Murdoch est effectivement chez lui au 10 Downing Street

Deux jours après la publication de cet article d’interview de Rupert Murdoch auquel nous avons fait un large écho, une réaction dans le même journal nous confirme indirectement l’importance de cette intervention, et directement le poids considérable que pèse Murdoch sur la politique anglaise. Cette réaction vient d’un orfèvre en la matière, Lance Price, qui fit partie (avec Alastair Campbell) de l’équipe de communications de Tony Blair de 1998 à 2001. Depuis son départ, Price a écrit un livre (The Spin Doctor's Diary) qui lui a valu une certaine inimitié de l’équipe Blair.

Voici un extrait de l’article de Price, dans The Guardian d’aujourd’hui :

« There is no small irony in the fact that Tony Blair flew halfway round the world to address Mr Murdoch and his News International executives in the first year of his leadership of the Labour party and that he's doing so again next month in what may prove to be his last.

» I have never met Mr Murdoch, but at times when I worked at Downing Street he seemed like the 24th member of the cabinet. His voice was rarely heard (but, then, the same could have been said of many of the other 23) but his presence was always felt.

» No big decision could ever be made inside No 10 without taking account of the likely reaction of three men — Gordon Brown, John Prescott and Rupert Murdoch. On all the really big decisions, anybody else could safely be ignored.

» I was reminded just how touchy Downing Street is about Mr Murdoch when I submitted the manuscript of my book, The Spin Doctor's Diary, to the Cabinet Office. The government requested some changes, as is its right. When the first batch came through, it was no surprise that Tony Blair's staff were deeply unhappy. The real surprise was that no fewer than a third of their objections related to one man — not Tony Blair or even Gordon Brown, as I might have expected, but Rupert Murdoch.

» In my first few weeks as Alastair Campbell's deputy, I was told by somebody who would know that we had assured Mr Murdoch we wouldn't change policy on Europe without talking to him first. The Cabinet Office insisted that I couldn't say in my book that such a promise had been made because I did not know it for a fact. With some reluctance I turned the sentence around so that it read: “Apparently News International are under the impression we won't make any changes without asking them.” Every other request relating to Murdoch was rejected. It seemed to me that the government was simply trying to avoid political embarrassment on a subject of wholly legitimate public interest.

» All discussions — and let us hope the word “negotiations” isn't more appropriate — with Rupert Murdoch and with Irwin Stelzer, his representative on earth, were handled at the very highest level. For the rest of us, the continued support of the News International titles was supposed to be self-evident proof of the value of this special relationship. The Sun and the Times, in particular, received innumerable ‘scoops’ and favours. In return, New Labour got very sympathetic coverage from newspapers that are bought and read by classic swing voters — on the face of it, too good a deal to pass up.

» In fact, New Labour gave away too much and received too little that it couldn't have expected to get anyway. »

Mis en ligne le 1er juillet 2006 à 06H54