EUROPE 2012: EVER WIDER, EVER DEEPER DISUNION. The Contagion Spreads.

There is something very strange about the economic depression into which so many European countries are now sinking. Britain is now officially in a double-dip recession, something this column predicted more than a year ago, when the coalition government was confidently assuring us it wouldn’t happen. The pundits of the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF are now, at last, talking about the likelihood that Greece will be forced out of the Eurozone, something they assured us a short while ago would never happen. Spanish banks, weighed down by billions of euros of toxic debt incurred by financing a massive construction boom that has now bust, await bailouts from a government that cannot afford to pay them without itself receiving further billions from a European Finance Stability Facility that itself has insufficient funds to pay. In Spain and Italy youth unemployment runs at 50+% and 40% respectively. Greece has no elected government until after another election in June which is likely to result in another majority for parties that reject the draconian austerity measures the EU and IMF say are “essential” and non-negotiable. Accepting further austerity will deal the death blow to an economy teetering on the brink of collapse, and plunge the Greek people into a state of immiseration unknown today outside third world countries.  In Italy, as unemployment surges, companies such as Fiat, lay off thousands of workers to relocate their plants in Poland where labour costs are cheaper. As in Greece, an unelected government of technocrats has no solution other than the familiar package of ever deeper cuts and privatizations that have already failed everywhere else. Managing director of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, authentic voice of this failed policy, tells the Greeks that she has no sympathy for them and that it is “payback time” for their failure to pay their taxes. This from an organization that has for decades demanded as the condition for “aid”, the privatization of state industries and slashing of welfare provision in the poor African countries whose deprived children’s lack of education appears to concern Lagarde so much. And, while much is made of Greek tax evasion, to which the overseers of EU fiscal policy turned a blind eye on Greece’s admission to the euro in 1992, we hear little from them about the multi-trillions world-wide lost to national treasuries through the illegal tax evasion and dubiously legal tax avoidance practiced by the super-rich who employ well-paid lawyers and accountants to advise them on how best to avoid the responsibilities that for the rest of us are unavoidable. There is now a palpable sense that the storm that has been gathering for several years is about to break upon us. Some wit described the likely future as something between a “catastrophe and armaggeddon.”

 What is it that seems so strange about what is happening? Looked at from the standpoint of those least affected by the depression, things can still have the appearance of normality.  In Britain, for instance, particularly if you live in London or the south-east, if you still have a job and can afford your rent or mortgage repayments, or if you are retired on a reasonable pension and have paid off your mortgage, “austerity” is what is happening to others, not to you. The worst of the cuts have yet to fall so it is possible to entertain the illusion that things are not so bad; the growing numbers of empty, boarded-up stores and business premises on the high streets may be worrying but as long as it’s not your business that has gone down, you may be inclined to think that things could be worse. Indeed they could, and they certainly will be.        

What is strange is the contrast between the very real economic crisis that is engulfing much of Europe and the cultivation in much of the British media of a mood of joyful celebration which, it is expected, will soon sweep the country.  First comes the queen’s diamond jubilee and then the Olympic games, hosted this summer in London. The bunting has already appeared as if by magic and the expectation is that everyone with an ounce of respect for her majesty’s “sixty glorious years” on the throne, will next week participate in street parties and raise their voices to implore God to save her. As during the great depression of the 1930’s, now once again in this great depression, the mystique of monarchy is brought into service as a distraction from the darkening thunder clouds threatening to engulf “small countries about which we know nothing”.  The right-wing brand of euro-scepticism, much in evidence in the Tory party, has grown out of the little-Englander nationalism that has never considered Britain (and England in particular) to belong to Europe. This creates the  impression that because the UK isn’t in the eurozone, what happens “over there” will not affect us. But if Greece is kicked out of the eurozone the consequences elsewhere, including Britain, will be incalculable. Even if the contagion can be contained, which is highly unlikely, the 50% of Britain’s exports that go to the EU, will be drastically affected. The British economy is already back in recession and the collapse of the EU export market will snuff out the tiny flicker of recovery some claimed to have detected. If, following Greece’s departure from the Euro, the contagion spreads to Spain, Italy and Portugal, then the eurozone, and needless to say, the euro, in their present form at least, are finished. There is no way that the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) will be able to bail out countries with economies the size of Italy’s and Spain’s.  There is no convincing evidence that the leaders of the European Central Bank, the EFSF or the IMF have any idea what to do in such a crisis. This would (will?) be a systemic failure on an unprecedented scale. And the crisis will be global, not simply European.

An indication of how serious the situation is may be seen in the havoc being played in parliamentary politics and elections in Europe. This has been most dramatic in Greece where the traditional parties of the “centre” were swept aside in the May elections. The tremendous performance of the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) which gained 16.76% of the vote made it impossible for the two main pro-austerity parties, the rightist New Democracy and Pasok to form a coalition government. The EU elites are now concentrating all their efforts to prevent Syriza from emerging from the new elections scheduled for 17 June as the largest party. If that happens the pro-austerity parties will be defeated and the Greek political scene will be thrown into turmoil. The crisis in Greece exposes more clearly than ever the fraudulence of the EU elites’ democratic credentials. They are not prepared to accept the outcome of parliamentary democratic procedures unless they endorse the strictures imposed from above by unelected officials. This has been seen in the initial outcomes of referenda on the Lisbon Treaty. If a country votes the “wrong” way, then they must be made to vote again and again until they vote the “right” way. For the Greek people it is now a question of the devil or the deep blue sea. Essentially the EU elites and the IMF are threatening them with the immediate withdrawal of life support unless they opt for a somewhat slower death by starvation. It is to be hoped that they will not succumb to the threats. If Syriza emerges as the largest party and is able to form a government, it is by no means certain that Greece would be forced out of the euro. Syriza’s leader Alexis Tsipros is likely to hold his nerve and may well consolidate and extend the support for his alliance. A game of bluff is being played in, and with, Athens. Merkel may be “standing firm” in Germany’s determination to withhold all further EU “aid” and cut Greece adrift from the euro if the Greek people vote the wrong way in the forthcoming election, but the rapid contagion that would spread to other eurozone countries would not leave Germany unaffected. The prospect of German export markets in southern Europe drying up should be concentrating minds in Berlin as well as in London.

In Britain the beleaguered coalition politicians are hoping that the jubilant chorus of fawning drivel churned out by most of the media for the diamond jubilee, followed by the razzamatazz of the Olympic Games, will take people’s minds of “politics” – by which they mean, primarily that attention will be distracted from the revelations emerging from the Leveson inquiry. By the time this column appears events on that front may well have developed dramatically. For the time being a few comments will have to suffice.

