The Murdoch empire's vehement support of Tony Blair and his neoconservative fellow travellers is about to be rewarded, as the British government is set to deregulate media ownership laws, giving Murdoch (a foreign national and owner of 40% of newspapers, and thus doubly ineligible) the right to buy TV broadcaster Channel 5. (And apparently Clear Channel are looking to profit too, by buying up British radio stations and turning them into a centralised, automated engine of political influence and cultural homogeneisation as they did in the US.) And only the undemocratic House of Lords, which has nothing to fear from Murdoch's command of public opinion, can stop him:

But however bad, you can bet Murdoch's arrival would make it worse. All he touches turns to dross - and gold in his own pocket. Date the decline of Britain's press into a laughing stock among European countries from the day he bought the Sun, and Mrs Thatcher let him break all media laws to acquire the rest. Mrs Thatcher twisted EU law to get him an exemption when he launched Sky to allow him to use almost entirely US programming, breaking EU import quotas. In 1996, John Major, desperate to assuage the wrath of his press, gave him all he wanted in the new digital universe. (Labour put up no objection, with Geoff Hoon smoothing its path through the Commons.) Now here we go again, Tony Blair handing over the last prize to Murdoch, whose papers repay him handsomely just now. (But only for now, so long as there is no euro referendum.) Murdoch is the great corrupter of politicians: John Major dates his downfall from the day Murdoch decided to oust him. Politicians fear they need this bully's patronage. Whenever they cave in, his grip on politics tightens.

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