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by Jason Moore

I find it rather hypocritical of the Labour Party to accuse the Conservatives of getting too close to Rupert Murdoch´s newspaper editors because when they were in power they desperately courted staff at the Murdoch empire. Infact, when he was elected leader of the Labour Party, Tony Blair, flew half way across the globe to address a meeting of News Corporation Executives. Editors of all the Murdoch newspapers were frequent dinner guests at Number 10 when both Blair and Gordon Brown were in power. What has annoyed Labour is that Murdoch changed sides before the last elections and backed David Cameron instead of Gordon Brown. Tony Blair was closer during the Iraq war to the Sun than he was to the usually Labour supporting Daily Mirror which at that stage was edited by Piers Morgan. Blair made it clear that having Murdoch on side was one of the keys to winning a general election. Now, I don´t know if all the Labour front bench have short memories but really they are all as bad as each other. Labour can´t take the moral high ground on this issue because they are as guilty as the Tories. There appears to be a movement to villify Rupert Murdoch but it must be remembered that thanks to him the newspaper industry in Britain has prospered and titles which could have disappeared are still with us today. Yes, Murdoch has had too much power over the British political system but it is not only the fault of the Conservative Party. Labour has a short memory.