Ed Miliband: Murdoch's spell has been broken
James Forsyth 10:00am
I have an interview with Ed Miliband in the latest issue of The Spectator, conducted
the evening before yesterday's Parliamentary debate on News Corp and BSkyB. Here's the whole thing for CoffeeHousers:
Rupert Murdoch’s hold on British politics has finally been broken. The politicians who competed to court him are now scrapping to see who can distance themselves fastest. As the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, says when we meet in his Commons office on Tuesday afternoon, ‘The spell has been broken this week and clearly it will never be the same again.’
Miliband and his staff have just heard that the government will support their motion calling for Murdoch to withdraw his bid for BSkyB. They are trying to contain their excitement, but their grins give them away. The press secretary, normally a nervous-looking soul, is beaming from ear to ear.
Their strategy, hatched late on Monday night, seems to have worked. They gambled that after the revelations of the past few days, no political leader would wish to be seen as supporting Murdoch. So if they used an Opposition Day debate to call a vote on the BSkyB bid, David Cameron would not dare to send MPs into the lobbies against it.
It all went according to plan: the Prime Minister is being left to play catch-up. The Labour leader sits on the sofa in the far corner of his office, leans back and, with a slightly bemused shake of the head, says that if a week ago somebody had mooted the idea of such a motion passing with all-party support, ‘I don’t think you would have believed that was possible.’
And he believes that this will stop News Corp in its tracks. ‘If the House of Commons speaks with one voice I think even Murdoch will find it hard to resist.’ It is not, he stresses, a personal feud. But he clearly has little admiration for Murdoch. ‘Nothing about what he has done or said, including his appearance with Rebekah Brooks, suggests that in any sense he has grasped the magnitude of public anger and antipathy towards what he has done. In the end, large concentrations of power can lead to abuses of power — and I think that’s what has happened in this case.’
His point is not so much about Murdoch owning a third of the newspapers bought in Britain, but about behaviour overall. ‘Where was these people’s sense of right and wrong? That’s what I keep asking myself. These are newspapers that preach responsibility, they go on about benefit cheats and irresponsibility — and then they were doing this.’
He is, however, particularly scathing about Murdoch’s failure to apologise personally. ‘He has never had to do that because that’s not what he does. They haven’t realised that the world has changed.’
This idea of the world having changed is central to what Miliband regards as the wider significance of this moment. In the 1980s, Murdoch’s newspapers were the great enemy of the Labour party. He was the strike-breaker, the promoter of Thatcher, the nemesis of Neil Kinnock. This experience, and in particular the Sun’s savaging of Kinnock in 1992, led Peter Mandelson, Tony Blair and even Gordon Brown to believe that courting Murdoch was crucial to winning power. But Miliband believes that this era is finally over.
As with many empires, the end might come quickly. Last week the Guardian revealed that a private detective hired by the News of the World had hacked into the voicemail of Milly Dowler. Sensing his moment, Miliband called for Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News International, to resign. It is a sign of how quickly things have changed that this then seemed risky. Several Labour MPs thought it foolhardy to pick a fight with such a vast media conglomerate. Miliband acknowledges that he told his staff beforehand that ‘the relationship with News International wouldn’t be the same again’. ‘We have got to be clear-eyed about that because I knew that wasn’t what [News International] wanted.’
He now says that Labour got its relationship with Murdoch’s media group wrong. ‘I take my share of responsibility as leader of the Labour party for the fact that [the change] was overdue.’ He concedes that he ‘clearly should have said more, earlier’ about phone hacking. Why, if he is so uncomfortable about ‘this concentration of power’ did he not take it on before? ‘It’s always hard to judge these moments because there’s always a worry in a politician’s mind. It’s not just about the relationships, there is always a worry in your mind, does this look self-serving? Is this about my worries about Gordon Brown or John Prescott or whoever it is being hacked?’
Some of the shock from Labour figures looks odd now. I ask why, if Gordon Brown was so outraged at the Sun publishing details of his son’s medical condition, he tried to befriend Brooks, the editor responsible?
‘Their ability to take revenge was seen as significant,’ he says. ‘In the Labour party there is a particular history, you know, about 1992 and so on.’
But Miliband believes Murdoch’s power had faded even by the Blair era. ‘We’d have won the election without the Sun in 1997.’
