Blair and Murdoch defend Bush over Hurricane Katrina

Not only did he once more expose the hand-in-glove relationship between Blair and Murdoch’s News Corp.—a relationship that at any other time in history would amount to a political scandal great enough to topple governments. But he also shed light on Blair’s fear of the political consequences of Hurricane Katrina for his main political ally, the Bush administration.

Murdoch was speaking at a New York seminar hosted by former US President Bill Clinton, as part of his Clinton Global Initiative, a forum billed as a discussion on how business leaders can help resolve the world’s problems.

Murdoch is not much bothered about the world’s problems, least of all the suffering caused by Katrina. What he is interested in is scoring blows against the state-owned and publicly funded BBC, which he views as an obstacle to the consolidation of his own dominance over British broadcasting and an affront to his free-market principles.

Murdoch, who owns the satellite Sky Television, as well as the Sun, the Times and News of the World newspapers, denounced the BBC as a “government-owned thing.”

He continued, chuckling like a man who knew he was being deliberately naughty, “Perhaps I shouldn’t repeat this conversation.” He then explained that he had met Blair earlier in New York, who told him that he had watched BBC World’s coverage of Hurricane Katrina: “And he said it was just full of hate for America and gloating about our troubles.”

People around the world were jealous of the US, and anti-Americanism was common throughout Europe, he added.

The fact that the conversation took place at all is worthy of note. Blair confides in Murdoch because his government is politically in thrall to him. Not only does he share Murdoch’s right-wing economic and social nostrums, but he believes that he would never have won office without convincing News Corp.’s British titles to back him.

In return, Blair is more than ready to carry through measures that Murdoch welcomes and even to tailor official policy to what is acceptable to the press lord. The serialisation of the diaries of former Labour spin doctor Lance Price in the September 18 Mail on Sunday comes at an unfortunate time for Blair in this regard. At one point, Price wrote in his diary, “We’ve promised News International [Murdoch’s UK subsidiary] we won’t make any changes to our Europe policy without talking to them.”

The Mail reports that Blair’s office insisted on the right to censor Price’s diaries and had this passage changed to the slightly more innocuous, “News International are under the impression that we won’t make any changes without asking them.”

Attacks on the BBC by Blair will inevitably place him in Murdoch’s good graces. Moreover, the prime minister shares his hostility towards the BBC.

The government has been conducting an open feud with the BBC ever since Radio Four’s “Today” programme reported the comments of weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly regarding disquiet within the security services that an intelligence dossier on Iraq had been “sexed up.”

Kelly was found dead on July 17, 2003, after he was outed as a whistle-blower by the government and questioned by two parliamentary committees. During the subsequent judicial inquiry by Lord Hutton, the government diverted attention away from its lies over Iraq and its own role in Kelly’s death by attacking the BBC. Hutton went along with this, and his report in January 2004 led to the resignation of “Today” reporter Andrew Gilligan, BBC director general Greg Dyke and chairman of the board of governors Gavyn Davies.

The feud continues to this day, primarily because the government would like nothing better than to have a situation like America where right-wing Fox News-type coverage dominates. Murdoch knows this very well. It is hardly an accident that he let slip the prime minister’s views a month before the BBC is due to submit its claim for funding from 2007 to 2016.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2005/sep2005/blai-s23.shtml