The terms of reference of the inquiry were dealt with in Letter from the UK on 13 May. Cameron must now regret his rashness in setting it up. Governments all seek to guard closely their most important secrets. In this case, the coalition does not want the wider public to know just how closely they have been linked to those who wield power in the corporate capitalist world; how eagerly they have sought to do their bidding and serve their interests. To lay bare this identity of purpose and policy runs the dangerous risk of revealing the sources of real power in Britain and globally. Such revelations can only contribute to the already widespread distrust of all professional politicians and to cynicism about parliamentary politics in general. It might lead too many to conclude that parliamentary democracy itself is little more than a charade and that real power lies, not in parliament, but elsewhere, beyond the reach of democratic procedures. And that would never do, as it might lead people to turn a way from Westminster politics and politicians and seek more radical alternatives.

For the government the problem with the Leveson inquiry is that they cannot control it. And the problem for Cameron and his ministers is that it is exposing the rot at the centre of the system. Its deliberations are televised for all to see. And with every passing week the inquiry reveals members of the power elite stripped bare; exposed are the close relations between government ministers, their aides and those at the top of Murdoch’s News Corp, all operating with contempt for the guidelines and regulations within which they are supposed to operate. The inquiry is exposing as rarely before just how rotten the system is. During the past four years, since the onset of the Great Financial Crisis, we have had an object lesson in where economic power really lies in one of the most socially unequal countries in the world. Now, in part due to what is happening at the Leveson inquiry, the veil has been lifted on the inner working of the Con-Lib-Dem government. It is to be hoped that the lessons learned will be turned to good effect and lead to the building of a mass resistance movement in the months and years ahead. It is sorely needed.  

MURDOCH: TWILIGHT FOR THE GODFATHER IN THE U.K.

The Sun is Setting on Media Tycoon’s British Enterprises

Anyone who as a child sat enraptured and rather scared through the wonderful movie The Wizard of Oz, will never forget the final five minutes of the film, in which the all-powerful and hitherto hidden wizard, is suddenly exposed as a rather pitiful, bumbling old man, whose magical powers, having evaporated, is left fumbling for words. There were occasions when, watching Rupert Murdoch’s performance as he was questioned at the Leveson inquiry, the less than wonderful wizard came to mind. Watching the former king-maker in the flesh, we saw an old man who was clearly unaccustomed to being questioned by anyone about anything, let alone about matters that he considered were properly the concern of the various underlings to whom they had been delegated. If he had been carefully briefed, it didn’t show. Perhaps he mistakenly believed that he needed no advice. Faced with the forensic probing of Robert Jay, QC for Lord Justice Leveson’s inquiry, Murdoch stumbled from one evasive or inadequate response to the next. Deeply uncomfortable with the situation he found himself in, he was sometimes flippant, sometimes arrogant, frequently irritable, and always self-exculpatory. His performance bore no relationship to the image of the all powerful global mogul whose blessing was so recently sought by the political elites in return for great favours happily granted to further aggrandize his already overblown media empire. One might have been forgiven for thinking that this spelled the beginning of the end for Murdoch and News Corporation. That is almost certainly the case for News International in Britain, but it is too early to write the obituary for News Corp’s far more extensive international media enterprises.

All hope he may have had of extending his control of the print and broadcasting media in Britain must now be abandoned. Taking the remaining 61% of BSkyB, which only last year was almost a done deal for him, is now beyond his reach. He has already closed the best-selling tabloid, News of the World, many of whose former journalists and management face criminal charges for phone-hacking and perverting the course of justice. His son James has resigned as executive chairman of News Group newspapers, but remains deputy chief operating officer of News Corp.

The toxicity staining the Murdoch brand in Britain has now spread to the government. Evidence has emerged in emails released by News Corp, that culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt (who last year was in charge of oversight of the BSkyB bid) was in secret contact with James Murdoch. In emails written to Murdoch by his lobbyist, it seems clear that Hunt was, contrary to his parliamentary obligation to act in a quasi-judicial and impartial way, adopting a blatantly partial stance in favour of the £8 billion bid. In one explosive revelation the lobbyist, apropos his contacts with Hunt, notes: “Confidential: Managed to get some infos on the plans for tomorrow (although absolutely illegal!)…Lots  of legal issues around the statement so he [Hunt] has tried to get a version which helps us.” None of this comes as much of a surprise to close observers of the dealings between the government and News Corp. Jeremy Hunt had already described himself on his own website as a “cheerleader for News International”. In December 2010 business secretary Vince Cable, then responsible for overseeing the BSkyB bid, had unwittingly revealed in a sting operation against him by the Daily Telegraph, that he had “declared war on Murdoch”. For this indiscretion he was removed from his responsibility and replaced by Hunt. Everyone expected Hunt to approve the bid, enabling Murdoch to take the 61% of the shares, giving News Corp total control of BSkyB. All that stopped this happening was the revelation by the Guardian newspaper on July 13 2011 that the News of the World had hacked into the voicemail of murdered teenager Milly Dowler in 2002. Had this not happened, Hunt would have waived the bid through. To avoid what, in the light of the revelation, would have been a unanimous House of Commons vote against it, the bid was withdrawn by Murdoch.  It was in the midst of all this that prime minister Cameron announced the establishment of the Leveson judicial inquiry, with a wide-ranging brief to investigate the culture, practices and ethics of the press. In view of what has been revealed so far, he and much of the political establishment, to say nothing of those engaged in the practices that Leveson is investigating, must devoutly wish that the inquiry had never been set up. This is clearly the view of most of the tabloid papers who are judiciously avoiding any mention of the proceedings. But, such was the pressure on the government – the Tories in particular – to do something to create the impression that they were no longer in hock to Murdoch, that Cameron had little room for maneuver.

