Thursday 14 October 2010

Sold! To the Australian Media Mogul at the back!

The Tory Scum/Lib Dumb government's secret little deal to sell the public sphere to Rupert Murdoch - their favourite tax-avoiding billionaire - proceeds apace.

Today's little scam is to strip Ofcom, the media regulator, of much of its oversight duties. In particular, the powers to set media ownership rules and review public service broadcasting have been removed, so that when Murdoch's allowed to take over every media outlet a la Berlusconi, there won't be any objections, nor will there be when news, documentaries and all the other serious unprofitable programming are dumped unceremoniously. All of Ofcom's powers are being given to the minister, instead of a board of experts. Let's not forget that every single one of Murdoch's outlets vocally supported the Conservative Party in the General Election. (If you want to see how Murdoch channels and papers work together to benefit the master, read this)

In a nasty little attack on Welsh-speakers, the virtually completely monoglot, anglophone government is giving the power to set the budget of S4C, the Welsh-language channel, to the minister for culture, a man appropriately surnamed Hunt. What's the betting that will lead to a massive cut in funding? The Tories were forced to set up S4C when Gwynfor Evans went on hunger strike after Thatcher tried to break her promises: he's dead now, and the Tory Scum see the Welsh language as a) expensive and b) an unpleasant reminder that the British Empire didn't have everything its own way.

Government by rich philistines. It's back to feudal times. Now it's their turn to eat

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