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| Murdochs or the Enlightenment? Only one will take Britain forward | Murdochs or the Enlightenment? Only one will take Britain forward |
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| The British don’t bother much about either the niceties of political constitutions or ownership. As long as control and sovereignty are established, that’s enough. All that’s required politically, is what the monarch and parliament agree is law; similarly, all that is asked of ownership is whether control resides privately or publicly. Nuances such as setting out a mutuality of responsibilities, entitlements, rights and obligations to wider society come a distant second. | The British don’t bother much about either the niceties of political constitutions or ownership. As long as control and sovereignty are established, that’s enough. All that’s required politically, is what the monarch and parliament agree is law; similarly, all that is asked of ownership is whether control resides privately or publicly. Nuances such as setting out a mutuality of responsibilities, entitlements, rights and obligations to wider society come a distant second. |
| Just as the majority party, elected on a first past the post mandate, should exercise sovereignty over what are no more than subjects, so should private and public owners have as little challenge as possible to their sovereignty over their assets. | Just as the majority party, elected on a first past the post mandate, should exercise sovereignty over what are no more than subjects, so should private and public owners have as little challenge as possible to their sovereignty over their assets. |
| The concern of the great Enlightenment thinkers to create a public domain beyond the state – checking and balancing government, dividing powers, setting out the entitlements of citizens – passed Britain by. The public interest? Written constitutions, for either the state or companies? We pragmatic Brits didn’t need to worry. That can be left to whoever is in control to decide. | The concern of the great Enlightenment thinkers to create a public domain beyond the state – checking and balancing government, dividing powers, setting out the entitlements of citizens – passed Britain by. The public interest? Written constitutions, for either the state or companies? We pragmatic Brits didn’t need to worry. That can be left to whoever is in control to decide. |
| So much of what has gone wrong in Britain is rooted in this complacent thoughtlessness. It’s not just the casual bolting on of referendums to parliamentary democracy, thus now provoking the first-order crisis that threatens to destabilise our economy and shred both our major political parties as we inexorably head for hard Brexit. It is also how we decide areas crucial to our national life and culture. Thus the current incoherent drama of 21st Century Fox bidding for the balance of Sky it does not own. If successful, it would mean that Fox, controlled by Rupert Murdoch and his family, would control Britain’s third largest TV station. At the same time the Murdochs control, via News Corp, the Sun, Times and Sunday Times. | So much of what has gone wrong in Britain is rooted in this complacent thoughtlessness. It’s not just the casual bolting on of referendums to parliamentary democracy, thus now provoking the first-order crisis that threatens to destabilise our economy and shred both our major political parties as we inexorably head for hard Brexit. It is also how we decide areas crucial to our national life and culture. Thus the current incoherent drama of 21st Century Fox bidding for the balance of Sky it does not own. If successful, it would mean that Fox, controlled by Rupert Murdoch and his family, would control Britain’s third largest TV station. At the same time the Murdochs control, via News Corp, the Sun, Times and Sunday Times. |
| So much of what has gone wrong in Britain is rooted in complacent thoughtlessness | So much of what has gone wrong in Britain is rooted in complacent thoughtlessness |
| No other advanced industrial country would ever allow such a dense concentration of media power to fall into the hands of one family – especially not to non-nationals of the country, with such a thin framework to ensure the public interest is secured. Not only should news and information come from as many sources as possible. But those providing it should be constitutionally required by law and regulation to take seriously their citizenship obligations to provide honest journalism, crucial to democratic life. | No other advanced industrial country would ever allow such a dense concentration of media power to fall into the hands of one family – especially not to non-nationals of the country, with such a thin framework to ensure the public interest is secured. Not only should news and information come from as many sources as possible. But those providing it should be constitutionally required by law and regulation to take seriously their citizenship obligations to provide honest journalism, crucial to democratic life. |
| In fairness, broadcast news is subject to rules about ensuring impartiality. James Murdoch, Rupert’s son and Fox CEO, has described such impartiality as an “impingement of freedom of speech”. No friend of the Enlightenment, he follows the doctrine that how media assets are used is up to their owner. Without such rules, Britain could have its own version of Fox News – a happy outcome for James Murdoch, perhaps, if not for our broadcasting standards. And the importance of broadcasting goes well beyond news. Television comedy, drama and documentary are essential to our culture. This is not “content”, whose first objective is to be commoditised in an international marketplace by owners for whom Britishness is secondary or irrelevant; it is central to our civilisation. That task cannot all be left to the financially squeezed BBC and ever more wayward Channel 4. | In fairness, broadcast news is subject to rules about ensuring impartiality. James Murdoch, Rupert’s son and Fox CEO, has described such impartiality as an “impingement of freedom of speech”. No friend of the Enlightenment, he follows the doctrine that how media assets are used is up to their owner. Without such rules, Britain could have its own version of Fox News – a happy outcome for James Murdoch, perhaps, if not for our broadcasting standards. And the importance of broadcasting goes well beyond news. Television comedy, drama and documentary are essential to our culture. This is not “content”, whose first objective is to be commoditised in an international marketplace by owners for whom Britishness is secondary or irrelevant; it is central to our civilisation. That task cannot all be left to the financially squeezed BBC and ever more wayward Channel 4. |