To Miliband, this desperate desire for the Sun’s endorsement was New Labour’s great sin. It left the party ‘too fearful of speaking out, particularly on issues like media regulation or the way the Press Complaints Commission worked’. And when the Sun stopped shining on Labour, party leaders still couldn’t move on these media issues: ‘If we did that, it will look like it’s just sour grapes because these people backed us before.’
Miliband argues that, precisely because of the power the press has had over politicians, the coming public inquiry into phone hacking should be as broad as possible. But who should give evidence to this Truth and Reconciliation Commission? I ask if former prime ministers should be summoned. ‘Former, and current,’ he replies. Blair and Brown, as well as John Major? ‘Absolutely.’
This is, of course, a winning issue for Miliband: it converts his perceived weaknesses into strengths. Unlike his brother David, he never had many friends in the media, and never really sought to acquire any. When I asked him if he was courted by the Murdochs, he laughs and says, ‘I haven’t noticed!’ The closest he got was discussing climate change with James Murdoch. But that and the odd drinks party — including last month’s News International bash in London — were about as far as his ties with them went. It was never, he says, ‘a sweetheart relationship’. The Times and the Sunday Times both supported his brother for the Labour leadership, and both have been sharply critical of him.
Miliband argues that Cameron ‘allowed himself to get too close’ to News International and that explains his ‘terrible mistake’ in hiring Andy Coulson. When I put it to him that he may have a comparable problem in his strategy director Tom Baldwin, who played a key role in the Times’s controversial investigation of Lord Ashcroft, he is dismissive. ‘Tom did not commission an illegal private investigation on Lord Ashcroft. It is a total throwing around of mud.’ With frustration in his voice, he declares that this is ‘a total smokescreen and so far from being the issue’.
Interestingly, he fears that the Prime Minister, having been too close to newspapers, will now go too far in the other direction — ending the independence of the British press by pushing for statutory regulation. Miliband says that his instincts ‘continue to be for self-regulation of the press’.
This position might be sincere but it is also strategic. It guarantees him a hearing among journalists keen to see off the threat of a new regulator. He is clear that ‘this isn’t a crusade against the press’.
There’s undoubtedly something different about Miliband now: more swagger, more conviction. His adept handling of this crisis and his successful parliamentary gamble have shaken the confidence of the Tories. Being the first party leader to take on Murdoch and threaten to win is no mean feat. But can he keep it up? He wonders if this current drama will turn out to be just ‘a couple of weeks when the world looks like it has turned upside down and then the world goes back to normal and everybody is like, what was all that fuss about?’
If that is the case, then the high point of his leadership passed with the Murdoch vote on Wednesday. But if the world has changed, then Miliband’s fortunes have turned.
Previous
DavidDP
July 14th, 2011 10:19am Report this commentPersonally, I think effectively trying to give Parliament a veto over business transactions is a massive step backwards.
I would have been interested in his answer to the question as to what he thinks, say, of a situation where a British company attempting a merger in China is prevented from doing so because the Chinese government decided it didn't like the company and so stepped in and stopped it.
Or even his answer to a more probing question to the role of Tom Baldwin.
Frankly, this is such an appallingly bad interview that you might as well have given it to Johan Hari to do.
michael
July 14th, 2011 10:24am Report this comment"continuing to be for self regulation of the press"
Miliband, self proclaimed nemesis of Murdoch, sucking up to the beleaguered remnants -
...what a chancer.
Liz Brown
July 14th, 2011 10:42am Report this commentSo the lefties and the Biased Broadcasting Company have won the fight to keep the leftie show on the road. Britian desperately needs an alterntative to the propoganda that infest British public life - we are fed a never edning tissue of lies regarding all things pertaining to the dire situation that the Tories inherited, propoganda regarding EUSSR, immigration and climate change to name but a few. Where will that voice now come from
As to the Millipede, I can't be bothered
Nicholas
July 14th, 2011 10:48am Report this commentI don't think there is anything especially earth-shattering about the passing of the motion. It just reflects the continuous leftwards shift of the centre ground, the capitulation of what should be the Right to the Left and the fact that the government are dancing to the opposition tune in the same way that they danced to the government tune when they were in opposition. Clumsy, wrong-footed and on the back foot constantly. They are the Left's scapegoat and their craven efforts at appeasement represent a general approach to their enemies. Can't fight, won't fight but maybe they'll get brownie points from people who hate them. The only strength and resolution they ever show is in betraying their friends and sacking their own members for crimes against political correctness.
