Murdoch Rides To May’s Rescue

After squandering a 20-point poll lead and losing her majority in last week’s General Election, Theresa May has decided to tough it out and carry on as if nothing had happened. In this, she has called on the oldest Tory prop of modern times, and that is to prostrate herself before the media mafia that is Rupert Murdoch and his clan.

This further capitulation to Don Rupioni and the Cosa Rupra has been hailed as some kind of outreach to those previously discarded as the imperial progress of the Empress Theresa stamped its authority on the Tories, showing who was in charge. It is anything but that.

As was demonstrated yesterday morning on The Andy Marr Show (tm), when the paper review panel was headed up by the Rt Hon Gideon George Oliver Osborne, heir to the seventeenth Baronet, who has now left front line politics and become editor of the London Evening Standard, Ms May has a formidable press critic. Osborne is now, to quote another slice of Lyndon Johnson scatology, outside the tent pissing in.

So it was no surprise at all that two things happened later that day: first, London’s formerly very occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, having more than likely been not unadjacent to all the press stories about him running against Ms May as Tory leader, declared that there must be no more plotting - one wonders if he included Himself in his demand - and pledged allegiance to the PM.

Then, second, came a recall from the political wilderness for Michael “Oiky” Gove, now a Murdoch columnist, in a cabinet reshuffle in which there was very little reshuffling going on. Gove, the real life manifestation of Elmer Fudd, would be given free rein to deal with the Environment portfolio, explaining to farmers that their EU subsidies had mysteriously been secreted away by more of those rascally rabbits.

That the hand of Murdoch is present here is not admitted by the Sun, although the cheerleading headline, “Election Exclusive … BOJO: BINNING MAY IS A NO-NO … Boris tells Tories to stop plotting”, shows the effect of the intervention at work. The Express is in agreement, with “BORIS: TORY MPs MUST BACK MAY … Call for unity on day Michael Gove returns to cabinet”. But at the Telegraph, the mask slips a little.

There, readers are told “May calls in Gove to save her from leadership challenge”. Why would Gove’s presence save her from a leadership challenge, unless Murdoch’s man returning to the fold were part of some quid pro quo? Those who think Zelo Street is ahead of itself here would, at this point, do well to observe the dead giveaway from Sun editor Tony Gallagher yesterday evening: “Boris is writing for us tomorrow”.

Yes, Bozza has been brought into line by use of the tried and trusted method which always works with him: More And Bigger Paycheques For Himself Personally Now.

Theresa May is now, more than ever, dependant on Rupert Murdoch for her continuing survival. The problem there is that not only can he make people, he can also break them.