19 July 2011

The Napoleon of Fleet Street?

'. . . it is better to be impetuous that circumspect; because fortune is
a woman and if she is to be submissive it is necessary to beat and coerce her.'
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince.

Truth to tell, I've never beaten and coerced a woman, let alone fortune. So much for my qualifications.
          Yet I couldn't help thinking of Old Nick when I learnt that, writing in the FT, Lord Black of Crossharbour had compared Murdoch to Napoleon. Both 'great bad men' apparently.
          Black's article is full of the most vituperative comment on Murdoch. One rather gets the impression that as he penned it, he was spitting out many years' accumulation of pent-up rage. Oddly, or perhaps not so oddly,

he may have been given the idea by George Tombs, his 'unauthorised biographer'. Tombs described a speech Black recently made in a US court thus: 'He talked as if he were Napoleon returning from Elba, but the army he claims is made up of inmates of Coleman prison. What kind of army is that?'
          (A brief diversion from my present purpose to recollect Wellington's observations on the human material who comprised his armies.)
          I know little of Napoleon, less of Murdoch, and even less of Black. But somebody whose judgement I'm inclined to trust is Nirad Chaudhuri's. Chaudhuri observed that Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive of Plassey,


                                                                                      was the closest equivalent figure in British history to Napoleon. Fitting the template of Clive to Murdoch's career may make some sense.
          The most striking thing about Clive was that he was a gambler. Not an ordinary, lily-livered, milk and water, sort of gambler. Rather a real, man-sized, red in tooth and claw, take no prisoners, sort of gambler. There is the account of his attempted suicide in Madras.  Clive tried to shoot himself with a pistol, and having had his weapon misfire for two or three attempts, he pointed it out of a casement and immediately discharged it. That, he reasoned, was some proof that he was destined to live for a purpose. The story may be a fable, but it fits what we know of the man. Clive was always willing to gamble, and for the highest stakes. He lived for it. Once he had been sidelined by jealous contemporaries and barred from history's roulette table he did destroy himself.
          Surely Murdoch is a great and obsessive gambler too? But he is more than that. He is a driven man, driven by an unusual ambition that separates him from other press barons such as Black. It is to accumulate more and more money and influence. Nothing unusual in that, at least for a press baron? Well no, but what is unusual about Murdoch is that he appears to want money and influence for its own sake, not for what he can do with it.
          The classic press baron, the Lord Copper or Lord Zinc, is an ignorant bully in the office and a socially insecure arriviste outside it. He wants money and influence for a purpose, which is to impose his views on the world. Perhaps the healthy qualities of a seaweed based diet, or obeisance to the 'special relationship', or the necessity of creating unicycle lanes in city centres. It doesn't really matter what. The classic press baron is somewhat akin to Lord Black of Crossharbour.
          Murdoch is different. He may be a bully in the office but he is not socially insecure. He is socially indifferent. He has no purpose, no agenda, that he wants to impose on the world. He wouldn't stoop to writing articles that compared his rivals to Napoleon or Genghis Khan, whatever he thought of them. Obviously I have never watched Fox News and don't intend to. I'm willing to accept the Guardianistas' depiction of it on trust. An 'extreme right wing' or 'neo-liberal' assault on the intelligence and reason. Yet it no more tells us what Murdoch's views are than the Sun tells us that he is obsessed with tits and bums. The editorial policy of Murdoch's titles isn't chosen to accord with his own views. It is chosen to promote his ambition to gain more money and influence. Money and influence for its own, pure and unadulterated, sake. He would shift every single organ under his control to supporting an extreme Green agenda if he believed it would promote that end.
          That is what makes Murdoch unique, and uniquely dangerous too. Unlike Black, he is not to be distracted by his opinions.
          Murdoch a latter day Napoleon? Possibly, just possibly. Black a latter day Napoleon? No. However bad he is, he isn't that great. But I bet he enjoyed being compared with him by Tombs. That surely made him glow with cherished pride.

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