Barkley McKay

Today Rupert Murdoch has declared that he’ll be stepping down as Chairman of News Corp. Despite the plaudits from many figures in the media (many of which have been previously employed by him) Murdoch’s involvement in British journalism has been a disaster since he first bought the News of the World in 1968. He wasn’t against the elite, rather he was a part of the elite and ventriloquised working people to get what he wanted. He undermined democracy, public decency and basic professionalism by default. A powerful example of this came in the form of Larry Lamb, who Murdoch employed as editor of the Sun twice (from 1969-72 and 1975-81). Lamb regularly met Margaret Thatcher and her advisors in the run-up to the 1979 election. Totally normal for an editor, of course. Only he also allegedly started writing speeches for her, while editor of the Sun, after 1977. On the day of the general election vote in 1979 Lamb penned a 1600 word article (!) on why Sun readers should vote Tory. In the 1980 Honours List he was duly rewarded with…a knighthood. How very anti establishment! What a renegade! A newspaper editor writing speeches for a future PM while apparently ‘reporting’ on them. This wasn’t serving his readers, it was treating them like suckers. This is just one story amid thousands. A profound rot has beset British politics and media for decades, and Rupert Murdoch was the chief ringleader. A man whose life’s work has damaged the body politic, embedded (likely permanent) national decline and who helped render Britain culturally, politically and I would argue economically, poorer. He will rightly be remembered as an awful, malevolent, destructive man. When you go that’s all that remains.