Which is to tell him to take a running jump He continues to heap praise on the British Prime Minister for his steadfast support for the US in that conflict. Whatever differences Blair has with him in their frequent meetings, he keeps private, the better to retain what influence he can exert over him. But what makes it even more interesting is the wholly unconnected crisis at Hollinger Inc, which owns the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, and from which Lord Black, Murdoch's fellow mogul and a man with some of the same instincts on issues of the day, yesterday stepped down as chief executive in a row over multi-million pound fees paid to him and other executives. For one knock-on effect of the crisis is that Black's 18-year-long, and politically hugely influential, control of the steadfastly pro-Conservative Telegraph group appears to have drawn to a close.This could prove in the long run to be almost as big a moment for politics as it is for journalism. Since the departure in 1995 of Max Hastings, the Telegraph has used its very substantial influence in the Conservative Party to help steer it with marked success to the right on Europe, on relations with the US and on many domestic issues. It certainly did its best to keep Ken Clarke - who was both pro-European and as it would later turn out, opposed to the war in Iraq - out of the Tory leadership in 2001.This was as congenial, of course, to Charles Moore, the editor whom Black appointed to succeed Hastings, as it was to his proprietor. But with Murdoch and Paul Dacre, editor of Lord Rothermere's Daily Mail, Black has been one of the three most powerful - and unelected - forces at the sceptical end of a European debate, which has had a political influence extending well beyond the issue of Europe itself. Although generous in his memoirs about Black, Hastings remarks that "the difficulties of matching my own one-nation Toryism with the convictions of [the] proprietor were, ultimately, insuperable".Because the Telegraph is hardly likely to abandon its allegiance to the Conservative Party, and because Michael Howard - essentially a man of the Tory right - has just been anointed its leader, it may be some time, if at all, before the Black legacy is extinguished.
But the possibility that the Telegraph may in time abandon a brand of Conservatism which has so far flopped with the electorate can't be ruled out All that depends on who takes it over And, oddly, the Labour government may yet have a role here. In deciding on, and if necessary overruling, Competition Commission recommendations on newspaper take-overs, the Trade and Industry Secretary - currently Patricia Hewitt - can apply a public interest criterion This is quite narrowly drawn and doesn't cover content. Rightly, she can't block a merger because the new owners are anti-Labour, anti-European, or - say - in favour of hanging. But the provisions of the Enterprise Act and the Communications Act entitle the minister and the competition authorities to question whether a merger goes too far in undermining "plurality" in the market.So even if, say, the owners of the Mail and the Express were able to satisfy the Commission that their present titles operate in different segments of the market (itself a matter of doubt), she could - and undoubtedly should - still rule that it would mean too many newspapers being owned by too few proprietors. Maybe some proprietor from outside this cosy circle would out-Black Black But maybe he would be of a quite different hue altogether. But if ministers have an (albeit very limited) formal duty in relation to the Telegraph, they have a much greater informal one in relation to Murdoch. Which is to tell him to take a running jump.For a start the importance of his remarks can be exaggerated. |
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