Murdoch’s ambitions have taken a severe battering. His appearances at the inquiry have revealed a man seemingly much diminished – although his public appearances have anyway been so few that it is difficult to judge. One thing is clear; he seems determined to wreak some sort of revenge on those he blames for upsetting his plans. Thus the release to the inquiry of a steady flow of information of a very comprising nature for so many of those with whom he has had dealings. As the centre-left political weekly, the New Statesman opined on 30 April “If Murdoch’s going down, he’s taking everyone with him”. Those with inside knowledge claim that the release of email records of confidential exchanges with Jeremy Hunt was deliberately intended to finish the minister’s career. It is also reliably reported that before the present government came to office the Tories did a deal with Murdoch to the effect that News International’s tabloids would support the Tories in the 2010 election (meaning that the Sun and News of the World would withdraw their backing for Labour) in return for a Tory government supporting Murdoch’s interests in the UK. That meant assisting the BSkyB bid, reducing the powers of the media regulator Ofcom and cutting back the BBC. All this came naturally to the Tories anyway, much as it had to Tony Blair and New Labour whose desire to please Murdoch was no less than Cameron’s. Anyway, all the indications are that Cameron acted exactly as had been arranged. His first visitor at No.10 after the election was – Rupert Murdoch.

The most recent development in this saga is the report of the parliamentary culture, media and sport select committee. It is damning. As the record of criminal behaviour at the News of the World is so well established and incontestable, the Murdochs and their minions are unable to challenge the main finding of the committee’s report. What they are anxious to do is to reject any suggestion that those at the top of News Corp – particularly Rupert and James Murdoch, are personally culpable. Some of the underlings who can be allowed to go to the wall are: yesterday’s favourite, former Sun and NofW editor and ex-News International CEO, Rebekah Brooks; former NofW editor and director of communications for Cameron, Andy Coulson; former executive chairman of News International and Murdoch favourite, Les Hinton; ex-NoW editor (now editor of the New York Daily News) and former legal manager of News Group Newspapers, Tom Crone. Brooks and Coulson are at present on police bail. Hinton, Myler and Crone have been found guilty of misleading a select committee. They will be summoned to present themselves before the bar of the House of Commons to formally apologize – the first time this has happened since 1957. The committee drew no conclusion about the behaviour of Brooks and Coulson as they are both under police investigation and on bail. Brooks was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.   

The most damning conclusion in the committee’s report concerns Rupert Murdoch himself. In a key passage the committee concluded that “Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company.” No sooner had the report been released than Tory members of the select committee, led by aspiring celebrity Louise Mensch, rushed to disassociate themselves from this conclusion. They hastened to point out that all the Tories on a committee numbering ten (5 Labour, 4 Tory, 1 Liberal Democrat) were opposed to it. Mensch stated forcefully that the “not a fit person” passage gave the report a partisan character that completely devalued its conclusions. In the ensuing argument it became clear that there had been other disagreements over which the committee had divided. It turns out that they voted on 16 amendments making the report more, or less critical (or neither), of the Murdochs. The voting pattern shows that the Labour members and the Lib Dem supported most of the amendments making the report more critical and that the Tories supported many of those making it less critical and few of those making it more critical.  For example, Louise Mensch only voted for one making it more, but for six making it less critical. Her fellow Tory, Dr Therese Coffey supported none of the amendments making the report more critical and voted for 6 of those making it less critical. Philip Davis probably reflected the Tory attitude to the Murdochs in his less than trenchant judgment that “They have admitted mistakes. I make hundreds of mistakes every day. Hands up anyone here who has not made any mistakes!”  But committee member Tom Watson, the Labour MP who has done more than anyone in parliament to expose the criminality at the heart of News Corp, went straight to the point: “We found that News Corporation carried out an extensive cover-up of its rampant lawbreaking. Its most senior executives repeatedly misled Parliament and the two men at the top, Rupert and James Murdoch – who were in charge of the company – must now answer for that.”

No-one who has followed the affair can be in any doubt about the cover-up, or that responsibility goes right to the top. The attempts by Mensch and her fellow Tories to wriggle out of the report’s conclusion are completely disingenuous. They cannot deny the overwhelming body of evidence implicating the Murdochs, but they shy clear of holding them responsible, preferring instead to let their underlings take the rap. This shows how deeply reluctant Tories are to challenge corporate power. Britain’s political elites have been subservient to the Murdoch empire for so long that the habit of subservience is hard to break. But it will do them little good. As ever more incriminating evidence emerges – as it surely will as the Leveson inquiry exposes more criminality and those implicated start to blame one another  - it will not help anyone’s political career to be seen as a defender of Rupert Murdoch.

The only argument left to his dwindling band of defenders in Britain, is that he is “a fit person to exercise stewardship of an international company”, by virtue of the fact that he must be to have got where he is today. And, ultimately of course, that is the defense upon which the News Corp executives and shareholders in the United States will have to rely. Corporate power needs no justification other than its continued success, and that is measured in terms of the share price. Who cares how se got where we are. Whether Murdoch will be able to stage a retreat to his New York bunker and  successfully pursue his operations from there, remains to be seen.

THE END OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE, 1945 – 1965 And the Secrets, Crimes and Lies that accompanied it.

In the days – long since gone – when British history was taught in schools as a chronological story, the Empire was treated as an unalloyed boon to the world, bringing enlightenment and civilization to millions of benighted “natives” who, without our selfless efforts would have continued to vegetate in heathen ignorance. Until the Second World War “Empire Day” was celebrated each year with street parties, bunting, and military parades, to remind the metropolitan populace, particularly the children, how fortunate they were to have been born British and to live in a “land of hope and glory” at the heart of an empire upon which the sun would never set.  With the “end of Empire” in the two decades after 1945 came another myth; colonial independence had been granted magnanimously by Britain to the peoples of the Empire, who were now deemed ready to assume the burdens of civilization. The former empire would be transformed into a “British Commonwealth” of free and equal nations, all willingly embracing the British monarch as their sovereign. Elisabeth II was the first monarch since Victoria not to bear the title “Empress/Emperor” of India”.

Since the 1960s much has been written to expose this self-congratulatory nonsense. African-Caribbean academics, Stuart Hall and Paul Gilroy, have been at the forefront of such efforts. An earlier generation of post-colonial leaders such as Nehru, Nkrumah, Cheddi Jagan and others contributed to debunking the myths of a benevolent imperialism. Nevertheless, an only-moderately revised version has survived. Nostalgia for empire permeates historian Niall Ferguson’s attempts to rehabilitate British imperialism. What  minimal criticisms there are recall Churchill’s observation about democracy being the worst form of government, except for all the alternatives; British imperialism, say its apologists, may have been responsible for much that was reprehensible, but what came before and after it were much worse. The most effective response to this is one the apologists are reluctant to face: hard facts.

