The Keir Starmer GRUBBY deal with Murdoch that CHANGED EVERYTHING?

Right, so who would be surprised to hear that Keir Starmer allegedly made a grubby backroom deal with Rupert Murdoch for his endorsement for Prime Minister then? The malignancy at the top of one of the most pernicious and pervasive media networks in the world has been bragging since the days of Maggie Thatcher that he effectively picked the next Prime Minister, but even he must have known Starmer was a pretty safe bet with or without his help. That didn’t stop Starmer chasing the support of Murdoch’s publications ahead of the General Election at the eleventh hour though it seems, as in exchange for that last minute endorsement, which likely made no difference to the eventual outcome of the election, Starmer apparently agreed to bin plans to follow through with the second part of the Leveson Inquiry, Labour’s position since 2018, which would have put Murdoch’s News of the World and phone hacking scandal back under the microscope, along with his other publications too. The sleazy relationship between government and mass media will continue unabated under Starmer, so once again, no change there then.
Right, so to say Keir Starmer has been unashamedly chasing the Murdoch press for support for a long time would be a bit of an understatement, but with his General Election win virtually nailed on, he still went after Murdoch’s approval, his assent and has thrown away the prospect of further press regulation to gain it.
He once went to Liverpool and told of the hurt caused to the city by Rupert Murdoch and by the Scum newspaper, the guy who swore when standing for Labour leader that he wouldn’t speak to The Scum, because he knew the hurt that that hate rag has caused there, but he didn’t bat an eyelid when it came to writing for them no less afterwards. Sod the hurt caused, he wants to be PM and has been courting creepy Uncle Rupert ever since, or his publication anyway, Murdoch is now allegedly retired, but the scale of that courtship might be something we’re all underestimating, because by the sound of things, Starmer isn’t just tapping up those working for said publications for the occasional column, apparently, they can’t get rid of him around Murdoch Towers and it started long before he even entered politics, he was sniffing around back when he was still Director of Public Prosecutions at the CPS. You might recall Starmer showed up along with Sunak and other senior politicians to Murdoch’s summer party lastyear, but it wasn’t his first visit. Starmer became DPP at the CPS in 2008 and he got an invite to the 2009 summer party too. In fact between 2008 and 2013, Starmer’s tenure as DPP, he accepted Murdoch hospitality no fewer than 10 times. In fact for all of his protestations about not wanting to speak to the Scum, people from that rag were the only media people he actively chose to socialise with in his down time, having lunched with the likes of Rebekah Brooks and Dominic Mohan, only ending when the phone hacking scandal broke in 2011 and he put some distance between them and himself, in fact Starmer stopped declaring hospitality after 2011, so between then and 2013, there’s no record of who he may have attended further hospitality events with. From an official DPP perspective he did attend lunches and drinks with journalists from the Scum, Times, Sunday Times, that 2009 summer Party of Murdoch’s and also the Times Christmas Party. Consider the rest of the British media for a moment, the non Murdoch ones. All in all, Starmer accepted hospitality collectively from them just 6 times by comparison and attended no other organisations parties. All in all, Starmer is known to have hob nobbed with journalists as DPP some 20 times.
So let’s fast forward a bit. He became an MP in 2015, served in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet and of course there was much leaking to the media every time there was a heated argument involving Corbyn behind closed doors, those anonymous Labour sources, but it was quite the coincidence when many of the Times journo’s reporting on such actions happened to be people Starmer used to enjoy lunch with. Was he one such anonymous source therefore? Well we can’t say for sure obviously, that’d be libellous, but he certainly did have the connections to do so if so inclined. Of course Starmer later became Labour leader and his first interview went to another former lunch partner from the Times and stuffed behind a paywall as he has so often done since. Starmer attended Murdoch’s summer party last year and everyone who went was chosen by Murdoch, and each had a five minute one to one session with him, where he basically held court in effect and our countries leading politicians, all the ones who went there, from Starmer, to Rachel Reeves, Wes Streeting, Rishi Sunak, Sadiq Khan and more would have met with him as if they were meeting the king, but less well reported was the fact earlier the same day Starmer was in attendance at the News Corp CEO Summit and one News Corp source has said we can’t keep him away.
So all in all, is it any surprise he went creeping to the Murdoch press to win their assent, their backing, their anointing in practice, to back Starmer even when that backing actually only came in the final days of the election campaign? Why did Starmer make such a horrible deal with the likes of Murdoch to bin off any semblance of further press regulation, Leveson 2 as it gets referred to, with no real reason for having to and that is the crux of the matter, there was no need for him to do this, he had already won and had done it without needing Murdoch, the Tories destroying themselves was all Starmer needed, the Murdoch press was still writing critical stories about him, as much as he kept coming back begging for column inches and they’ll probably still do so, so what exactly does Starmer hope to gain and actually despite his authoritarianism in every other aspect, why is he so meek in the face of media press barons he’s now in a position to regulate as they damn well should have been years ago giving us a free, but also accountable press for their actions?
The first part of Leveson looked at the culture, practices and ethics of the press in the wake of that phone hacking scandal which eventually of course led to the downfall of the News of the World, but also implicated other publications too, but the second part the Tories cancelled in 2018, the then Culture Secretary announcing plans to bin it off, before later becoming Mr Covid VIP Lanes as Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, the punchline there pretty much writes itself.
Leveson had been split into two parts, because it best met the terms of reference of the inquiry to do so, but the catch has been the binning of Part 2. When Hancock cancelled it, it became Labour policy from that point on, under Corbyn’s leadership, but now Lisa Nandy, the current Culture Secretary has announced no intentions to pursue it either, and this matters because the remit of part 2, was to investigate the relationships between journalists – with particular attention being paid to News International, Murdoch’s outfit – and the police along with corporate governance failures in these media organisations. Clearly there is a concerted effort to cover up whatever may be found there and Starmer, allegedly a man of the law, but very much so a man of Murdoch, has agreed to bury this again, with the insinuation that he’s done so to court media favour, the very reason the Leveson Inquiry needs to be fully completed.
Now in theory, by letting off the mainstream media and promising no further regulation that could have come off the back of that, Starmer can’t come after independent media and online media, however if Starmer is going to come after alternative media, he could do so by abusing the Online Safety Act which came last year, introduced as the Online Harms Bill. If he does ever come for such media outlets as a favour to mainstream sources to eliminate competitors, and eliminate media sources critical of Starmer, it must be remembered that if that comes down the line by virtue of the mans authoritarianism, that it is happening through the prism of letting the likes of Murdoch off the hook, for the conduct of his papers and for no other reason than Starmer appears to remain his ever obedient servant, but please do let me know what you think of that in the comments.
Meanwhile, it’s for not dissimilar advantage that Starmer is attacking left and progressive voices in parliament, but giving Reform UK a free pass, that Tory vote having gone elsewhere being exactly what put him in power, but it’s a dangerous game to play if you don’t change anything from the government that came before you to gamble with the far right like that, people often wonder how far right regimes come to power, but it's stupidity like this that opens the door. Watch this video recommendation next to get the details of that story and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.