Murdoch Scandal: Gordon Brown Goes For Death Blow

Is Britain entering a post-Murdoch era? It’s still too early to say for sure, but Tuesday’s developments seem to point in that direction.

One thing is plain. For the first time since before Mrs. Thatcher came to power, it is open season on Rupert Murdoch. From all sides, his enemies (and erstwhile allies) are blasting away at him.

Tuesday’s big news was a decision by the Conservative-Liberal government to join the Labour Party opposition in calling on News Corporation to drop its takeover bid for British Sky Broadcasting, about which I wrote earlier. On Wednesday, there will be a non-binding vote in Parliament along these lines, and it seems certain to gain overwhelming support. As far as I can recall, this is the first time that the three major British political parties have come together to try and block one of Murdoch’s business schemes.

Simultaneously, Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister, gave a lengthy interview to the BBC, in which he accused Murdoch’s newspapers of conspiring with “known criminals” to dig up information about him and his family. Going back to the days of Harold Wilson and Ted Heath, I don’t think I have ever seen such a remarkable performance from a sitting or former P.M. Just a couple of years ago, Brown and Murdoch were on amicable terms. (That was before Murdoch’s newspapers switched their allegiances to David Cameron.) Now Brown is trying to put a stake through the heart of the wounded press baron.

Murdoch is trying to fight back, and he should never be underestimated. Late Tuesday, his company issued two statements defending the actions of its journalists at the Sun and the Sunday Times in pursuing news stories about Brown and his sick son. If Brown has overreached in his accusations, his intervention could conceivably rebound in Murdoch’s favor.

For now, though, the big news is that Murdoch’s aura of invincibility has disappeared.