You wonder sometimes, don't you? I assume that nothing I write ever really affects anything, largely because I'd be frozen in terror otherwise. But I don't think I'm that off-base anyway. It seems to me that Rupert Murdoch's alleged power – one deranged liberal hack called him the most powerful man in Britain since Churchill! – may be in danger of being exaggerated. But, of course, the exaggeration tends to refute itself. If most people in Westminster believe you're powerful, and act under that belief, you are.
But what power has Murdoch exercized? The strongest argument is that his solid working class 
tabloid, the Sun, swung the 1992 election to John Major. I don't buy it. Murdoch's previous gift has not been dictating British politics, in my view, but in spotting winners a tiny bit before others, and jumping on their bandwagon. He saw – or his editors did – that in 1992, although the British public was sick of the Tories, they simply didn't think Labour was yet capable of government. The Sun encapsulated that mood with its election day headline: "If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn out the lights". And Major won a shock victory (and had one of the most under-estimated premierships in recent history). But correlation is not cause and effect. Major won that election on his own.
(Personally, my favorite Sun headline of all time remains "FREDDY STARR ATE MY HAMSTER," in which a minor pop star was alleged to have done exactly that. It was completely made up, requiring the following priceless statement by Starr: "I have never eaten or even nibbled a live hamster, gerbil, guinea pig, mouse, shrew, vole or any other small mammal.")
Murdoch followed up his 1992 coup with a switch from Tories to Labour six weeks before Tony Blair's landslide 1997 victory. Can anyone believe "it was the Sun wot won it"? Please. It was Blair wot won it – and the Murdoch press made a shrewd decision to throw in its lot with him. Murdoch's willingness to change his support was, of course, good politics and good journalism. It made him a media swing vote; and every pol pays more attention to swing votes than loyal ones.
All in all, it seems to me, Murdoch did have the power to destroy individual careers but not governments or political parties. The most shameful aspect – other than the criminal charges – of some of his tabloid editors was their occasional willingness to threaten and bully public figures with exposure of private affairs if they did not toe various lines. When this bullying was used to cow investigation of their own miscreance, that nasty bullying side became criminal.
But most bullies are not as strong as they would like us to think they are. What has happened recently is that the myth of the Great Machinator Behind The Scenes has been definitively debunked.
The emperor has had a wardrobe malfunction. And he looks old and small and wrinkly underneath.
The Dish 