New evidence has just emerged – or rather been dragged bit by bit from a reluctant Foreign Office – exposing atrocities committed between the 1940s and 1960s in Kenya, Malaya, Aden and Diego Garcia. The archive containing this evidence was concealed for 50 years and has only just come to light. Nothing revealed in it is entirely new, or rather, what has been revealed either adds to what was already known, or confirms what has long been suspected. Also, it has now become clear that large amounts of incriminating evidence have been destroyed. For example, it has long been known that during the Kenya “emergency” (1952 – 1960), the Kikuyu “Mau Mau” uprising against British rule, 11 detainees at the notorious Hola camp were clubbed to death by guards and another 77 were severely beaten, sustaining permanent injuries. What was not known before is that British government ministers were aware of the torture and murder of Mau Mau prisoners, one of whom was roasted alive. During the Mau Mau insurgency the British authorities hanged more than 1000 Kikuyu and detained 150.000. The documents released also show that many of the most sensitive, presumably containing the most incriminating evidence, were destroyed. The destruction of evidence was carried out thoroughly and systematically. Harvard professor Caroline Elkins, Pullitzer-prize- winning author of Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya, says that “In the Mau Mau case, two years of countless document requests were met with FCO stonewalling…..In total, officials in Kenya estimated that some 3.5 tons of documents were marked for destruction.”

One of those jailed by the British in 1949 for involvement in the Kikuyu insurgency, was Onyango Obama , grandfather of the U.S. president. According to Onyango’s wife, Sarah, he was beaten and abused by the British, sustaining permanent injuries.

These documents confirm, in case there were in any doubt about it, that the “war on terror” did not begin with 9/11. During the period they cover- roughly the late 1940s to the 1970s – the counter-insurgency operations waged by Britain against colonial independence movements, were regarded as wars against “terrorists.” This was particularly the case in Malaya, where between 1947 and 1961, British forces were engaged in a war to defeat a communist-led guerrilla movement. All anti-colonial insurgents were treated as “communist terrorists”, agents in what the Western cold war propagandists described as a global struggle between the “Free World” and “Sino-Soviet Communism”.  In their struggle to defend the free world, in 1948 the Scots Guards massacred 24 villagers in Batang Kali, in what, although it occurred 20 years earlier, has been described as Britain’s My Lai massacre.  It is likely that the papers relating to this incident will have been among those destroyed. Also likely to have been destroyed is evidence about the overthrow of Cheddi Jagan’s administration in British Guiana in 1953, and that pertaining to a torture centre in Aden operated in the1960s by the army intelligence corps during counter-insurgency operations there.

Operations like these were the last gasps of British imperialism. They belie the official version which treats the transition to independence as a smooth, largely peaceful process. Britain was engaged in colonial wars of various kinds from 1945 to the 1960s. They were often conducted in close association with the United States. The “counter-insurgency expert”, Lieutenant Colonel Sir Robert Grainger Ker Thompson, who was Britain’s Permanent Secretary of Defence for Malaya, was sent by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to Washington in 1961 to advise President Kennedy on counter-insurgency in Vietnam. The released documents make clear that in the mid-sixties through to the 1970s, successive U.K. governments secretly colluded with Washington to expel the Chagos islanders from Diego Garcia, a British territory in the Indian Ocean, in order to enable the U.S. to build a military base there. The islanders were summarily expelled and have never been allowed to return. The airbase is of great strategic importance for the United States and has been used by long range bombers in attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan. Following a long campaign to be allowed to return to their ancestral homeland, both the High Court and the Court of Appeal upheld their right to do so. But in 2010 the government appealed to the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords and the Law Lords upheld the government’s appeal, by a vote of 3 to 2, denying the right of the Chagossians to return.

With the collusion of the British government the CIA has used Diego Garcia as a refueling stop in terror suspect rendition flights. It is highly likely that suspects have actually been held at the U.S. base itself, despite the fact that it is British territory. The New Labour Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, denied any knowledge of this in 2010, just as his New Labour predecessor, Jack Straw, now denies signing papers permitting the rendition by the CIA to Libya of Abdel Hakim Belhadj.

A striking feature of the post World War Two history of Britain’s imperial decline, is the role of both Labour and Conservative governments in resistance to anti-colonial and national liberation movements. The Attlee government first prosecuted the war in Malaya in 1947.and its last act before losing the election to the Tories in October 1951 was to send warships to the Gulf to pressurize Iran after Mossadeq’s nationalization of the Anglo Iranian Oil Company. In this respect it is worth recalling that this led to a course of events involving close British-U.S cooperation, resulting in the CIA sponsored coup which overthrew Mossadeq and restored the Shah in 1953. Arguably, had this not occurred, we may have had a democratic, secular Iran today. In 1953 Churchill’s Tory government overthrew the democratically elected Cheddi Jagan in British Guiana and, in 1956, following Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal, Eden launched the disastrous attack on Egypt designed to topple him. This Anglo-French action did not meet with the approval of Eisenhower and Dulles as it did not suit U.S. strategic interestsin the area. Instead of toppling Nasser, it strengthened him, encouraged Arab nationalism and led to the resignation of Eden. After this, British Imperialism seemed a spent force. But, through the mid to late 1950s the Tory governments dispatched thousands of troops, many of them national servicemen, to quell the Eoka resistance movement in Cyprus, which finally won independence for the island in 1960. A  British military base remains there. It was a Labour government, led by Harold Wilson that oversaw the final, violent stages of British rule in Aden, finally withdrawing in 1967.

When looking back on the decline of Britain’s imperial power it is worth recalling the stance of one of the Labour party’s leading theoreticians of the period, John Strachey. In the 1930s Strachey had been the one unequivocally Marxist  theoretician in the party. Author of such books as The Coming Struggle for Power and Why You Should be a Socialist, he became a minister in the 1945 government, having moved steadily to the right of the party. In 1959 he wrote a widely acclaimed revisionist work entitled The End of Empire. In it, among much else,  he makes a point of taking issue with the U.S. Marxist economist Paul A. Baran’s book The Political Economy of Growth.

Rather than prolong this column with a detailed account of Strachey’s arguments (interesting though that might be), a few quotes will have to suffice. On the war in Malaya he writes: “I have always taken the view that we were justified in refusing to allow the predominantly Chinese Malayan communist party forcibly to capture the government of Malaya, which it would almost certainly have done if we had not exerted a very considerable degree of force against it.” And on Kenya: “Nor must we dodge the implication that we cannot be sure that we shall be able to avoid the repugnant task of putting down rebellions, such as the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya: rebellions, that is to say, of people who, in our judgment, could not possibly take over the colony and govern it as a going concern.”  

