Vince Cable v Rupert Murdoch

[Kowalski]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-12053656

Good on him for trying to do something to stop the Murdoch empire, but I'll give him 48 hours before the Murdoch press have hounded him out of office.

[jump]

I won't even give 48 hours, The Sun is already reporting Cable trying to screw up the Coalition.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3311309/Vince-Cable-I-could-kill-the-Coalition.html

[The Nal]

Tomorrows newspaper headline - "Cable investigated in international Paedophilia cell"

[eFestivals]

I won't even give 48 hours, The Sun is already reporting Cable trying to screw up the Coalition.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3311309/Vince-Cable-I-could-kill-the-Coalition.html

The Scum is re-reporting the Telegraph scoop, that had Cable saying that to it's investigators. So that Sun story is nothing to do with what Cable has said about Murdoch.

The comments about Murdoch are very likely to be further parts of the same conversation.

As for Cable having declared war on Murdoch, he's having a laugh. Murdoch's plan to buy all of Sky was always going to be referred anyway - it's too much of a hot potato politically for any politician to wave it thru directly, so Cable has done nothing different there - but the part that counts is is whether it then gets waved thru by some supposedly independent regulator.

And whatever Cable thinks he might be able to achieve, he's wrong. It's no coincidence that Dave Moron had Rupert round to Downing Street before he'd even appointed his cabinet. Murdoch is owed by Dave Moron, and the price is Sky plus the breakdown (as much as politically possible) of the BBC.

[grumpyhack]

Ten out of ten to the Telegraph reporters who did a great job persuading Cable to open out but, sadly, the man was a pratt to speak so candidly to total strangers. He may survive in the cabinet for the moment but he's now damaged goods.

P.S. I'm not a Murdoch supporter. One of my cherished moments as a freelance journalist was telling Kelvin MacKenzie, when he was editor of the Sun to "F off" when he rang me asking if I could cover a story for him at a time when the Sun journos were out on strike.

[Snufflebutt]

Ten out of ten to the Telegraph reporters who did a great job persuading Cable to open out but, sadly, the man was a pratt to speak so candidly to total strangers. He may survive in the cabinet for the moment but he's now damaged goods.

[Kowalski]

One of my cherished moments as a freelance journalist was telling Kelvin MacKenzie, when he was editor of the Sun to "F off" when he rang me asking if I could cover a story for him at a time when the Sun journos were out on strike.

[rexclark]

From what the news is reporting, Cable will keep his job but will have diminished powers. I guess we'll see how long he lasts.

[llcoolphil]

I hope he goes. It'll start the coalition crumbling.

[pink_triangle]

Theres no way they will sack him, he can cause far more damage from the backbenches. Im not sure his power is that diminished, I doubt he would ahve had a say in the sky case anyway. Theres no way murdoch will lose that case after supporting tories in the election.

[beLIEveR]

Now that Jeremy ?unt has the final call, the BSkyB deal is a foregone conclusion. But I was watching the Clegg-Cameron press conference today. Interesting that so many questions were being asked about the referendum, the future of the two parties as seperate entities, and pressing Clegg to make categoric statements about Cable. And the second the conference had ended (to ensure that Clegg had tied his own hands) the full detail about Cable broke.

I don't buy that the Telegraph weren't happy about the additional leak. Far from it. I'm gutted about what has transpired today, but I think they had a hand in it, and from their perspective played an absolute masterstroke. They've made Murdoch £7.5 billion poorer for little more than to rubber stamp his already iron fisted control over BSkyB, and severely weakened the man whom I would have considered to be the Alternative Vote Yes Campaign's biggest asset.

[grumpyhack]

TBH I'm not entirely sure its the greatest ever journalistic endeavour - going to an MP surgery and posing as a constituent is hardly fake sheikh territory. .

[Snufflebutt]

I'm not entirely sure why these revelations are so startling. I thought it was generally assumed tht lib dems were unhappy with some policies, but that was to be expected judging by their manifesto. I'm also not so sure why having a group within the government disagreeing with the policies of the government is so destructive - the new abour/old Labour thing wasnt so long ago that we've all forgot about it?

[pink_triangle]

I find it funny they take the decision from vince cable because he had made anti murdoch comments and give it to jeremy hunt who has made pro murdoch comments. Nice to see the political world still concerened with fairness.

[Wooderson]

Does anyone here genuinely fear Murdoch taking over Sky? I personally think it would be laughable for him to attempt even a close approximation never mind replication of Fox News in the UK.