As long as the Right continue to invest in spineless, wet, left-leaning metrosexuals to lead them, on the basis of sucking up to a perceived dominance of a left of centre position, these capitulations will continue.
Murdoch's back might have been broken but what or who is going to break the back of the leftist dead weight stifling this country in lies, deceit and propaganda and which Cameron and Co appear to have bought into, lock, stock and barrel?
dorothy wilson
July 14th, 2011 10:54am Report this commentAs I've posted before, little Milliminor will meet himself coming back one of these days.
But the danger in the immediate future is that he will try to use what has happened with NI to distance himself from anything Labour did in the past - including the mess they made of the economy.
pottsy
July 14th, 2011 11:15am Report this commentNicholas,
'Can't fight, won't fight but maybe they'll get brownie points from people who hate them.'
These rabid lefties are incapable of giving any credit to Conservatives. They hate us, we're the scapegoats they need to inflate their self-righteousness.
starfish
July 14th, 2011 11:22am Report this commentThis is complete rubbish
A minor skirmish at the start of the campaign that is to come
Most of the print media is implicated
NewsCorps has plenty of embarrassing information about persons in public life - don't be surpised if it emerges, starting at next weeks Culture Committee I suspect
People I know don't think this is as huge an issue as, for example, MPs' expenses or the huge indebtedness of the country
Lord Livermore could potentially end The Lobby - that would be a good start
Politicos think they have won the battle - the war hasn't even started. How will the media behave once it is no longer being spoonfed through they Lobby system and by SPADs etc. No more 'off the record' briefings, no more 'sources close to' .
And Millipede's hands are far from clean (wasn't he part of the Brown inner circle or did I dream that?)
daniel maris
July 14th, 2011 11:33am Report this commentWhat is this nonsense about Parliament not being able to compel the Murdochs to attend? If they are in this country, of course Parliament can compel them to attend. Parliament could order they be detained and brought to the House.
Never heard such nonsense in my life.
Are people seriously suggesting someone could live in this country, subvert its constitution, harrass its citizens and never be subject to parliament's will simply because they were say Spanish
or Irish or Lithuanian?
Why doesn't that berk Bercow do his job and remind Parliament of its true powers?
Clear Memories
July 14th, 2011 11:46am Report this commentWell done Parliament, you might have rid us of the disgusting influence of the print media.
Now show your real guts and set about the BBC - thats where the real anti-democratic, anti-british activity is really concentrated.
Simon Stephenson.
July 14th, 2011 11:55am Report this commentWhat a pile of ****!
With every breath, every carefully constructed assertion, he oozes double-standards. Every perceived wrong committed outside his Party is consider as a fault or weakness directly attributable to the individual or organisation concerned, yet when he has no option but to concede that he, or his Party, may not have been up to the mark, everything's dealt with in the abstract, at arms length, as though he's someone in 100 years' time giving an historical lecture.
This type of approach might go down well with the clowns who do no more than follow a banner, but it is nauseating in the extreme to those who expect a potential Prime Minister to discuss the issues, not just that part of them which will be to Party advantage.
"He is, however, particularly scathing about Murdoch's failure to apologise personally. 'He has never had to do that because that's not what he does'""
Great God almighty! When was the last time we heard a personal apology from anyone in the Labour Party for anything for which it was responsible? Tony Blair, for example. He may have said that the loss of life in Iraq was regrettable, or even that he regrets it, but has he ever said that he is sorry for what he did to bring about what has happened. Has Gordon Brown, or Ed Balls, or even Miliband Minor himself, ever said to the British people that they are sorry for the things they got wrong during their period in power, and that they are sorry for the unnecessary hardships that will be experienced by people in the future because of Labour's incompetence and misjudgements, or the misfiring of its Machiavellian attempt to impose big-State socialism upon the people of this country, against their will?