ROTTEN TO THE CORE AND OVER-RIPE FOR CHANGE: Corporate Power and Wealth in Austerity Britain

In recent weeks the Con-Lib Dem government has suffered several set-backs which have seriously affected their poll ratings. George Osborne’s budget, the highlights of which were the reduction to 45p in the pound of the 50p income tax rate for those earning more than £150.000, and freezing the tax threshold for pensioners, did nothing to improve the Chancellor’s popularity.  Encouragement of panic-buying of fuel as a political ploy to outmaneuver the tanker-drivers’ union, Unite, by playing on fears of a strike over the Easter break, backfired when it led to chaos at filling stations and traffic jams. For the first time in many years, almost all the press, including Murdoch’s titles, turned on the government. Then there was the “cash for access” scandal.

The Tory party treasurer, self-made multi-millionaire Peter Cruddas, was secretly filmed by a Sunday Times Insight Team posing as foreign businessmen, boasting that he could gain them access to the prime minister. For the “premier league” payment of £250.000 they would be invited to dinner at Downing Street and have the chance to influence policy. When told that they were based in an offshore tax haven, which would make their payments illegal under British election law, Cruddas told them that there were ways of getting round this. Needless to say, when the story hit the headlines, Cruddas was forced to resign and Cameron claimed, to universal disbelief, that cash could not buy access to him or his government. If further proof were needed that nothing has changed in the shabby practices and hypocrisy of the power elites who govern Britain, this story provided it. As in the case of “cash for honours” that took what was left of the gilt from Blair’s New Labour administration, first came the exposure, then the frantic attempts to conceal or deny the wrongdoing. Perhaps the most entertaining aspect of this story has been the involvement of Rupert Murdoch. If anyone doubted that the Sunday Times story carried his imprimatur such doubts were expelled by the old man’s gleeful tweets to his 200,000 twitter followers. Cameron, he tweeted, should have “followed history and flogged some seats in the Lords, if they still have value.” This would “follow the precedent of centuries.” Then, with chutzpah which even by his standards was astounding, he concluded that Cameron must re-establish trust, because “without trust, democracy and order will go.” For the Godfather, forced by unwelcome events to pretend a humility that doesn’t suit his character, this small revenge upon those who have jilted him must be rather sweet. It may convince him that he can still influence political events, in this instance by upsetting the apple cart. In a less publicized part of the Insight Team’s exposure, Cruddas claims that Cameron is secretly happy at the prospect of  Scottish independence and the break-up of the Union, publicly opposing it on expedient grounds. Indeed, he may think that, rid of Scotland where the Tories have only one MP, their future dominance of an English parliament at Westminster would be secure.

A week or so of such mishaps and bad headlines as these resulted in Labour gaining a ten point lead in the opinion polls. This was very welcome to them as the party seemed to have made little impact against the government. This, despite a flat-lining economy, passage through parliament of the deeply unpopular health and social welfare bill and the obvious fact that the cuts imposed in the name of “deficit reduction” were falling most heavily on the poorest sections of society. Then came the bombshell of the Bradford West by-election. Before attempting to evaluate this astonishing event, it is worth considering the wider political background, both nationally and internationally, against which it occurred.

It suits the interests of the power elites to treat the population as an infinitely manipulable mass; consumers to whom policies and concepts have to be sold. Leading politicians need to be effective PR people, like David Cameron.  In the past this sort of thing was called “propaganda”, and some governments, usually fascist, actually had ministers of propaganda. At least they did not resort to dissimulation to describe what they were doing, though what they were doing amounted to systematic lying. Now, instead of ministers of propaganda, we have “directors of communications”. It sounds better - more democratic. The present government has tried to persuade as many people as possible that:

1. The Great Financial Crisis of 2008 which led to the £multi-billion bail-out of the banks at taxpayers’ expense, necessitates the imposition of many years of extreme austerity in order to eliminate the deficit.
2. It is perfectly acceptable for the recapitalized banks to return to “business as usual”.
3.  Despite the fact that the cuts are hitting the poorest hardest, and that bankers and top FTSE executives are paying themselves mega-bonuses and salaries, “we” are somehow “all in this together”.
4. The pain “we” are all supposed to be suffering is in the “national interest” and therefore should be accepted with fortitude and without protest. Strikes and resistance “hold the country to ransom” and are “against the public interest.”   
5. We should all try to compensate for the loss of public services that are being decimated by the cuts, the libraries that are being closed and charities whose funding has been withdrawn, by volunteering to work unpaid to build a “big society”.    
6. Despite the fact that the invasion of Iraq was illegal in international law and was a disaster resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and 176 British soldiers, it was supported by both Labour and Tories politicians as necessary in “the war against terror.” 
7. The war in Afghanistan is justified as in Britain’s national interest. The invasion of Afghanistan, resulting in an 11 year war which is obviously un-winnable, has so far led to the deaths of thousands of Afghanis and over 400 British military personnel. Justifications for the war have included: (a) To destroy al Qaida’s base and kill or capture Osama Bin Laden (b) Regime change: get rid of the Taliban (c) Stamp out the heroin trade (d) Support a transition to democracy in Afghanistan, and “make our streets safe from terrorism.”

A sizeable part of the British media is engaged in an operation to fool all of the people all of the time. Even those sections that are supposed to be “balanced” and “objective” usually accept without argument the most dogmatically asserted of the government’s claims, to which the Labour opposition also subscribes, – such as the claim that the deficit must be eliminated over one or two parliaments and that severe cuts in public spending are necessary to reduce it. But there are signs that in growing numbers people are not being fooled.

The scandal around phone-hacking eventually blew up into a full-scale crisis for the Murdoch Empire. This is still running and a lot more unsavoury matter is sure to emerge. And the government is deeply mired in it. Consider some of the facts that have emerged and how the cumulative effects have impacted on the government, particularly on David Cameron.

He, like Blair before him, was keen to get as close as possible to Murdoch. He appointed Andy Coulson (former editor of the News of the World) as his director of communications. It was clear to anyone not willfully blind that this man was a devious charlatan. The fact that Cameron defended him as a close friend tells us much about the prime minister. Similarly, his friendship with Rebekah Brooks shows the same predilection for brutally ambitious people of very dubious character. These are the people Cameron chooses as friends and political associates, and it is the political association that is crucial. They have both been arrested by the Metropolitan Police and are at present on bail.  The former treasurer and deputy chairman of the Tory party, Baron Ashcroft, is the 37th richest man in Britain with a personal fortune of £1.1 billion. A close friend of Foreign Secretary William Hague, he did not pay tax in the UK on his overseas earnings. His main business operations are in the Commonwealth country of Belize, where he admits that his interests have been ”exempt from certain taxes for 30 years.”  Now comes the Cruddas affair, just the latest in a line of scandals revealing the close association between the political elite and their super-rich friends and associates, many of whose operations seem to be clearly criminal.

