Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
To be fair he wasn't the one in bed with the tabloids. That's not to say he didn't try, he clearly wanted to have them onside, but they never took to him and pretty much from the day he became Prime Minister it's fair to say that News International were gunning for him.
Ironically in hindsight one of their favorite lines of attack was to use 'our boys' otherwise known as the Armed Forces. The worst of these was when the mother of a solider sadly killing in action was sent a personal letter from Brown in which he allegedly (was hard to tell) misspelt the family name, it had other misspellings and was poor written. Instead of pointing out it was a honorable thing to do - Blair never did it - they attacked him over the course of several days over the 'disrespect' he had shown by writing such a letter in poor handwriting. Most other members of the press declined to join in as the handwriting was a result of his eye being damaged, he had to use a big felt pen to see clearly and famously always wrote pretty badly. It was just a mean-sprited thing for The Sun to do and clearly provoked by their desire to get the Conservatives in as soon as possible (just as they did the same to the Tories to promote Labour previously). I say it's ironic because after the last week I don't think The Sun or anyone at News International is in a position in invoke the Armed Forces in a campaign or to lecture on their treatment. If the hacking of the family members on those soliders that died is proved to be true.
But yes, Labour are as bad as the Tories. Only the Liberal Democrats have a consistant record on opposing Murdoch.
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Brown certainly wasn't as slick and media friendly as Blair and didn't call all the shots but the point is that he went along with what was going on for a very long term and now clearly regrets he did so. The venom in his recent words, I believe, betrays more about the personal hurt he feels towards NI (for reasons like those you mention) than anything else. He had his chance to take on Murdoch and ran scared.
If I was being cynical I might suggest that the Lib Dems' antipathy towards Murdoch could just have something to do with the fact that Murdoch never had any interest in them due to their relative insignficance to UK politics. Had they been on the verge of power I wonder if they'd have been quite so 'honourable'.....