YESTERDAY the Prime Minister announced that a judge-led phone hacking inquiry will have powers to call media proprietors, editors and politicians to give evidence, but not the power to enforce their attendance.
Cameron did say that those who sanctioned wrongdoing should have no further role in running a media company in the UK.
Parliament had been due to vote unanimously for a motion to be moved by Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, that Rupert Murdoch should give up any idea of taking over BSkyB. This however was not needed since Murdoch backed down.
The bourgeois media was trumpeting yesterday that a struggle between parliament and Murdoch was underway. No doubt they will now be saying that parliament has won.
This is however to misunderstand the situation. The struggle that is going on is in fact between the majority of the people, including the trade unions, and a ruling class that is seeking to make them give up all their gains to pay for the crisis.
In the front line of this struggle to force the people to accept pauperisation, and in complete unity until the last few weeks, was the Murdoch propaganda machine, the police and the government.
Governments have reckoned that they would not be able to rule without the support of Murdoch. The police force made sure that it did not rub Murdoch up the wrong way, while the Cameron government which is more and more spitting blood about the menace of trade unionism and pledging new anti-unions laws, knew it had the full support of the Murdoch press.
What went wrong with this beautiful relationship was not that parliament saw through Murdoch. It knew what he was up to and whistleblowers whistled in vain. Cameron, Coulson and Murdoch could not have been closer!
What broke them apart was the absolute disgust and hostility of the working class and middle class at the well tried and tested dirty tactics of the Murdoch press. Previously newspapers like the Telegraph had got confidential government documents into their hands from which they conducted the expenses war against MPs. That was seen as fair game, with greedy MPs getting their just deserts.
The hacking into the phone of the Dowler family and other dirty deeds rightly caused absolute disgust as did Cameron’s determined defence of Coulson, Brooks and Murdoch.
There was already extreme hostility in the working class to the Tories and their plans. Despite 13 years of Labour betrayals, the Tories were unable to get a majority and get elected as government.
The austerity plans, mass unemployment, £9,000 tuition fees, mass hostility to the plans for the privatisation of the NHS, the Libyan imperialist war, all prepared the way for the straw that broke the camel’s back and saw the entire House of Commons turned round 180 degrees to condemn Murdoch to a man, out of fear of the masses.
Cameron was humiliated while Miliband was pushed forward to move the parliamentary motion on BSkyB and Murdoch, with all the Murdoch lovers being forced out of fear of the masses’ reaction to pledge to vote against their master.
The gains of this struggle, so far, are that Cameron is now damaged goods, the police force is now branded as bent beyond repair, and the Tory party has been forced to reverse its position completely in less than a week.
Workers now have no respect for any of the above institutions and can see that they have the power to bring the government down and shut down parliament, just as Cromwell did, if it persists in its attacks on their gains.
The ruling class was forced in its weakness to look to Miliband, who cannot give them what they want, and who cannot give the working class what it wants – a real defence of its jobs, wages and living standards.
With the ruling class thrown off balance, the way is being cleared for the British socialist revolution. This will expropriate the bosses and the bankers, break up the police and the capitalist state and bring in a planned socialist economy and socialism.
