Mandelson Vs Murdoch

Reading The Guardian yesterday made me give one of my (occasional) cheers for Peter Mandelson, when he basically declared war on Murdoch's media empire.

Although, to be fair to a degree, there are some great things that come out of News Corporation, some of the Channels on Sky for example, but one unpleasant aspect of News Corp is that it tends to downgrade some of the media it acquires. One thinks of what has happened to The Sun newspaper in the past forty years, or how The Sunday Times is no longer the investigative broadsheet from the days of Harold Evans (although they have their moments).

In short, the Murdoch empire commits what I regard as the Cardinal Sin of media ownership, that is to give the public whatever they want as opposed to the BBC's ethos set down by Reith as "educate, entertain, and inform". This is consistent with the Thatcherite philosophy of privatisation and profit before culture and pragmatism, in spite of the well-meaning attitudes of many of it's adherents. Put basically it's part of the Thatcherite drive to make this a nation of tacky estate agents, rather than 1950s provincial bankers.

Which leads us to Mandelson's concerns. If the Conservatives get in the next time they will start making life hell for institutions such as the BBC by dismantling Ofcom. This will give people like Murdoch carte blanche to take over what's left and remould some of our precious media institutions for profit. Can you imagine a dismantled BBC being like Fox! It's as I always feared, a Conservative govt is not just bad for the UK economically, it's bad for the culture of Britain as well, and if you think I am wrong, ask yourself why your average celebrity game show host tends to publicly back the Conservatives and why your avergae famous RSC actor tends to publicly back Labour.