RUPERT MURDOCH, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, parent company of The Times, yesterday gave warning that British competitiveness and productivity were being held back by over-regulation stemming from the Government.
The media boss, who was speaking 20 years after the Wapping dispute, complained that the British economy was overtaxed and that Tony Blair needed to press ahead with his controversial education reforms.
Mr Murdoch said that Labour was “extending the nanny state,” and complained that the “cost of business was going up” at a time when newspaper advertising, and by implication the wider economy, was “tightening up”.
Arguing that education was fundamental to Britain’s competitiveness in the world, Mr Murdoch said: “If the labour Party is so stupid as to prevent Blair from putting through his [education] reforms, then the Conservative Party should certainly support Blair. We’re not educating our people properly here.”
However, despite the criticism of government policy, Mr Murdoch indicated that he was not unhappy with Labour and questioned whether David Cameron, the new Conservative leader, offered a credible alternative to the current administration.
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He tempered his remarks, saying: “I don’t want to be criticising the Government, which has been pretty good in many ways.” He also said that he liked Gordon Brown – Labour’s likely leader at the next election — “very much” and that they “shared the Calvinist work ethic”.
On David Cameron, Mr Murdoch said that it “seems he is more about image”. “I’d like to know more about his vision for the future of this country, rather than throwaway positioning,” he said. He added that there was “not an alternative between him and a new Labour government”.
Mr Murdoch was talking on BBC Radio 5 Live in a wideranging interview.
The Australian-born media magnate, who holds American citizenship, has been an investor in Britain since the end of the 1960s, when he bought The Sun and The News of the World.
The Times and The Sunday Times were acquired in 1981 and Sky, now BskyB, was founded at the end of the decade, although most of News Corp’s business is now in the United States.