Media: Ownership

Lord Lipsey Excerpts

Thursday 4th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lipsey]

My Lords, when you think about it, I am afraid that Vince Cable has shot our fox—whether from high principle or from funk at the thought of the ferocity of the assault that he should expect from the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, I do not know. Seriously, however, we should not for one minute underestimate the importance of the decision that was taken this morning. Just think of the counterfactual of no reference being made. Whatever arguments Mr Cable’s department could have cobbled together for that, the message would have been absolutely clear—that Rupert Murdoch stood above any British Government and their powers. By making that reference today, that myth is destroyed. Power, as a famous American columnist once said, is being believed to have power, and today the complete belief that Mr Murdoch had total power has been set back—a great moment for our democracy.

I think that I am in a unique position among those who have spoken in this debate: I have worked for Rupert Murdoch. I was economics editor after he took over the Sunday Times and Simon Jenkins’s deputy at the Times. I am glad that this debate has not demonised the man. I can report frankly on Mr Murdoch’s interventions. I remember only one instruction that came down from the chairman; namely, Simon and I were told that whatever we might think of the column written by the late Lord Wyatt, he was under the chairman’s protection and could not be removed. We sometimes had difficulty in explaining that to our critics who were not as enamoured as the chair of the content of that column.

What happened by way of self-censorship is another matter. These things are much more complex than they are believed to be. But the idea that a crudity of power is exercised is badly overdone. The fact of ownership conveys quite a lot of power in itself. We have heard a lot about news today, which is important. We are protected in news to some extent by the impartiality rules, which is a great thing, although those rules are always under siege, including from the great chairman himself. We cannot take it for granted that they will always by there.

I worry slightly more about a different kind of plurality—cultural plurality. If you think of a News International of the size that is contemplated—two BBCs—imagine the effect that that would have on the marketplace for the cultural product that is television; for example, for the balance on our screens between American productions, European productions and British productions. I do not think that you will find Mr Murdoch, an American, saying, “Oh, we must keep up the European and British content”. That will affect what is made and what is shown. There are many other ways in which ownership, in effect, affects culture. Although I yield to no one in my admiration for American culture, I would like plurality of culture as well as plurality of media.

Following the sentiment expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Lloyd-Webber, although not perhaps the content of his recipe for it, my final point is that the single biggest protection we as a nation have of plurality of provision and of variety of what we consume is the BBC, especially so in a week when ITV has admitted that its object is to achieve the lowest common denominator.

[Lord Fowler]

You certainly succeeded in that.

[Lord Lipsey]

I defer of course to the opinion of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, in that matter.

A strong BBC is absolutely at the centre of a varied and plural media in this country, which is why the brutal beating administered to the corporation last week by the Government is one which we will repent of at leisure.