The PM's dilemma is how to handle the Murdoch press

Central players: David Cameron knows Rupert Murdoch, right, is a bogeyman to many on Left and Right
12 April 2012

This is an age of institutional and professional crisis: three years ago, the financial sector was rocked to its foundations by global nemesis. In 2009, the expenses scandal swept through the Palace of Westminster like a cleansing fire. Now it is the turn of the print media to experience the same ferocious scrutiny. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes: who watches the watchers?

Today's emergency Commons debate is only the beginning of what will be required to assuage public anger over the alleged hacking of Milly Dowler's phone, and our political leaders know it.

Sixteen years ago, Tony Blair travelled to Hayman Island off the coast of Australia to receive the blessing of Rupert Murdoch. This week, another very different kind of Labour leader is leading the charge against News International. Ed Miliband's call for Rebekah Brooks, the company's CEO, to "consider her position" was premature -and ironic given the fuss politicians always make about the supposed kangaroo court of the red-top press. The metaphoric lynching of Mrs Brooks by the mob is not going to solve the problem. Let the facts be established before blame is apportioned and sentence passed.

Mr Miliband's calculation was that of an Opposition politician responding to a breaking story. The Prime Minister's dilemma is much greater. He knows that whatever action he takes, or declines to take, will be seen through the prism of his party's relationship with the Murdoch press, his own friendship with Mrs Brooks, and News Corp's bid for BSkyB. In principle, there should be little connection between alleged hacking carried out by a private investigator working for the News of the World in 2002, and the complex News Corp/BSkyB deal in 2011. In practice, however, Cameron knows that he will be pummelled with questions connecting the two.

Why, it will be asked, is his Government giving the green light to a company whose employees have acted so unconscionably in pursuit of a story. On Newsnight last night, Alastair Campbell put his finger on precisely what has changed and why this could be, as he put it, a "tipping point". It is one thing to hack into the phone of a celebrity or a politician. But if the mobiles of a missing teenager or the families of the Soham victims are fair game, then nobody is safe.

In other words, this is not just a question of moral outrage, as great as that is. It is about the perception of universal vulnerability, and the threat of an unrestrained media.

The PM's task is to respond to these anxieties, not with kneejerk demands and rhetorical posturing, but with credible assurances that, this time, the investigations really will uncover the truth and that whatever measures need to be taken will be taken. In a free society, press self-regulation is always desirable. Can it be made to work? This will be as rigorous a test of his political mettle as Cameron has yet encountered.

What won't help anyone is the moral laziness that associates all evil on these shores with the name "Murdoch" and piles all the blame for the media's transgressions on a single newspaper group. For the liberal intelligentsia and Tory traditionalists alike, the media tycoon has long been a Mephistophelean figure, responsible for the decline and fall of practically everything. Before he died in 1994, the television writer Dennis Potter even christened his cancer "Rupert" and said that, if he had time, "I would shoot the bugger There is no one person more responsible for the pollution of what was already a fairly polluted press."

That's an opinion one still hears over many a pine table where polenta is served. Yet, at the same tables, one also hears high praise for American television serials such as Boardwalk Empire, Treme and Mildred Pierce - all broadcast, as it happens, on Sky Atlantic.

Nobody believed Murdoch could make Sky work when it was launched in 1989, but he has. We take for granted the revolution in print media that he brought about at Wapping, his rescue of The Times and The Sunday Times 30 years ago, and the meritocratic and entrepreneurial spirit he helped to inject into Britain's stagnant economy.

It is necessary to rehearse these facts because discussion of Murdoch and all his works tends to be so hysterical. He inspires strong emotions, and always has. I know of one senior former employee of the media mogul who, by the second whisky of the evening, gets lachrymose and calls people "Rupert" by mistake: a pitiful sight. As a country, we are strangely fixated by this 80-year-old businessman. If Murdoch did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.

This matters in the present context because, whatever happens next, it would be a huge error to imagine that the problem is confined to News International.

In 2006, the former Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, compiled a snapshot league table of print titles that had paid a particular private detective to obtain personal information on celebrities and other prominent individuals. The table was headed by the Daily Mail, followed by the Sunday People, the Daily Mirror, the Mail on Sunday - and, only then, the News of the World.

This ranking referred to only one private detective, Stephen Whittamore, who sold data he obtained from the police national computer. It does not excuse any of the terrible things the News of the World is presently alleged to have done. But it does provide some perspective.

The problem is endemic, not personal. It requires a structural solution, not the vilification of a single chief executive and a few weeks of ritual Murdoch-bashing to make everyone feel better. It is industry-wide and requires an industry-wide response. And - lest we forget - we are the people who bought the newspapers, drove the competition, relished the tabloid sensationalism that brought us to this point. To adapt Cassius: the fault is not in the Sun, but in ourselves.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in