 New Labour was locked into the same type of associations. Blair was (and is) notoriously prone to associate with the wealthiest and most powerful people. He has now joined their ranks. Miliband’s failure to break decisively with New Labour’s tarnished heritage is one factor in Labour’s inability to provide a serious opposition to the Tory–led coalition. There is widespread and growing dissatisfaction with all three of the biggest mainstream political parties in Britain. Amongst young people, particularly young working class people from all ethnic backgrounds, there is anger and resentment about lack of jobs and opportunities, about the prohibitive cost of higher education – in short, about a future without hope. And this is the crisis - for which the Westminster political establishment has neither solution nor comprehension - that exploded at the Bradford West by-election.

There has been a lot of commentary on George Galloway’s sensational victory at Bradford West. Much of it has been hot air; much, tendentious. It has been argued that this was a one-off result, that it was due entirely to unscrupulous pandering to the Muslim electorate. Galloway has been attacked from both left and right. He has over the years made many enemies, and, indeed, there is much in his political career that is, to say the least, less than admirable. But let us look at what happened.

Bradford West was considered a safe Labour seat. The Labour majority was more than 5.000. In the by-election, 18.341 votes were cast for Galloway; 8.201 for the Labour candidate, Hussain. The coalition parties, Tory and Lib Dem polled 4.251 votes, a mere 13%. Galloway’s majority was over 10.000. He polled more than all the other candidates combined, taking a larger share of the vote than in any by-election since 1945. Cutting through all the excuses and all the sour grapes from his opponents, the most telling comment was made by Guardian economics columnist, Larry Elliott, who, referring to Galloway’s opposition to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, commented that the result was “not really about the failed war against the Taliban; it is about the failed war against poverty.” Youth unemployment in Bradford is twice Britain’s national average, which puts it over 40%. Incomes in Bradford are lower than the average of the UK and the EU. The Labour council has implemented £67 million of cuts in the city and slashed over 1000 jobs.

Although Galaway’s larger-than-life personality was obviously a factor in this result, it cannot satisfactorily explain the scale of his victory. While it would be rash to rush to conclusions that could turn out to be wrong, something very serious may be stirring in the most deprived regions of Britain, particularly amongst the young. Surprisingly, it seems that very large numbers of Muslim women who have never voted before, turned out to vote for Galloway. It remains to be seen whether the Respect party, or other marginal groups will be able to repeat results like this. Until now, groups to the left of the Labour party have, with very few exceptions, when they have chosen to contest elections, failed to make any impact at all. This may now be changing. If it is, it will be a very welcome. The sooner the sclerotic practice of Westminster parliamentary politics is shaken out of its complacency, the better.

BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES: The “Essential Relationship” and Lost Wars

What is the point of David Cameron’s visit to Washington? Is there any point to it at all? The most banal explanation might be that it is reward for the razzamatazz and royal junketing  that so bedazzled Barack and Michele Obama on their visit to London in 2010. In return, the prime minister, despite not being a head of state, received the grandest welcome in Washington accorded any leader this year: a ride in Air Force One, a 19 gun salute, an official reception on the south lawn of the White House and a state banquet. Cameron must have felt he had upstaged Tony Blair on his famous visits to G.W. Bush. This visit, if we are to believe the official propaganda accompanying it, was to further consolidate (yet again) what is now referred to as the “essential relationship.”  

In an op ed for the Washington Post on 13 March, the two leaders treated those who could be bothered to read it to their thoughts on the subject.  And, as always when the “special” or “essential” relationship comes up, they started with World War II. Anyone anticipating the string of platitudes, half-truths and untruths that frequently passes for serious thought on this subject, would have found themselves on familiar ground. Nevertheless, it is still astonishing that such tendentious drivel can find its way into print. In an opening turn of phrase that may be intended subliminally to recall Lincoln at Gettysburg, we are told that “Seven decades ago, as our forces began to turn the tide of World War II, Prime Minister Churchill traveled to Washington to coordinate our joint efforts.” In what follows the impression is created that World War II was won by the United States and Great Britain, and that the alliance between the two countries is the foundation upon which “the institutions that undergird international peace and security” rest. “We count on each other”, and, we are told, “the world counts on our alliance.” Grandiose, heroic stuff!  Tedious though it is to have to do so because the historical facts are so well known, these claims must be subjected to elementary scrutiny.

If we take the claims about what “our forces” were doing seven decades ago literally, we are talking about March 1942. Far from having begun to “turn the tide of war” the US and Britain faced serious reverses in the Pacific and the far-east and there wasn’t a single US soldier yet in Europe or North Africa. The biggest reversal the Axis powers suffered was at the hands of the Red Army, who, in December 1941 stopped the Wehrmacht’s advance before Moscow – the first serious set-back for the Nazis. And, in January 1942 the first declaration of the newly proclaimed “United Nations” was issued on behalf of 26 national signatories led by the U.S., the U.K and the USSR. Despite the onset of hostilities following Japanese aggression in the Pacific, during 1942 it was clearly recognized by all the combatants that by far the greatest contribution to securing the eventual defeat of the Axis powers was the titanic struggle being waged by the Soviet Union. It is true that Britain stood alone against Nazi Germany from June 1940 to June 1941. If first Britain and then the Soviet Union (June-December 1941) had not survived the blitzkrieg assaults against them, the outcome of World War II would have been very different. And, if we take October 1942 - February 1943 as a more realistic date for “our forces” turning the tide against the Axis, then two decisive battles stand out: El Alamein (October ’42) and Stalingrad (February 43). In terms of the strategic balance of power, Stalingrad was by far the more important. Churchill and Roosevelt were outstanding war leaders. They did not always see eye-to-eye, particularly over what Roosevelt regarded, not without reason, as Churchill’s determination to preserve the British Empire. They both recognized Stalin as an outstanding war leader, and often Roosevelt seemed more sympathetic to Stalin than he did to Churchill. This was not lost on the later cold warriors in the United States, who accused him of selling out to Stalin at Yalta.  

In 1942 the western allies assured their Soviet ally that they would open a second front in Europe that year. It didn’t happen. It was then promised for 1943, but again postponed. Finally the second front was opened on D.Day, June 6 1944, which meant that the Soviet Union had faced the full force of Germany’s heaviest divisions for three years without respite, at a cost, by the end of hostilities in May 1945, of 25 million dead. “Our Soviet ally” too played a not insignificant part in securing the victory over Nazi Germany, though more often than not this is conveniently forgotten.

