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Corbyn on ballot.
This is breaking, so no media sources yet, this is off Twitter.
40 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
Which morphed into one of the weirdest high-level friendships/alliances over the years:
In 1995, at the instigation of Peter Stothard, then editor of the Times, Blair was invited to address Murdoch's annual power-fest, that year's event being held on Hayman Island, off Queensland.
Keen to placate the Sun – Murdoch's baby and always under his direct, near-daily guidance, even now – which had savaged Neil Kinnock, Blair dismayed his party by accepting. He, his communications chief Alastair Campbell and his school chum turned Praetorian Guard, Anji Hunter, were feted ("we'd never flown first class"
and Blair made a well-pitched speech – "enough for the News Corp lot, enough for the anti-Murdoch neuralgics" at home, Campbell confided to his diaries.Australia's Labour prime minister, Paul Keating, chaperoned them himself: never put up income tax, he warned "Bambi" Blair. And Murdoch is "a big bad bastard" who despises politicians ("they get in his way" unless you convince him you can be one too, he added.
The friendship that developed in the years that followed has been much-analysed. But on one point both sides of the Blair-Deng allegations row still agree. "They had very robust arguments on things like Europe and there were issues on which Tony never compromised with him. Murdoch was always more interested in foreign affairs than the domestic agenda," recalls one Blair aide who witnessed some sessions. "On Europe or press intrusion they would disagree. Sometimes Murdoch would persuade Tony on a point, sometimes Tony would persuade him," says another.
For Campbell, an old friend of Kinnock's, such dealings with Murdoch were a necessary evil, though Murdoch was complicated. As a chippy Australian pluotcrat he had an outsider's instinctive dislike of the British establishment. He was anti-gay (Deng softened that) and anti-racist (he has several mixed-race grandchildren). The romantic streak which made him a near-Marxist at Oxford never quite died. "He admires the Queen, but in his heart he's a republican, he'd like to be left wing," insists the insider.
It was the same Murdoch who pushed Blair hard to back George Bush in invading Iraq and repeatedly annoyed him by foolishly saying Britain's relationship with the EU should be like Switzerland's.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/14/tony-blair-rupert-murdoch-deconstruction-friendship-wendi-deng
Keen to placate the Sun – Murdoch's baby and always under his direct, near-daily guidance, even now – which had savaged Neil Kinnock, Blair dismayed his party by accepting. He, his communications chief Alastair Campbell and his school chum turned Praetorian Guard, Anji Hunter, were feted ("we'd never flown first class"
and Blair made a well-pitched speech – "enough for the News Corp lot, enough for the anti-Murdoch neuralgics" at home, Campbell confided to his diaries.Australia's Labour prime minister, Paul Keating, chaperoned them himself: never put up income tax, he warned "Bambi" Blair. And Murdoch is "a big bad bastard" who despises politicians ("they get in his way" unless you convince him you can be one too, he added.
The friendship that developed in the years that followed has been much-analysed. But on one point both sides of the Blair-Deng allegations row still agree. "They had very robust arguments on things like Europe and there were issues on which Tony never compromised with him. Murdoch was always more interested in foreign affairs than the domestic agenda," recalls one Blair aide who witnessed some sessions. "On Europe or press intrusion they would disagree. Sometimes Murdoch would persuade Tony on a point, sometimes Tony would persuade him," says another.
For Campbell, an old friend of Kinnock's, such dealings with Murdoch were a necessary evil, though Murdoch was complicated. As a chippy Australian pluotcrat he had an outsider's instinctive dislike of the British establishment. He was anti-gay (Deng softened that) and anti-racist (he has several mixed-race grandchildren). The romantic streak which made him a near-Marxist at Oxford never quite died. "He admires the Queen, but in his heart he's a republican, he'd like to be left wing," insists the insider.
It was the same Murdoch who pushed Blair hard to back George Bush in invading Iraq and repeatedly annoyed him by foolishly saying Britain's relationship with the EU should be like Switzerland's.
