The more paranoid parts of the press are saying that Tony Blair’s spectacular U-turn over a referendum on the EU constitution is all the sinister work of the notoriously Euro-sceptic Rupert Murdoch. That is a gross exaggeration. But there is no doubt that the need to keep Murdoch’s papers onside in the run-up to the General Election played its part in 10 Downing Street’s deliberations.
"We were pushing at an open door," says my man in the Wapping executive suite. "Plenty of people in Downing Street were telling the PM that his opposition to a referendum was unsustainable. We simply helped concentrate his mind."
I understand tha
t Murdoch and his lieutenants made it clear to Blair that if he persisted in refusing a referendum then the News International papers in general and the Sun in particular would make it the major issue between now and the election. "This issue matters a lot more to our readers than the government realises," said one Sun editor.
This troubled Blair. It is not the loss of the Sun’s endorsement the day before the election that he worries about most: it is the drip, drip of negative publicity, day after day, in the Murdoch press that he wants to avoid, because he fears it would undermine his re-election chances in much the same way that it helped make Neil Kinnock unelectable in 1992.
Murdoch and his men pointed out that it would be hard for his papers to campaign stridently over the next year for a referendum and still endorse Blair’s re-election come polling day. "It would have undermined our papers’ credibility in readers’ eyes," said one Murdoch man. "Blair could see the support of the Sun, which he values very much, slipping away because of his refusal to agree to a referendum."
Pressure from Murdoch only contributed to Blair’s U-turn; it was not the clincher. More credit should go to Cabinet heavyweights such as Jack Straw and John Prescott - but above all Gordon Brown, who wants to fight the next election on the economy and not have his achievements overshadowed by a campaign for a referendum in the Euro-sceptic press. Brown has his own hotline to Wapping. Murdoch’s men knew they and the Chancellor were singing from the same song sheet. Blair became isolated, inside and outside the government. Already pretty lonely for his stance on Iraq, he could not afford to be out on a limb over an EU referendum too.
Inside 10 Downing Street the hope is that now a referendum has been reluctantly agreed, the EU constitution issue has been "ring-fenced", just like the euro has been by the promise of a referendum, Murdoch’s papers in general and especially his Sun can continue its support for Blair. But it’s not that simple.
"Who the Sun supports at the next election is still unresolved by the boss," says my man with his tumbler up against Murdoch’s office wall.
"It is a very difficult matter. He opposes Blair not just on Europe but on his domestic agenda, especially the billions thrown at public services to no great effect. He’s really only four-square with him on Iraq and the war on terrorism."
I’m told that if political editor Trevor Kavanagh had his way he’d have the Sun split with Blair and the government tomorrow. Murdoch is more cautious: he rates Kavanagh highly but is still to be convinced that the Tories are a credible alternative. Both government and opposition clearly have a lot of Murdoch schmoozing to do before polling day.
THE Independent’s penchant for contrived, opinion-led front pages reached a new nadir last Friday when it gave over the whole of page one (at least of the compact edition) to a column by Robin Cook. That’s right: the most important news page of what is supposed to be a newspaper was devoted to the views of a politician.
Now, the former foreign secretary has more of interest to say than most politicians, especially on Iraq (over which he made an honourable resignation), and he was writing on the day Tony Blair was popping into the White House to see George Bush. But what Cook had to say was predictable; he’s said it before and in no sense was it news. Its proper place was as a column on the opinion pages.
Sales of the Independent are up 15 per cent year-on-year thanks to its brave tabloid initiative, but its circulation is still the lowest in the quality market and it needs to broaden its appeal further to challenge the Guardian.
I can’t see it doing that with a steady diet of agenda-driven front pages. Indeed anecdotal evidence suggests that there’s a risk it could drive away some of its core Liberal-Left readership - and they’re the readers who broadly agree with what’s being said!
NOBODY should be surprised that the Daily Telegraph has been forced to cough up a five-figure sum in damages and legal fees to Barbara Cassani after it wrongly quoted the head of London’s Olympic bid describing Tony Blair as not that bright. The claim was no more than a diary item but some bright Telegraph spark decided to bill it big on the page one skyline under the masthead.
Somebody should have realised that putting it on the front page meant that the piece had to be far more robustly verified than most diary stories (very few of which stand up to much scrutiny). Failure to do so must have added a pretty penny to the Telegraph’s damages.
KEVIN Spacey’s walk in a Lambeth park at 4:30am (as one does, of a night) provoked every possible response from the papers, from bemused chortle to straight (I use the word advisedly) news story. The Sun (Spacey’s Shaggy Dog Story) naturally concentrated on the actor’s rapidly changing accounts of what happened to him in what it described as a "gay haunt": first he said he was mugged, then denied it, then claimed his mobile phone had been stolen after all. And the cut on his head? Tripped over the dog giving chase to the thief.
The Telegraph reported all these twists and turns, which would do credit to the Hollywood thrillers in which Spacey used to star, with a straight face; the Mail strongly implied that he was being economical with the truth.
For some reason Spacey felt it necessary to explain the complicated and confused sequence of events on Radio 4’s Today, which was pretty happy to accept what he had to say at face value. Perhaps it’s only right that we treat actors more gently than politicians.
READERS of this column will know the Guardian regularly gives me the willies; on Monday it did so, literally: when I opened my copy of its estimable G2 section, there was a willy, flaccid but in colour, peeking out from page three.
Alongside, presumably to avoid accusations of sexism (which would never do at the Guardian), was a woman displaying her private parts too. I suppose that’s what happens when you hand over the section to an obscure but supposedly cutting-edge pop group to guest-edit.
The Guardian has a habit of descending periodically to sub-standard student journalism. Last year G2 managed to outrage even its liberal readership with a pointless F*** Cilla Black special issue.
G2 editor Ian Katz runs the best tabloid section in quality journalism, however, he needs to curb his predilection for outsourcing his section to those with a juvenile desire to shock. Otherwise he’s in danger of harming his credentials to be the Guardian’s next editor.
Perhaps that’s why current beleaguered editor Alan Rusbridger does nothing to curb his excesses.