"In the end, large concentrations of power can lead to abuses of power - and I think that's what happened in this case"
This "large concentration of power" was allowed to fester away, unchecked, even encouraged, throughout the entire Labour government from 1997 to 2009. Was this in any way because this "abuse of power" was at that time supportive of Labour, may I ask? Is there a credible reason other than this that isn't at the same time applicable to the present Government's hesitancy to take action against the abuse?
"He now says that Labour got its relationship with Murdoch’s media group wrong. ‘I take my share of responsibility as leader of the Labour party for the fact that [the change] was overdue.’ He concedes that he ‘clearly should have said more, earlier’ about phone hacking."
Responsibility for something being overdue? Isn't this just a weaselly euphemism to avoid having to say that he was too lily-livered to do anything before the opportunity came along to do so without having to be courageous?
With people like this as our leaders, it's really no wonder that so many have become so disenchanted with how our society is governed.
ollie
July 14th, 2011 12:16pm Report this commentThere's nothing I hate more than seeing a lightweight given credibility!
Dimoto
July 14th, 2011 12:17pm Report this commentWe have had a bellyfull of this vacuous little prat, from the BBC etc. over the past two weeks.
Why would the Spectator want to inflict yet more of his witterings (and the deputy-prime-minister-cum-establishment-fighter, the ever more ridiculous Nick Clegg), on us ?
These journos are just permanently up their own fundaments !
Simon Templar
July 14th, 2011 12:28pm Report this commentBoy, you Tories are really rattled by this aren't you? Cameron's looking increasingly incompetent during this affair. Fair play to Miliband
Archibald
July 14th, 2011 12:42pm Report this commentPlease God, can the Spectator stop spectating, come off the sidelines and start losing friends? The story has been so anti-Murdoch everywhere I am starting to despair. Let me be clear – I don't doubt for one second that there's been some dreadful behaviour that needs to be investigated and punished.
BUT, politicians on both sides have effectively colluded with the press to create this situation, and are now trying to portray themselves as brave victims. They cannot - MUST NOT - be allowed to get away with it. One very large part of the public anger has virtually no voice as politicians run around praising themselves for taking such action (AFTER the matter was brought to light by the press itself and civil actions by private individuals).
A week ago, Fraser toasted the Spectator and mentioned the absence of any party line and 'cash-strength' opinion. I assume he meant cask-strength, so in the words of Norwich's favourite cooking-brandy soaked lady: WHERE ARE YOU? LET'S BE 'AVING YOU!
Archibald
July 14th, 2011 1:32pm Report this commentSimon Templar
What is increasingly depressing is that, in the light of a scandal so huge that paints every party in a bad light (many would argue the last Labour government especially) as they've clambered over themselves to get in to bed with Murdoch, spinning their various lines to the public, utterly convinced that our weak printed press has some sort of influence in this multi-media age. What's depressingly about that is, so many people like yourself are so brain-washed to party politics, you can take any news of such great importance and twist it in your head to be reds versus blues. We all know there are Islamic fundamentalists out there, but Tory ones and Labour ones? Crikey.
Baron
July 14th, 2011 2:02pm Report this commentThe millipede said ‘the spell has been broken this week and clearly it will never be the same again,” then he woke up.
Simon Stephenson.
July 14th, 2011 2:02pm Report this commentArchibald 12.42pm
I completely agree. However, I think there's one further thought that needs to be addressed here, and that is the extent to which the democratic arrangements in this country cause the political class to behave in the sub-standard way of which they are accused. I wrote on Alex Massie's blog yesterday (*) how descriptive his words were of the British mainstream - dismissive of good faith, unduly contemptuous, little or no regard for due process, unable to recognise the distinction between the truly guilty and the relatively blameless.
The clarion call is always that our elected representatives ought to be able to rise above this cerebral mediocrity, but at the same time they are under enormous pressure from the ignorant to accede to the nonsenses that are being demanded of them. Moreover, as things stand, the level of ignorance, and the degree to which self-preservation causes it to be unchallengeable, makes it impossible to correct these nonsenses, or even to counter them effectively.
The putting of the house in order must start with the people, I think.