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/14/tony-blair-rupert-murdoch-deconstruction-friendship-wendi-deng
In Tony Blair's uneven but occasionally startling autobiography, A Journey, published in 2010, there is a chapter that makes particularly interesting reading now. It covers his final, slightly besieged years as prime minister, from mid-2005 to mid-2007. "In this time," writes Blair, "I was trying to wear … a kind of psychological armour which the arrows simply bounced off, and to achieve a kind of weightlessness that allowed me, somehow, to float above the demonic rabble tearing at my limbs. There was courage in [this behaviour] and I look back at it now with pride," he concludes. "I was … not unafraid exactly, but near to being reckless about my own political safety."
The chapter's title is "Toughing It Out". Last week, during the phone-hacking trial of Rebekah Brooks, an email from the former News of the World editor emerged, sent the day after the disgraced rightwing tabloid was shut down in 2011 and six days before she was arrested. To her then boss, James Murdoch, Brooks wrote: "I had an hour on the phone to Tony Blair. He said … Keep strong … It will pass. Tough up. He is available for you, KRM [Rupert Murdoch] and me as an unofficial adviser but needs to be between us."
As Labour leader and prime minister, one of Blair's defining characteristics was his readiness – canny or disgraceful, according to political taste – to make accommodations with powerful rightwing interest groups, not least the Murdoch press. The Brooks email, the latest in a succession of sometimes jaw-dropping revelations about Blair's behaviour since he abruptly left Westminster politics seven years ago, suggested that his ease with the left's traditional enemies had in fact deepened: into an instinctive feeling that he and they were on the same side.
... In 2010, weeks before the general election at which Murdoch's papers did their best to drive Labour from office, Blair secretly became godfather to one of Deng and Murdoch's daughters.
"You couldn't make it up," says a former member of the New Labour inner circle. "Just when you thought Tony's behaviour couldn't get any more bizarre … His actions would be strange even for the most dyed-in-the-wool capitalist ex-prime minister, but for a Labour one, I think it looks terrible. It makes mugs of many of the people who supported him in office. He's trashed the New Labour brand."
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/26/tony-blair-new-labour-hero-political-embarrassment-murdoch
The chapter's title is "Toughing It Out". Last week, during the phone-hacking trial of Rebekah Brooks, an email from the former News of the World editor emerged, sent the day after the disgraced rightwing tabloid was shut down in 2011 and six days before she was arrested. To her then boss, James Murdoch, Brooks wrote: "I had an hour on the phone to Tony Blair. He said … Keep strong … It will pass. Tough up. He is available for you, KRM [Rupert Murdoch] and me as an unofficial adviser but needs to be between us."
As Labour leader and prime minister, one of Blair's defining characteristics was his readiness – canny or disgraceful, according to political taste – to make accommodations with powerful rightwing interest groups, not least the Murdoch press. The Brooks email, the latest in a succession of sometimes jaw-dropping revelations about Blair's behaviour since he abruptly left Westminster politics seven years ago, suggested that his ease with the left's traditional enemies had in fact deepened: into an instinctive feeling that he and they were on the same side.
... In 2010, weeks before the general election at which Murdoch's papers did their best to drive Labour from office, Blair secretly became godfather to one of Deng and Murdoch's daughters.
"You couldn't make it up," says a former member of the New Labour inner circle. "Just when you thought Tony's behaviour couldn't get any more bizarre … His actions would be strange even for the most dyed-in-the-wool capitalist ex-prime minister, but for a Labour one, I think it looks terrible. It makes mugs of many of the people who supported him in office. He's trashed the New Labour brand."
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/26/tony-blair-new-labour-hero-political-embarrassment-murdoch
May's reshuffle means Murdoch's now lost a major ally in government, ex-Culture Secretary John Whittingdale:
Rupert Murdoch has transformed the media in Britain not once but twice. If it wasn't for him we would still have grubby newspapers run by trade unions that strike at the drop of a hat. And he launched satellite TV. Also Kelvin MacKenzie - because he is courageous, funny and very often right.
