If the past two weeks are anything to go by and the succession of News International-related stories continues, it’s a fair bet that by next Sunday God will be able to tell us how the Big Bang started.
As one of Murdoch’s tabloids might put it, you couldn’t make it up. Bent coppers, an Orson Wellesque baddie, a flame-haired Ophelia, a family of bumbling Borgias and a Prime Minister in serious danger of looking for a job at News International next year.
But underneath the deluge of information, there was this recurrent theme that News International were responsible for getting Governments elected… or preventing them from being elected. I would like to put the case that this is bullshit and it was a myth perpetrated by Murdoch to look as if he was influential.
Way back in 1992 I went to the Ivy restaurant for the first time. My girlfriend at the time was Jamaican and she wore an all-in-one black shiny catsuit (without underwear I may add and not a bad look as I remember).
As we walked in, we saw Alan Sugar braying on a table of Essex girls and in front of us was a table containing the genius playwright Alan Bleasdale, the actress who played Gail Tilsely on Coronation Street… and Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock with his press secretary Sue Hall.
They were all absolutely plastered, smoking fags and I stood transfixed thinking that in a month’s time he would the new Prime Minister of this country. I was so proud, he was like me, a pisshead and a smoker. He’s going to elbow aside Thatcher and my England would be the land I thought it would be before that high-hair devil took power.
But things weren’t all that they seemed. My relationship was dying, the meal at the Ivy was a last-ditch attempt to save it and Neil Kinnock never became Prime Minister, allegedly because of The Sun‘s backing of the Tories and an infamous headline.
Not the way I remember it. At the time I was working as a betting shop manager and as the next four weeks went by, the odds on Labour winning the election went from 1/9 to 1/6 to 1/4 to 8/13 until on the day of the election the Tories were favourites.
It had nothing to do with The Sun. Think about it. The average Sun reader is barely human and not the type of person to worry about democracy and the division of state and religion. Spelling ‘judiciary’ would be a Herculean task for them and even putting a ‘x’ on a piece of paper is a stretch.
Hence, a lot of them don’t bother to vote and say what you like about The Daily Mail and its batty verbiage, at least its readers vote. That newspaper had and has more influence than Murdoch’s rag, and the ensuing two decades have seen the myth of The Sun became a type of fact; Murdoch’s support wins elections.
While you may agree or disagree, one thing is certain, Murdoch’s influence on anything in the UK is now finished, he is finished, his silly Smithers son is finished, Ophelia is finished and his empire is finished.
What also finished in 1991 was my relationship with my Jamaican girlfriend. We had previously arranged to fly to Cairo via Amsterdam on the day after the election; a holiday to cleanse ourselves of Thatcher. We stayed up all night until we saw that Basildon had gone to the Tories and that was that.
We arrived in Amsterdam, drained, without sleep and looking enviously at sophisticated Europeans in the sunshine. We had five more years of Thatcher in a benighted, s’cpetred isle, it was unbelievably depressing.
We hired bicyles and rode across the cobbled stones of the Herengracht. I turned left, she turned right and that was the end for us, and now, not before time, it is the end for Murdoch. Good riddance.
Monty Munford has more than 15 years' experience in mobile, digital media, web and journalism. He is the founder of Mob76, a company that helps tech companies raise money and exit. He speaks regularly at global media events with a focus on Africa, writes a weekly column for The Telegraph, is a regular contributor to The Economist, Wired, Mashable and speaks regularly on the BBC World Service.
