dial M...

My review of Watson and Hickman's Dial M for Murdoch is now up at the National. It was written a little before the most recent twists in the saga, but enjoy anyway.

Comments

[Chris Brooke]

I didn't know you were a London-based journalist and writer.

[ajay]

He is now. It's part of the victory of the provinces over the metropolis.

[johnf]

An interesting parallel with the late 30's struggle against appeasement.

Then likewise it was the provinces - The Yorkshire Post, Manchester Guardian, the eccentric West Country alliance between Liberal Squirearchy. Labour vicars, communist shop stewards and dissident Tories in the 1938 Bridgwater Bye-Election - which led the assault against the morally exhausted real politick metropolis.

[Strategist]

"corruption...spreading outwards in a moral vacuum from outright criminality through layers of ethical squalor, power worship and endemic complacency until it eventually becomes established as a new normal – a “shadow state”'

I look forward to 2019 (or whenever it will be) to see the congruence or otherwise of the Leveson Report with this conclusion...

[Guano]

A great review, including some of the bits of the story that tend to get left out in the mainstream (such as Watson being attacked by Murdoch for reminding Blair that he had promised to leave).