The perpetuation of myths about World War II has since about 1947 rested on the pretence  that the war against Nazism was won by the British and the Americans. Almost every film about that war has, in one way or another, contributed to the myth. Accordingly, the French and the Italians were liberated by the Anglo-Americans and the peoples of Eastern Europe were enslaved by the Russians. World War II saw the birth of the convenient myth of the “special relationship”, or an “essential relationship” between Britain and the United States. This is a pretence that both sides find it convenient to preserve. Prior to the war Britain was able, despite its waning economic power and its increasingly tenuous hold over the peoples of its far-flung empire, to maintain the claim to be a “great power.” The loss of its empire after 1945 reduced Britain to the status of a second-rate European state dependent, like the rest of Western Europe, on the USA for Marshall Aid. But delusions of imperial grandeur die hard. The post-war Labour government soon opted to side with the USA against Soviet Russia in the developing “cold war”. The claim to world power status as its empire broke up in the rising tide of colonial independence could be maintained by acquiring the atomic bomb. France later took the same decision for similar reasons.

The pretence of an “essential relationship” with the USA has enabled the British ruling classes to distance themselves from the countries of continental Europe. The right wing hostility to the E.U. is coupled with a sentimental Atlanticism. Admiration of the USA as a world super-power, peddled constantly in the Tory press, is also a form of nostalgia for the lost “English-speaking empire”. It is obvious that in this relationship – which is not a partnership - the UK is the subordinate member. In their article Obama and Cameron write: “As leading economies, we’re coordinating with our G8 and G20 partners to put our people back to work.” In the ranking of leading world economies based on GDP, the UK has just been displaced from sixth place by Brazil. The UK is still in recession; there is no economic recovery. In spite of the crisis in the Eurozone, both Germany and France rank above the UK among leading world economies. Though it is seldom stated so bluntly, the value to the U.S. of the “essential relationship” is that Britain’s political leaders can almost always be relied upon to support the U.S in whatever military action its leaders choose to take. Thus, in recent times, Blair stood “shoulder to shoulder” with G.W. Bush in the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. The consequences of both invasions have been disastrous.

Following 9/11 GW Bush, supported by Blair, launched “the war on terror”. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have taken the lives of countless thousands – mainly Afghanis and Iraqis. In Iraq the result has been to replace a tyrannical regime with an unstable, dysfunctional one, subservient to western corporations and oil companies and riven by tribal and religious sectarianism.

Afghanistan is proving even more intractable than Iraq. Nearly 200 years of experience of foreign colonial interventions seem to have taught the British, US and other Nato powers nothing. The 11 year long Soviet occupation might have provided a few lessons for anyone interested in the recent history of the place, but it seems that no-one was interested in studying it. Obama and Cameron write blithely: “As the largest contributors to the international mission in Afghanistan, we’re proud of the progress our troops have made but, as recent days remind us, this remains a difficult mission. We honour the profound sacrifices of our forces and in their name we will carry on the mission.” Of what do recent days remind them?

A week ago six British soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb in Helmand province. Their deaths were treated as a national tragedy. There was a packed memorial service for them at Halifax Minster.  A few days later a US serviceman murdered 16 Afghan civilians, shooting men women and children as they slept. This follows many often unreported incidents of British and US troops gratuitously torturing and killing Afghan civilians. Such things were common in Iraq. Thousands of Afghan civilians have been killed over the past eleven years. Their names are unknown, their deaths unremarkable. Wars of this kind always give rise to such atrocities. And the folks back home are seldom encouraged to consider them. Those who commit them are “our boys”, or, as The Sun newspaper likes to describe them “our heroes”. When such incidents do come to light because they are so horrendous that they cannot easily be covered up, the perpetrators are said to be mentally unstable and their acts are treated as isolated incidents. But the unpalatable truth is that all wars dehumanize those involved in them. Colonial-type wars such as those in Iraq and Afghanistan encourage and cultivate racism directed against the people whose countries are occupied. And now, with the war so obviously lost, it looks as though the “essential allies” in Nato’s “international mission” in Afghanistan are likely to reap the whirlwind of fury that will surely rise against them. When the “Nato mission” is forced to withdraw, which is now likely to be long before 2014 – the corrupt Karzai regime is unlikely to survive for very long. Karzai will probably be overthrown by his own army. The long-suffering people of Afghanistan will continue to suffer under whatever type of government replaces his. It will not be enlightened or democratic, but at least it will not be the puppet of foreign invaders.

MURDOCH’S MEDIA EMPIRE: Power and Corruption.

Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is the most powerful media group in the world. For more than a year, its British arm, News International, which publishes four newspapers in this country including the best-selling tabloid, The Sun, has been engulfed in a corruption scandal with revelations that have become more lurid by the day.  The paper at the centre of the storm was the News of the World, a Sunday tabloid which like its sister daily The Sun, was famous for peddling sensationalism and salacious gossip. By July of last year irrefutable evidence of phone-hacking on an industrial scale by NofW journalists made earlier attempts to deny such practices impossible to sustain. The evidence pointed to criminality at editorial and management level at News International. Murdoch summarily shut the paper down. NI’s CEO and Murdoch favourite, Rebekah Brooks – a former editor of NofW - was forced to resign. Shortly afterwards she was arrested by the Metropolitan Police on suspicion of conspiring to conceal evidence of phone-hacking. Her close colleague, Andy Coulson, another former NofW editor and later director of communications for prime minister David Cameron, had earlier been arrested for the same reason. Both remain on police bail.  Murdoch’s son James resigned last week as chairman of News International.

In recent weeks the story has become even more engrossing. Failure by the Met to properly investigate the original evidence of large-scale phone-hacking unearthed by investigative journalists at The Guardian newspaper,  pointed to collusion by the police in the criminality at NI. The police were being paid for confidential information. The evidence pointing in this direction was so persuasive as to make plausible denial impossible. This was explosive stuff with the potential to seriously damage the government. Coulson had been appointed by Cameron as communications director for the Tory party and Brooks was a friend, neighbour and riding companion of the prime minister. Top level police officers were forced to resign over the scandal. Clearly, any new police investigation had to be conducted by people who were untarnished by association with Murdoch’s minions. Three such investigations, operations Weeting, Elveden and Tuleta are now under way into allegations of phone hacking, inappropriate payments to the police and computer hacking. They show every sign of being genuinely independent. Also, last July, an inquiry chaired by Lord Justice Leveson was established to investigate the culture, practice and ethics of the British press. The Leveson inquiry is also under way.