The man deciding the future of the BBC cites Rupert Murdoch and Kelvin MacKenzie as his media heroes.
http://indy100.independent.co.uk/article/people-are-resharing-this-terrifying-john-whittingdale-quote-about-rupert-murdoch-from-2006--bkfDAnThRzZ
And on why the media were so reluctant to report on Whittingdale's "colourful" personal life:
There is also a wider campaign that the Whittingdale story fits into. It is a years long agenda by Murdoch titles against the BBC, in the interests of the media magnate to increase his share of the market and extinguish the national hold of the Public Service Broadcaster in the UK. Rupert Murdoch’s British media interests in 2009 included The Times, The Sun, The News Of The World (before it’s ceremonious closure in light of phone hacking), Sky, 39.1% of BSkyB, and 17.9% of shares in ITV.
With Whittingdale a close friend of the Murdochs, this campaign is ever more relevant.
A revolving door between Murdoch and Conservative camps since 2009, has resumed in earnest a relationship that began in the eighties.
The same year saw a step change in Rupert Murdoch’s campaign – his News international titles, including The Sun, published 515 articles in one year attacking the BBC according to a Fleet Street database highlighted by journalist Nick Davies.
http://realmedia.press/whittingdale-murdoch-bbc-cover-context/
With Whittingdale a close friend of the Murdochs, this campaign is ever more relevant.
A revolving door between Murdoch and Conservative camps since 2009, has resumed in earnest a relationship that began in the eighties.
The same year saw a step change in Rupert Murdoch’s campaign – his News international titles, including The Sun, published 515 articles in one year attacking the BBC according to a Fleet Street database highlighted by journalist Nick Davies.
http://realmedia.press/whittingdale-murdoch-bbc-cover-context/
Whittingdale's replacement, Karen Bradley, doesn't seem to have overt ties to Murdoch, so we'll have to see what becomes of the relationship via his other allies in government (Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has been a notable one). The change does at least seem to have put plans to privatize Channel 4 TV (state-owned, but commercially funded) on hold.
He's already got a campaign poster.
that it's so fractious, even when there's been a seemingly secure whip setup that rewards loyalty with promises of job security and career advancement, disruptive splits are the norm.
Blaming Corbyn while an influential and dogged set of factions, with strong links to media only too keen to focus on dissent (like the BBC's Laura Kuenssberg, who's overstepped the mark into conspiring with some "rebels" , are intent on strutting around moaning "You're not the boss of me" like disgruntled adolescents just sets up any future leader for the same problems that dogged Miliband and earlier leaders. The problem's not new, and it didn't arrive with Corbyn, it's just exaggerated in the current situation.
And Eagle's already split the movement. She's lost what little respect she commanded among many over the past few days, and currently spends most of her media time complaining about "bricks through windows" (in reality only one brick and only one pane so far, though it'd be nice if that was an end to it) and calling for Corbyn to make denouncements he's already made, while proclaiming, with no evidence, "I CAN lead. I CAN win." It's not persuasive. She's an embarrassment.
As for Smith, he's completely unimpressive, and I don't think he's the Messiah Labour's looking for. I don't even think he'd make a decent fist of being a caretaker. The fact Labour's looking for a Messiah and doing the whole People's Front of Judea schtick isn't new, but it's maybe time to embrace that "new kind of politics," enter the 21st century, and for the PLP to stop being so Stalinist in approach.
Labour has suspended all local party meetings until the high-stakes leadership contest has been completed to curb the levels of abuse faced by MPs, the Huffington Post UK can reveal.
In a dramatic ruling by Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC), local branches were banned from meeting until Jeremy Corbyn’s fate as leader of the party has been decided.
...
A special paper on the leadership contest, passed to HuffPost UK, said the move to suspend local party meetings was to prevent further intimidation and violence of MPs and members.
In a dramatic ruling by Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC), local branches were banned from meeting until Jeremy Corbyn’s fate as leader of the party has been decided.
...
A special paper on the leadership contest, passed to HuffPost UK, said the move to suspend local party meetings was to prevent further intimidation and violence of MPs and members.
Great excuse for avoiding even more votes of no confidence in sitting MPs, and even more CLP votes of confidence in Corbyn.
Sheesh.