Edited December 22, 2010 by Wooderson

[Snufflebutt]

Does anyone here genuinely fear Murdoch taking over Sky? I personally think it would be laughable for him to attempt even a close approximation never mind replication of Fox News in the UK.

[eFestivals]

No, far less people watch sky news on a regular basis than read Murdoch's newspapers.

And anyway, we give Murdoch far too much credit - he doesnt make the agenda, he follows it. Murdoch guesses which way an election is going to go and makes that way his papers' party line.

I disagree - he definitely gets to drive the agenda with some things, tho it's often done subtly over many years.

For example, the main reason for the UK's "euro-scepticism' is down to Murdoch - he fears the tax consequences back on him from a more joined-up Europe (he pays almost nothing in tax here, due to various 'legal' fiddles!) and so has been pushing the anti-europe line for 30+ years. It has an effect!

Too much of any country's media in the hands of a single person is a bad thing. It's most normally seen in banana republics.

[diddly-dee]

I disagree - he definitely gets to drive the agenda with some things, tho it's often done subtly over many years.

For example, the main reason for the UK's "euro-scepticism' is down to Murdoch - he fears the tax consequences back on him from a more joined-up Europe (he pays almost nothing in tax here, due to various 'legal' fiddles!) and so has been pushing the anti-europe line for 30+ years. It has an effect!

Too much of any country's media in the hands of a single person is a bad thing. It's most normally seen in banana republics.

[llcoolphil]

I'm not entirely sure why these revelations are so startling. I thought it was generally assumed tht lib dems were unhappy with some policies, but that was to be expected judging by their manifesto. I'm also not so sure why having a group within the government disagreeing with the policies of the government is so destructive - the new abour/old Labour thing wasnt so long ago that we've all forgot about it?

[Snufflebutt]

In around a month, the Lib Dems are going to ask people in Oldham to vote for them - even though their own ministers are (now)openly hostile to the legislation they are enacting, with one claiming he might bring the coalition down if it gets much more unlikeable. This is a party that pledged a new politics of openness and honesty in the run up to the election, yet we now have the position where Lib Dem ministers openly accept that voting Lib Dem will result in policy being enacted that you might have well voted against or certainly not voted for, supported by them! |They might as well say 'vote for us and we'll see what we can do on the worst excesses of toryism, but to be honest we've not had much impact so far - but Im not happy about it if it helps you decide'.

[llcoolphil]

I personally think the alternatives to the coalition are waaaay too unpalatable

Edited December 22, 2010 by llcoolphil

[grumpyhack]

The biggest problem we have with the electoral system in this country is the constituency system, which means that all but a few thousand votes don't count.

If you are, for example, a Labour voter and you happen to live in a rock sold Tory constituency then come an election your vote will probably make no difference to the outcome. The same is true if you are a Tory in a rock solid Labour constituency.

So, therefore the only places where votes will make a difference are marginal constituencies. However, even in marginals there will be a core of people who always vote Tory, Labour or whatever. So, within marginal constituencies the only voters who will make a difference are those undecided or swing voters.

With the present system we might as well just poll those people and let them decide the outcome and everyone else can stay at home.

Until we have a PR system where everyone's vote counts people will ask 'why bother?'

Mind you, even if we have a system where votes make a difference, that will only be to decide which party (or parties) form the government. Once elected they can still ignore the views of the people for the next four years.

[llcoolphil]

Until we have a PR system where everyone's vote counts people will ask 'why bother?'

[grumpyhack]

PR is now as far away as it was a hundred years ago. If they win the AV referendum, it will be decades before it gets offered for change again and if they don't, it will be assumed there is no desire for electoral reform. The one thing above all others Clegg should have insisted on to go into this coalition and he pissed it down the drain.

[beLIEveR]

I also agree. AV is the closest we're likely to get to PR, in spite of the fact that AV would make the Lib Dems (or more likely a successor party) perennial kingmakers.

I don't blame the Lib Dems for going into this coalition. If they had refused, we would have ended up with a second general election and most likely a Tory government with a narrow majority. But what infuriates me is that they were in a strong position. All they needed to do was pass the emergency budget, spend a year in parliament talking about progressive things that the Tories would never vote for, fill the time by making fart noises, and let what seemed in May as a certain victory for the referendum yes campaign come to pass before breaking up the coalition.