| The lack of interest in ownership and to what extent companies should be obliged to express a public purpose is evident in our laissez-faire approach to company law. Owners are obliged only to increase the value of assets they control. | The lack of interest in ownership and to what extent companies should be obliged to express a public purpose is evident in our laissez-faire approach to company law. Owners are obliged only to increase the value of assets they control. |
| Britain has not developed a range of constitutional templates for how assets in key public interest industries should be deployed: for example, we do not have a template to which companies discharging a public benefit – providing news and information, electricity, gas, water or a rail service – must conform. | Britain has not developed a range of constitutional templates for how assets in key public interest industries should be deployed: for example, we do not have a template to which companies discharging a public benefit – providing news and information, electricity, gas, water or a rail service – must conform. |
| They either have to be in public ownership – or to operate as private companies, privately deciding their priorities, with only a regulator looking over their shoulder to see they discharge a public interest. There is no possibility of embedding public and cultural interests in the warp and weft of a media organisation, unless, like the Guardian and Observer, it is fortunately owned by a trust for whom that is its explicit purpose. (Full declaration: I served as a trustee of the Scott Trust). | They either have to be in public ownership – or to operate as private companies, privately deciding their priorities, with only a regulator looking over their shoulder to see they discharge a public interest. There is no possibility of embedding public and cultural interests in the warp and weft of a media organisation, unless, like the Guardian and Observer, it is fortunately owned by a trust for whom that is its explicit purpose. (Full declaration: I served as a trustee of the Scott Trust). |
| Thus our newspapers have become creatures of owners who need observe no obligation to serve the public interest of disseminating trusted news. They are sovereign over their newspaper assets. They are ever more daring in being hyper partisan for one political cause – the right wing of the Conservative party and its Euroscepticism. | Thus our newspapers have become creatures of owners who need observe no obligation to serve the public interest of disseminating trusted news. They are sovereign over their newspaper assets. They are ever more daring in being hyper partisan for one political cause – the right wing of the Conservative party and its Euroscepticism. |
| No account of the referendum result is complete without the extravagant one-sidedness with which the bulk of the written media – including the Sun – pursued its EU vendetta. The broadcast media attempted more impartiality, as obliged by regulators, but, inevitably, what was considered as impartial became influenced by the monumental distortions in the written media. | No account of the referendum result is complete without the extravagant one-sidedness with which the bulk of the written media – including the Sun – pursued its EU vendetta. The broadcast media attempted more impartiality, as obliged by regulators, but, inevitably, what was considered as impartial became influenced by the monumental distortions in the written media. |
| Yet notwithstanding James Murdoch’s stated views – or the history of hacking at News Corp and the culture at Fox, where, in the US, key executives have quit over charges of arrant sexism – Ofcom in its “advice” last week saw no reason to bar the Murdochs from owning a British broadcaster on the grounds of not being a fit and proper owner – a crucial judgment. However, Ofcom did “advise” that the bid should be referred to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). | Yet notwithstanding James Murdoch’s stated views – or the history of hacking at News Corp and the culture at Fox, where, in the US, key executives have quit over charges of arrant sexism – Ofcom in its “advice” last week saw no reason to bar the Murdochs from owning a British broadcaster on the grounds of not being a fit and proper owner – a crucial judgment. However, Ofcom did “advise” that the bid should be referred to the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). |
| So if the family can now assure the CMA in an “undertaking in lieu” that it will accept – for a while – obligations to keep Sky News operating impartially, thus addressing those concerns, the CMA can do no other than “advise” the bid go ahead. The only public interest it must enforce is over abuse of market power; the cultural and societal impact of the takeover are beyond its remit. | So if the family can now assure the CMA in an “undertaking in lieu” that it will accept – for a while – obligations to keep Sky News operating impartially, thus addressing those concerns, the CMA can do no other than “advise” the bid go ahead. The only public interest it must enforce is over abuse of market power; the cultural and societal impact of the takeover are beyond its remit. |
| Nor does British company law offer the template of a public benefit company under which the Murdochs would have been obliged to operate, and which would have written into the fabric of Sky a series of obligations to British culture, society and civilisation. In any case both Ofcom and the CMA can only advise. Power resides in the secretary of state –and Karen Bradley knows her duty to her party: she will agree to the bid. | Nor does British company law offer the template of a public benefit company under which the Murdochs would have been obliged to operate, and which would have written into the fabric of Sky a series of obligations to British culture, society and civilisation. In any case both Ofcom and the CMA can only advise. Power resides in the secretary of state –and Karen Bradley knows her duty to her party: she will agree to the bid. |
| Soon, the Murdochs are likely to get their prize. Britain will be diminished, its cultural and democratic life impoverished. Those Enlightenment thinkers were right. There is a public interest beyond party and parliament. It is time for the British to acknowledge that constitutions matter – in both the public and private domain. | Soon, the Murdochs are likely to get their prize. Britain will be diminished, its cultural and democratic life impoverished. Those Enlightenment thinkers were right. There is a public interest beyond party and parliament. It is time for the British to acknowledge that constitutions matter – in both the public and private domain. |