoch most certainly are. And they are still in their jobs.
When Rebekah Brooks walked into a meeting at the News of the World yesterday, carrying her metaphorical sword, it was expected that she would fall upon it. Instead, she used it to hack (pun intended) a 160 year old British institution to death. And James Murdoch's pathetic mea culpas rang about as true as many of the stories in the journals under his control.
It doesn't matter what you think of the NoW in its more recent manifestations. The fact is, it has been a popular and populist voice in British journalism and British culture since the 1840s. Read Orwell's wonderful essay entitled Decline of the English Murder: "It is Sunday afternoon, preferably before the war. The wife is already asleep in the armchair, and the children have been sent out for a nice long walk. You put your feet up on the sofa, settle your spectacles on your nose, and open the News of the World ..."
Orwell was writing in 1946, about the previous decade. But even I can remember the News of the World in the context to which he refers. The paper is part and parcel of a particularly British way of life. And Murdoch has shut it down just like that.
Because he can.
Forget all the claims about how these moguls regard themselves as 'custodians' of great brands. They don't. This newspaper, with its century and a half of history, is merely another hand of cards to be discarded the moment it becomes politically expedient.
What I profoundly hope is that this backfires; that Murdoch is not given the go-ahead by his friends in government to buy the remaining shares in BSkyB. Surely, he has now shown conclusively that he and his son are not 'fit and proper' persons to run a newspaper.
If, in a snap decision, they can close the biggest selling newspaper in the UK, then we should fear and protect ourselves against subsequent manoeuvres.
Remember they also own The Times.
Today's listening: Oscar Petersen on KRML, a jazz and blues station out of Carmel, California.
I am assuming that Mrs Cameron and Mrs Clarkson are not involved, but David Cameron, Rebekah Brooks and James Murdoch most certainly are. And they are still in their jobs.
When Rebekah Brooks walked into a meeting at the News of the World yesterday, carrying her metaphorical sword, it was expected that she would fall upon it. Instead, she used it to hack (pun intended) a 160 year old British institution to death. And James Murdoch's pathetic mea culpas rang about as true as many of the stories in the journals under his control.
It doesn't matter what you think of the NoW in its more recent manifestations. The fact is, it has been a popular and populist voice in British journalism and British culture since the 1840s. Read Orwell's wonderful essay entitled Decline of the English Murder: "It is Sunday afternoon, preferably before the war. The wife is already asleep in the armchair, and the children have been sent out for a nice long walk. You put your feet up on the sofa, settle your spectacles on your nose, and open the News of the World ..."
Orwell was writing in 1946, about the previous decade. But even I can remember the News of the World in the context to which he refers. The paper is part and parcel of a particularly British way of life. And Murdoch has shut it down just like that.
Because he can.
Forget all the claims about how these moguls regard themselves as 'custodians' of great brands. They don't. This newspaper, with its century and a half of history, is merely another hand of cards to be discarded the moment it becomes politically expedient.
What I profoundly hope is that this backfires; that Murdoch is not given the go-ahead by his friends in government to buy the remaining shares in BSkyB. Surely, he has now shown conclusively that he and his son are not 'fit and proper' persons to run a newspaper.
If, in a snap decision, they can close the biggest selling newspaper in the UK, then we should fear and protect ourselves against subsequent manoeuvres.
Remember they also own The Times.
Today's listening: Oscar Petersen on KRML, a jazz and blues station out of Carmel, California.
RSS Feed