Murdoch and the Tories - no connection?

Over the last 15 months a Cabinet member has met an executive from Rupert Murdoch's international empire every 3 days. In fact 20 Cabinet Ministers have met Murdoch executives 130 times in that period. David Cameron was at 30 of the meetings, George Osborne and Liam Fox were both at 17. Mr Osborne's meetings include a dinner in New York with Mr Murdoch on 17th December 2010, two weeks before the media regulator was due to rule on Mr Murdoch's bid for full ownership of BSkyB. Mr Osborne seems particularly friendly with Mr Murdoch's son James and Rebekah Brooks. He's met both on 3 other occasions in the last 12 months.

Both Jeremy Hunt (Culture Secretary) and Michael Gove (Education Secretary) made sure that their first meetings after their appointment to the Cabinet in 2010 were with Rupert Murdoch.

In addition, Nick Clegg has met Murdoch executives four times in the last 14 months. In all, Michael Gove has met Rupert Murdoch 7 times and Rebekah Brooks 8 times in the same period. Sandy Shaw's 'puppet on a string' comes to mind. Or, perhaps, 'only a pawn in their game'. Either way don't forget the golden rule 'he who has the gold rules'. Or at least they want us to think they do. However much they believe in George Bush's maxim 'you can fool some of the people most of the time - that's the people I'm concentrating on', the reallity is that 'an ounce of experience is worth a ton of theory' and in the last 15 months many lessons have been learnt by ordinary working people about the nature of the economic system. 'I believe everything I read in the press apart from those things of which I have had personal experience'. No amount of propaganda can cover up how the Tories combine with the right wing press to rob us. We won't forget.