Murdoch - The New Maxwell

When the Murdoch mafiosi moved to sell a major part of their empire to the Disney organisation - with no job guaranteed for either of Rupe’s sons - the questions were asked as to why the sale, and why now. What would happen to the Sky bid, and the constant appetite of the family for being able to bend Governments around the world to their will? And what would happen to the businesses left behind?

With Murdoch’s UK newspaper operation under continued fire over allegations of phone hacking, blagging, and even evidence tampering, and papers like the Sun now losing money hand over fist, there now has to be added the potential for Rupe’s slavish support for Combover Crybaby Donald Trump rebounding badly on him, and the thought that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller might come after the Murdochs as well.

All of this has now come sharply into focus with the belated news that Rupert Murdoch is now recuperating at one of his many homes after suffering a “serious back injury” on board son Lachlan’s yacht. Reports are sketchy at best: as the Guardian has told readers, “Rupert Murdoch reportedly suffered a back injury in a recent sailing accident, according to an internal note from the media mogul, which was provided to the Associated Press”.

Murdoch “would be working from home for weeks because of the injury, according to a person with knowledge of the email who was not authorized to share the note”. We should take the Murdoch mafiosi on trust. So what happened? “Murdoch, 86, was reportedly in the Caribbean on his son Lachlan’s yacht around the beginning of the year when the injury occurred, and taken from the boat to a hospital by helicopter”.

So it was bad enough for him to have to be airlifted to hospital, yet it appears to have taken weeks to let the world know. And it’s bad enough for him to be away from work for several more weeks. Worse, the exact nature of Murdoch’s injury is not being disclosed - deliberately, it seems. All of which brings back memories of another troubled media mogul and a most unfortunate incident involving a yacht.

Robert Maxwell, aka Captain Bob, aka The Bouncing Czech

In 1991, Robert Maxwell, one of the most vile and litigious newspaper owners ever to walk the earth, managed to fall off his luxury yacht the Lady Ghislaine into the Atlantic Ocean off the Canary Islands. His naked body was recovered some time later. It was only after his demise that the discovery was made that Maxwell had been raiding the Mirror Group’s pension fund to prop up his empire - to the tune of hundreds of millions of Pounds.

Of course, Rupert Murdoch, once a great business rival of Maxwell’s, is not in such acute financial straits. But what connects the two is that it is only when Rupe shuffles off this mortal coil that we will finally discover the extent of his bad behaviour - not just the indulgence of his papers in “The Dark Arts”, but more importantly the abuse of power on his behalf at a Governmental level in a whole series of countries.

Meanwhile, it’s only a coincidence that Murdoch’s businesses are in turmoil, he’s in the firing line for Mueller, and he goes and has a mystery yachting accident which takes weeks to be confessed to the world’s media. And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.