There is still a way to win this Murdoch media war
Vince Cable may have lost out over the BSkyB decision, but by fighting from the backbenches he could yet achieve victory
As certain as the sun rises in the sky was it that the owner of the Sun would be granted ownership of Sky outright. Few are surprised – but that doesn't stop most being shocked. Rupert Murdoch did what he has always done – defied regulators, governments and tax authorities to carve himself an anti-competitive market dominance with an unmatched global concentration of media power. Think how tightly he grips US politics between his Fox News foghorn and the Wall Street Journal.
Desperately needing growth in a stricken economy over-dependent on finance, the government praises Britain's successful creative industries. But News Corp is a dead hand, fostering little new UK talent or creative risk-taking, relying on ready-made successes from elsewhere. This is no way to nurture that industry.
The man who pretends to be a great free marketeer has built an empire almost entirely out of circumventing competition to throttle free markets. That is what Adam Smith warned businesses will do unless commerce is well-regulated by governments to keep healthy markets open. The paradox ignored by this government is that entrepreneurial capitalism needs a strong state to thrive: once markets ossify into monopolies, cartels, corruptions, briberies and intimidation of law-makers, they stagnate. That's why third world dictatorships fail economically.
A token gesture obliges Murdoch to put Sky News out to purportedly independent overseers until he regains its control in a decade – or sooner if a culture secretary allows it. Few doubt that he will succeed in changing UK law that bans political bias in broadcasting: Fox News will be with us sooner or later. Murdoch turns 80 next week: but if or when he finally moves on that won't see the breakup of News Corp, now James and Elisabeth are firmly established on his board and in his mould.
How comforting it would be if we could blame this government as uniquely craven or self-serving. But nothing in the last 30 years suggests any other government would act differently: Margaret Thatcher gifted Murdoch 40% of newspaper readership, breaking the old ownership rules to let him take the Sun, News of the World, Times and Sunday Times. John Major's pusillanimous 1996 Broadcasting Act gave him more, and Labour, eager for office, winked and nodded it through.
What might be done? How supine or how helpless has this country become? I joined the small picket line of mainly middle-aged journalists outside the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to protest when the announcement was made. Doing something, marking an objection, however futile, seemed better than doing nothing.
I have been joining the growing UK Uncut protests occupying banks and shops, whose owners avoid billions in tax that would pay for the libraries, swimming pools and children's centres now closing. More should be joining in, considering polls showing near universal fury at bank bonuses and company tax avoidance. Polls and the spontaneous outbursts of indignation from right- as well as left-of-centre voters in meetings of every hue, show the depth of feeling – and the frustration.
Mervyn King expressed his surprise that there was not more overt rage from suffering through the fault of others who shared no pain. So mark 26 March in your diary and join what will probably be an enormous March for the Alternative rally. What else can be done when forces so much more powerful than mere voters seem increasingly to control politics? It is an irony that the current dangerously bitter dislike of politicians is fostered by the Fox News, Sun and Sunday Times view of the world, yet it also springs from people despising governments for bending at the knee to the likes of Murdoch and the banks.
If ever there was a moment for the Lib Dems to prove they are in this coalition to improve the government and prevent irrevocable bad decisions, this is it. Vince Cable had nothing to be ashamed of when he declared to undercover reporters that he was "at war" with Murdoch. Far more shameful is the sight of him doing nothing now. He may have lost technical power over this decision, but his moral authority could still stir up enough of a public storm to stop this happening.
Coming sixth in Barnsley ought to concentrate Lib Dem minds, but this is a moment to restore not just the party's crippled reputation but some public trust in the political process. He need not seek to bring down the government, but if Cable were to withdraw to the backbenches to fight this cause and rally others, he might yet win his Murdoch war.
He wouldn't talk to me about it, nor would he agree to discuss it until after the deed is finalised on 21 March. But he sent word that the good he feels he is doing in his department is far too important to jeopardise. Delusions of all kinds seize MPs once they take up ministerial office: it seems exceedingly unlikely history will record that anything Cable achieves will be worth his failure to check the pernicious political and market power of Rupert Murdoch when he had the chance.
