Private Eye UPDATE

RUPERT MURDOCH’s patience with Gordon Brown is wearing thin. His British papers have called repeatedly for an early general election – to the PM’s mounting alarm. Brown was so upset, he was on “non-speakers” with the Sun at the start of June, only relenting to attend Rebekah Wade’s wedding.

This coincided with the Dirty Digger’s visit to Britain. In America, his new pride and joy, the Wall Street Journal, has all but given up on Brown. It commissioned two pieces to coincide with the weekend of its proprietor’s trip to these shores – a hymn of praise to David Cameron, “A Tory Star Rises” (12 June), followed by an op-ed piece headlined “Gordon Brown Helped Cause the Crisis” (15 June). It concluded: “Choosing a new leader with integrity and managerial competence is the party’s best chance to win greater respect from voters.”

The Digger’s trip to Britain also coincided with the Digital Britain report from sub-Birtian technocrat Lord Carter. Murdoch is outraged at proposals for the TV licence fee to be “top-sliced” – not because he wants the Beeb’s cash to be protected, but because he doesn’t want to see rivals such as ITV and Channel 4 chomping their top-slices while his BSkyB goes hungry. If the BBC hands over some cash, Murdoch believes, it should be returned to licence-fee payers.

His British editors are never more like the “His Master’s Voice” dog than when the boss is actually in town and breathing down their necks.

Sure enough, the News of the World said on 14 June that cutting the BBC’s income was a good idea, “but absolutely not to bail out commercial TV. Savings should go right back to licence payers.” Three days later a Times leader called for “a smaller BBC” and complained that Carter had funked “the opportunity to advocate returning some of the licence fee.” Woof, woof!


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