Murdoch Strikes: ‘Independent’ Sky boss Jeremy Darroch accepts Fox offer before it’s made

RUPERT IS BACK FROM THE GRAVE AND LAUGHING HIS HEAD OFF

In a final confirmation that we will need silver bullets, a stake through the heart and a lead lined coffin

dumped into the South Atlantic to be rid of the Murdoch cancer in our culture, old Rupert has turned the tables on everyone. Rebekah back running the papers, James running Sky – and a deal on the cheap that makes him King of the Hill.

The timing, the offer, the regulation and the lack of outrage bear the usual hallmarks of a sleazy Murdoch move:

• The “approach” (not yet a formal offer) seems to have been made after hours last Thursday. It was made “from” Fox News…to avoid using the tainted ‘News’ brands. Then Friday afternoon – when most City executives were drifting away to various bars and converted barns – the Sky directors quietly announced what they’d accept as the price for their souls. Without even a formal offer.
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• James Murdoch, Digger son and heavily implicated in perversion of justice during the Hackgate saga, quietly slid into the Sky Chairman role two months ago. 38% of Sky shareholders voted against the appointment.
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• The offer itself comes at a time of distraction – two weeks before Christmas – with the Sky shares at their lowest this year. Murdoch claims the offer represents “a 36p premium”, but monitored over time it’s a massive discount. Another backlash from Sky shareholders is expected, and there are two chances of it having any effect.
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• The regulatory apparatus for the deal is beyond belief: this extract from Saturday’s Telegraph makes the point:

• The City may be in uproar, but all it cares about is the munnneeeee. Ordinary Brits will have spent busy weekends shopping. I doubt if any of them give a monkeys. Said one City source, “It’s a fait accompli – it’ll go through on the nod”.

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  So there we are: after all those years of investigations, trials, Not Guilty verdicts, cover-ups, illegal phone hacking, lies at every stage and celeb-trial sex abuse distractions, Rupert Murdoch – the man who could barely remember who he was at the Culture & Media Enquiry – is now the dominant player in UK media – bar none.

Meanwhile “The Opposition” to the British Government – which now clearly resides somewhere between the City and Wapping – is issuing bromides about “fit and proper regulation”, “chance for us to see if May is really independent” and “referral to OfCom”.

There’s already enough circumstantial evidence staring them in the face that the entire deal is rigged and planned while so-called regulators looked the other way.

As for those who excoriate the BBC, I have been asking them for years to “be careful what you wish for”. Rupert and his oleaginous son James are a Trojan Horse for the final completion of a coup that has been coming since 2010: the replacement of citizen democracy with a corporate State.

Britain needs a new and proper Opposition, before it suddenly becomes the need for a Resistance.

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Filed under: Murdoch to buy Sky with Fox money, Uncategorized Tagged: FoxNews, Hackgate, Jeremy Darroch, Rupert Murdoch, Sky