The power behind the throne ain't Murdoch

All of a sudden, the British media sans News International have awoken to the notion that there are powerful influences pulling strings behind the politicians. The Independent, for instance, reports on the sleepy Cotswolds village of Chipping Norton:

Within a few square miles, the Prime Minister, the most powerful woman in Britain, the most powerful PR man in Britain and the daughter of the world's leading media magnate can all be found. Anyone who wanted to claim that democracies are a sham could do worse than start here.

And yet this same paper didn't even mention the last meeting of the Bilderberg Club, in Switzerland, a month or so back, and with the exception of the Guardian, neither did anyone else in the establishment media. The only time the BBC ever mentions it is to denigrate those who think it worthy of journalistic investigation. But now we're supposed to believe that Murdoch and his flame-haired enforcer have the power to dictate policy to the PM or something.

Let's not over-egg the pudding. No doubt Murdoch has had influence, mainly due to the politicians of both major parties craving his newspapers' support to peddle pro-government propaganda. As with so much shit, it really goes back to the wertfrei period of the Blair supremacy. To begin with, it was merely political machiavellianism, but by the end Blair's closet was so stuffed with skeletons, he could have been destroyed if Murdoch had turned his hounds loose. The main problem was not Murdoch's power, but why Blair was in its thrall.