The Murdochalypse- The Left Reacts

On this blog I like to ensure that a range of opinions are heard, so I've asked a few of the leading left wing commentators in this country to say what they think of the News Internaitonal hacking scandal and the collapse of the Murdoch bid for BSkyB.


George Monbiot-

When Belsen was liberated the world said “Never Again”, a sentiment many of us have found ourselves muttering in similar circustances this week as Wapping undergoes a the same fate.

Just as the war didn’t end at Belsen we must march on to our Berlin and a final victory over Rupert Murdoch and the corporate power elite who distort the conciousness of the bovine masses. To the point where many people look on views like mine- such as bringing back airships or forcing people give over their spare rooms to wild eyed tramps- as being in some way extreme.


Laurie Penny

For young people like me Rupert Murdoch is irrelevant- we get our news from Twitter & Facebook or from grafitti scrawled hastily on walls as we run from a police baton charge.

In the squats and bedsits of Britain, the Sun is regarded by my generation little more than a daily instruction guide teaching men how to rape.

But while he’s totally irrelevant to what commentators describe as “the Laurie Penny Generation” he is clearly the most evil man alive and in charge of the current fascist government. In the middle of a running battle with the police, a protester wiped the tear gas from his eyes and said- “aren’t you that creepy woman in her mid twenties who hangs around with teenagers all day telling them that their going to overthrow the system?” “We are all like Milly Dowler, dying while the News of the World violates our bodies”.

Johann Hari

When Belsen was liberated the world said “Never Again”, a sentiment many of us have found ourselves muttering in similar circustances this week as Wapping undergoes a similar fate.

Just as the war didn’t end at Belsen we must march on to our Berlin and a final victory over Rupert Murdoch and the corporate power elite who distort the conciousness of the bovine masses. To the point where many people look on views like mine- such as bringing back airships or forcing people give over their spare rooms to wild eyed tramps- as being in some way extreme.

Seamus Milne.

Yes people had their private phone calls hacked and yes secretive methods were used to determine a target’s whereabouts. However if they had nothing to hide then they had nothing to fear from being scrutinised. The fact that even their own friends were willing to share their personal details shows just how untrustworthy these so called victims were.

{Note from Editor: "Seamus we are talking about News International not the Soviet bloc"}

Oh right, sorry for that misunderstanding….. absolutely sickening stuff by the neoliberal oligarch Rupert Murdoch, sickening.

Ed Miliband.

The government has acted in a reckless and provocative manner. These strikes are wrong.