Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Murdoch and Brown in history
According to the New York Times:
In September 2009, as a major Labour Party gathering was under way, The Sun, News Corporation’s mass market, populist tabloid, stunned the British political establishment by switching its allegiances to the Conservative Party after more than a decade of Labour support. The audacity of the move was reinforced by the fanfare with which it was announced. The Sun featured a blaring front-page headline “Labour’s lost it,” floodlit its printing plant in Conservative blue and pumped blue smoke from a smokestack at its complex in Wapping, on London’s east side.Rupert, who was still quite close to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his wife, Sarah, had cautioned his son against supporting David Cameron ahead of an election more than six months away. The endorsement severed the longstanding friendship between the Browns and Rupert and his wife, Wendi, a development that one person with knowledge of the family dynamics said upset Rupert deeply. The reversal also made News International a willing political combatant, a status that seemed only to embolden its critics when the hacking crisis broke. Indeed, a major force in the revolt against News International has been Tom Watson, a member of Parliament and a loyal Brown ally.
Labour might be relieved now that they did not fight the 2010 election with the Sun and so on as cheerleaders... wonder how the coalition negotations would have gone with Murdoch media sniping for Labour?
Labels: Murdoch, News International