*
http://www.spectator.co.uk/alexmassie/7095725/cameron-cuts-himself-free.thtml
Archibald
July 14th, 2011 2:04pm Report this commentJames Forsyth
It's just not good enough to let him off the hook so easily, letting him say the spell has been broken and that the public inquiry needs to be broad. It's not even close to good enough. 13 years of nothing, Brown's drivel, the fact that this has been forced by civil actions and the Guardian - especially given he claims that the so-called 'power' of Murdoch was weakened by Blair's era.
The real story here is, were there any conditions on your interview? Did he ask to see questions, or did any of his team? We saw much of this was attempted by his people only a matter of days ago, for the horrific video where he repeated himself. This centralized, PR based attempt at control (by all parties) and the offer of interviews that imply conditions is precisely what has brought us to this place.
Perhaps you can advise us if this was the case here, or did you simply not want to upset him with any hard questions, in case he didn't speak to you again for a bit?
Baron
July 14th, 2011 2:13pm Report this commentWhat DavidDP says should worry us, and worry a lot, in the current worldwide economic environment competition for funds, hence jobs will be fierce, the behaviour of the House vis-à-vis the merger ain’t the signal we want the business community to receive, it’s indeed reminiscent of he worst behaviour of a totalitarian set-up, no law has been broken, the individuals who did wrong should be picked up, punished if found guilty, to kick the business itself is bad, very bad.
And what Liz Brown and Nicholas say.
normanc
July 14th, 2011 2:16pm Report this commentSimon Templar may I ask where you've been during the last year?
At what point in the last year has Cameron appeared competent?
I honestly can't think of one time (and I don't mean besting Ed in PMQ's but actual policy and shaping events rather than being shaped by them) where his performance has been anything other than dreadful: from his handling of Coulson, to the string of u-turns, to his toothless bluster on the EU / ECHR, no growth, higher taxes, higher inflation - everything points to, at best, mediocrity.
Gove's schools program and the genesis of IDS's reforms (although still years away from the point you can say something has been acheived) are about it as far as positives go and neither of those bear his fingerprints so they may escape his Jonah touch.
Rob.C
July 14th, 2011 3:03pm Report this commentCameron, Milliband or Clegg......Where did it all go wrong for this once great country.....
Sir Everard Digby
July 14th, 2011 3:47pm Report this commentDear me, I thought I was reading an extract from a Tolkien novel.That would however have probably been more entertaining. Milliband waxes mythical -God help us.
He has avoided the blindingly obvious -the political classes will:
a)frame the agenda for the enquiry
b)select the judge
c)be the jury
e)get to see the findings before anyone else.
f) will also be guilty of some of the crimes being investigated.
g) have had contact with the defendents
h) have been accomplices to the crimes
Do explain what 'magic' is at work here Ed?
Seems like the same old dark arts to me.
Archibald
July 14th, 2011 4:30pm Report this commentSimon Stephenson,
Agreed - as I've said elsewhere, perhaps the real lesson to be learned is that the great British public ain't that great after all, and that we get the press and politicians we deserve. We must have all been very bad in a past life.
In my view, again expressed elsewhere on this site, politicians have become so obsessed with the success of their own party that they would rather see governments of any opposing colour fail than cooperate for the greater good. As parties have converged closer together on the centre ground with policies often so similar that few of the electorate can tell the difference between them, we've not seen a growth of consensual politics where people discuss what is in the greater good, rather the parties have gone 'spinning' out of control. Parties keep such tight control on what their politicians can say they seem to be terrified that the public can't understand discussions within a party, never mind between parties. More and more often, career politicians are forced upon us from various central offices, rather than a local voice for the people of a constituency.
It's against this backdrop of this centralizing of party power and the desperate grasping for control over the political dialogue than we've seen this scandal unfold - I think parties have been so obsessed with their own messages that they've completely ignored press antics, and we'd be ignorant to them still if not for the press themselves and civil action. The printed press have been a useful tool to parties who have vastly over-estimated their power over the British people. And here we are. What a mess. Maybe it's time for the mother of all parliaments to grow up.
Verity
July 14th, 2011 4:45pm Report this commentDavid DP 10:19. Excellent! Well-argued.
Frankly, I think the power of the British state is becoming fearsome enough to encourage mass emigration of professionals and job creators.
Verity
July 14th, 2011 5:13pm Report this commentRob C - Where did it all go wrong for Britain? I think it started with the very bizarre Edward Heath.