The corporate owners of most of the British press show distinct signs of unease at the proceedings of the police and Leveson inquiries. News International has no choice but to co-operate fully with the investigations and Murdoch felt obliged last year to establish through News Corp an independent Management and Standards Committee (MSC) which would supply the police with all the evidence in their possession. So far 300 million email messages have been handed over. However, Trevor Kavanagh, associate editor of The Sun, appeared incandescent with rage at the arrest in January of 5 (now 10 since November) of its journalists and executives on suspicion of bribery and phone-hacking. Laying claim to the moral high ground – a territory rather unfamiliar to The Sun – he sought to depict the journalists as martyrs in the cause of press freedom, persecuted for buying a policeman a drink. He railed against the MSC and News Corp, in effect accusing Murdoch of providing the noose to hang Britain’s best selling newspaper.  But, in a brilliant piece of timing, the octogenarian tycoon turned up in London to announce that The Sun would also rise on Sunday. A “new” paper, bearing the same name as the daily, was launched with the same editor and some of the same staff. It replaces the lost and lamented News of the World. On its launch last Sunday sales were more than 3 million. But this has not turned News International’s winter of discontent into glorious summer nor is it likely to do so. At best it might have provided a brief break in the lowering clouds.

At the end of February developments at the Leveson inquiry took a dramatic turn. Since it started its deliberations a succession of witnesses have given damning testimony about their treatment at the hands of unscrupulous, intrusive reporters for whom ethical standards did not exist. For the first time a spotlight was shone on the grubby and amoral world of much that passes for journalism in the tabloid papers. But now, the self-serving, specious defense presented by people like Kavanagh was blown out of the water. Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sue Akers, clearly angered by the suggestion that the arrests of Sun journalists had been unnecessary and vindictive as they had supposedly done little or nothing wrong, quietly but decisively demolished their defense. Referring to the millions of emails her team is examining, she said that at the beginning of the investigation it was already clear that these were not cases of Sun reporters buying public officials the “odd drink or meal”, but the payment of “regular, frequent and sometimes significant sums of money.” There was a “culture of illegal payments at The Sun at senior level.” The police were now investigating “a network of corrupt officials” in many walks of public life. Such payments were made, not for important information that, it could be argued, was in the public interest, but for stories that amounted to no more than “salacious gossip”. Furthermore, such payments, obviously authorized at management, level were known to be illegal because an internal payment system was used in order to hide the identity of the recipients.

Of great significance is the information contained in Akers’s testimony about an internal NI email clearly indicating that Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks, both former editors of the News of the World, knew about the extent of phone-hacking at the paper in 2006, though both have stated publicly since then that they had no such knowledge at the time.

These are still early days and so far we have seen only the tip of the iceberg. It might be thought that Murdoch’s media empire is sinking in a swamp of corruption. Last year, before this scandal broke, his seemingly unstoppable bid to take full control of BSkyB, was almost certain to have been waved through by culture secretary Jeremy Hunt. But it was stopped dead in its tracks through a rare parliamentary cross-party unity opposed to the bid.  Now, in view of the damning evidence against NofW , the Tories, who had been happy to appease Murdoch, could no longer regard him as a “fit and proper” person to be granted even more power over the British media than he already possessed. This was a serious set-back for the tycoon. However, it would be naïve to imagine that a global enterprise such as New Corp is likely to be brought down by the hacking and bribery scandal, however sensational it may seem in Britain. Reference is frequently made to the global reach of Murdoch’s media empire, but the details seldom receive much attention. It is worth considering them.

The revenue from newspapers accounts for only $6.1bn (18.6%) of News Corp’s $32.7 billion global revenue. Nevertheless, Murdoch owns 150 national and local papers in the country of his birth, Australia. Among his US and Canadian titles are The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. His European titles (mainly in the UK) amount to $1.6bn, merely 4.9% of the global revenue. Harper Collins publishing is worth $1.3bn.

News Corp’s largest source of revenue lies in film and electronic media, with the biggest concentration in the United States. Filmed entertainment, with 10 companies including 20^th Century Fox, and Fox 2000 Pictures accounts for $7.6bn. Cable networks include the Fox news channel, the Fox Business Network, 8 Fox network channels and 19 international channels, bringing another $7bn in revenue. A further $4.2bn comes from other Fox TV outlets in the U.S. such as the Fox Broadcasting Company, My network TV and Fox Sports.com. There are another 27 Fox stations.

Then there is a further $3.8bn from Satellite TV, including Sky Italia, Sky Deutschland (45%), BSkyB (39%), Tata Sky (20%) and Foxtel (25%). The New Digital Media group accounts for another $2.7bn.

It is sometimes claimed that Rupert Murdoch has a sentimental attachment to newsprint dating from his first business ventures. His surprise launch of the Sun on Sunday is seen as evidence that he will not abandon Wapping, the home of News International. But when it comes to protecting his global interests, Murdoch is a hard-headed business man, not a sentimentalist. Less than 5% of News Corp’s global revenue comes from his British newspapers. For many years his malign influence has corrupted successive governments in this country and dragged the standards of an already prostituted tabloid journalism from the gutter to the sewer. His influence over the political establishment has evaporated. No-one with any sense will dare to be associated with him, despite the fact that the ineffable education secretary, Michael Gove, apparently remains infatuated.

There is a respect in which Murdoch and others like him who seek “to bestride the narrow world” like colossi, resemble the fascist dictators of the 20^th century. They seek to dominate all who oppose them and to extend their empires as far as they can. They cannot accept defeat. Murdoch knows now that the ongoing investigations by the Metropolitan police and the Leveson inquiry will throw up ever more damning evidence of criminality by journalists and senior staff at News International. He has not attempted to deny that such criminality was practiced at the News of the World and The Sun. In saying, as he has, that such practices belong to the past, he admits that they occurred. His concern now must be that News Corp may face prosecution in the United States under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Should this happen the company, if found guilty, would face hundreds of millions in fines. The longer he continues to publish the tabloid titles that are under investigation, the more difficult it will be for him to extricate the parent company, News Corp, from the consequences of their criminality.

If he decides that it is in his best interests to jettison the 4.9% of News Corp’s revenue to protect the 95.1% of his global empire, he will either sell off or close down his U.K newspapers. It could well come to that sooner than many may imagine.