Tony and Cherie, Alastair Campbell and their foul coterie (with a cast of thousands of spiteful, malice-filled, drooling lefties - and some bizarrely complicit "righties") followed, and pulled the tumbril towards national self-annihilation steadily along.
For some puzzling reason, other than Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit, everyone seemed to fear this rag tag and bobtail of malice-filled destructors. How could anyone be weak enough to fear Tony Blair or his doppelganger Alastair Campbell? They could have been sneered into oblivion.
A small but pertinent point - why did the government accept the destructive EU rule, proposed by Cherie, that people who wanted "sex changes" (which is itself a misnomer, as you cannot change your DNA), should get new, lying birth certificates certifying that it was a baby girl, not a baby boy as had previously been thought, who had been born to Mr and Mrs Bloggs?
Permission for officials to lie and alter records. A very dangerous slope ... now well-populated with lying officials.
A puzzle.
We needed someone strong in office to pick them apart in public, but the Tory Party nudged David Davis away. The brave soldier Norman Tebbit had increasingly little time to devote to national politics as he cared for his wife.
No one stepped into the breach.
This has been sinister and bizarre 30 years, and it has been directed at the destruction of Britain by the left (I include Cameron in this category) , who the citizenry have allowed to triumph. Why? Inertia? Fear of bullying by jumped up officials more like ... hospital and town hall officials who refuse to proceed with a query unless an indigenous Brit fills in the space headed: Race.
godot
July 15th, 2011 3:45am Report this commentGimme a break! Ed Miliband was quickest on the trigger regarding the potential political capital to be made from the NOTW scandal. He was at Rupert's Summer Party a few weeks ago, happy to be mingling with the NI power brokers. Really, not much difference between politicians and media types.
Major Plonquer 1
July 15th, 2011 4:23am Report this commentEd Miliband is certainly showing that he has a nose for politics.
LibertarianLou
July 15th, 2011 9:47am Report this comment" Where will that voice now come from"
The Daily Telegraph, the Times, the Sun, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Spectator...
LibertarianLou
July 15th, 2011 9:48am Report this commentHaha I think I enjoyed Simon Stephenson's post more than the article.. maybe he should get a column on here ;-)
Simon Stephenson.
July 15th, 2011 11:04am Report this commentLibertarianLou : 9.48am
Nice words - thank you.
Do you know what would need to happen before I would even think about moving my writing above the comment level? I'd need to be confident that I wasn't operating mentally at a level below that which has come by natural selection to be the thinking quality of the decision-makers who really matter. I'd need to know that these decision-makers, whose reasons often seem to me, and to many others, incomprehensible and/or flawed, have not experienced my level of thinking, but have seen its shortcomings and discarded it for the next step up. I'd need to know that the pathway to the decision-makers' level of thinking has not passed through mine. I have to know that I am not asserting the superiority of the results of a pattern of thinking which is logical, sharp and sometimes persuasive, but which is fatally autistic, in that it lacks the extra dimension which would makes the revised package intellectually usable.
The idea that my thinking could be as futile to society as that of a barrack-room lawyer holds me back from seeking the authority to move my ideas from advisory to operational. Of course, 58 years in the left field can only do wonders for ones self-doubt, and not much for ones self-esteem, so the hope remains that all is not lost.
D Short
July 21st, 2011 11:06am Report this commentOne can have absolutely no respect for a man willing to fawn over RM at his summer party, but once he feels the enemy no longer has power suddenly has principled objections and yells 'yah boo sucks!', thinking there is impunity.
Let's not forget this Miliband is just some spoiled brat from Marxist north London (I seem to remember his father was one of the first soi-disant socialists who had a second home in the 1970s) who has never had to work hard for anything in his privileged life.
If he had, then he might not have turned out such a coward.
chameleon
July 21st, 2011 2:22pm Report this comment.... grasped the magnitude of public anger and antipathy towards what he has done. In the end, large concentrations of power can lead to abuses of power — and I think that’s what has happened in this case.’
Miliband you are a joke. Don't kid yourself you have any idea where public anger lies. For the moment, there maybe disgust towards journalists but public anger is directly aimed at you and your 13 year old gang of liars, thieves and abusers of power..
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