Polly Toynbee

Was it Rupert Murdoch wot lost England the World Cup? With shedloads of sports rights money he corrupted the game, turning clubs into highly leveraged financial instruments overpaying their players, while fans pay for what was once free on TV. So say some, but I leave that to football aficionados.

Hardly noticed, something else is stirring in the Murdoch undergrowth. Last week in the Sun Kelvin MacKenzie let the cat out of the bag. Not a domestic cat, but something feral. "In a few weeks' time I expect my colleague and friend Jon Gaunt to win a major victory in the high court which will change the radio and TV landscape." It will, he says, have far-reaching consequences "with broadcasters allowed to express views for the first time". "They might at last be able to make money out of news (at the moment they lose a fortune), just like Fox so successfully does in the United States." So that's the plan, just like Fox.

As a former Sun editor, MacKenzie knows what he's doing when he flies a kite for Murdoch. Fox News is Murdoch's highly successful shockjock TV station that has helped turn US politics toxic with ranting rightwing opinion abandoning any pretence of objectivity.

Gaunt was sacked from TalkSport radio for a stream of abuse against an unsuspecting Redbridge councillor. He called him a Nazi and then a "health Nazi" for screening out smokers when choosing families to place babies for adoption. Following complaints, Ofcom delivered a mild rebuke, recording a breach of the broadcasting code laid down by parliament. There was no suggestion of calling for Gaunt's firing: that was TalkSport's decision, which observers suggest had little to do with the Nazi row. But Gaunt saw it as his chance to defend his right to freedom of expression under the European convention on human rights.

Just pause here for a deep breath and consider the irony of this Europhobe and hater of the human rights act invoking European human rights law against the Broadcasting Act of our sovereign British parliament. Ofcom polices broadcasters so they obey the law requiring them to observe acceptable standards: this case turns on whether Ofcom weighed up freedom of expression against that duty. If Gaunt wins, case law would let presenters rant and rail more, sliding towards Foxification.

Murdoch has been gunning for Ofcom as the main obstacle to his ambitions: Kelvin MacKenzie is only one of many Murdoch journalists attacking the regulator. Last year Ofcom concluded that Sky had a monopolistic control of the pay-TV market by owning 80% of premiership football rights and 100% of Hollywood movies, selling on these rights at too high a price to other broadcasters: Sky was ordered to cut its rates by more than 20%. That unleashed a volley from the Murdoch press and shockingly, just 10 days later, David Cameron delivered a speech on the "quango state" in which he singled out only one quango by name: "Ofcom as we know it will cease to exist."

No doubt the speech pleased Murdoch, who built his empire on his ability to weaken regulators – mainly by terrorising politicians with his control of nearly half the British press. (Margaret Thatcher disbanded media ownership rules so he could acquire his newspaper dominance, and she won an exception from EU law so he could launch Sky with almost entirely US content.) So far it seems that Ofcom's huge technical duties over licensing of all telecommunications as well as broadcasting regulation have caused Cameron to ease off.

But a tough question is about to land on Vince Cable's desk at the business department. The decision he makes matters greatly and it will be a defining test of Cable's character. Murdoch is bidding to take over the 61% of BSkyB the family doesn't already own. Awash with dollars, he has had a good recession and can buy the shares cheap with the pound so low: BSkyB is set to make billions in the next few years, its heavy investment period over.

Since he effectively controls it already, why does that matter? Unfettered by other shareholders, he can roll up Sky with his newspapers behind his paywall, merging news reporting operations across all his media: buy Sky, get the Times and Sun free, plus broadband, telephone and iPhone apps all at knock-down prices. His dominance will grow: when Virgin challenged him in court he just bought up Virgin channels. With a golden cashflow, he can eat up any opponents and squeeze all other media. With no shareholders to protest, BSkyB will fund his loss-making newspapers for ever because they guarantee him the political hold over any government that tries to regulate his unstoppable empire. Sky's budget is already twice that of BBC Television's: it will grow far faster. Plurality is further diminished with only his newspapers secured by this cross-media subsidy.

Soon internet, radio and TV will converge into one set, indistinguishable from each other. When Gaunt's shouty SunTalk online radio station arrives via the same set as any other radio and TV station, the Murdochs will demand to know why the BBC should receive a licence fee for a bit of a system no different from myriad online stations. The Murdochs will protest at Ofcom regulating the standards of "television" and "radio" when Gaunt's SunTalk rant is accessed on the same remote control as regulated and politically neutral stations. Murdoch wants his journalists writing and broadcasting interchangeably across all his media with equal freedom to express his views everywhere. Fox News, here we come.

Sky's share price has jumped nearly 30%, expecting the deal any day now. Cable has 25 working days to decide if Murdoch's purchase of the rest of BSkyB is in the public interest. The takeover will require clearance from the European commission, but if Cable wants to intervene he must do so before the commission's judgment: he can call in the Office of Fair Trading and Ofcom. His officials will do what officials do – advise he takes the primrose path of least resistance. He has the power to declare this monopoly is not in the public interest: it plainly isn't. The question is whether he has the nerve.

It's a tough test so early on in his new job. The fate of Chris Huhne was a well-timed reminder of raw Murdoch power, sending snoopers out to trap this arch critic of News of the World phone-tapping under Andy Coulson. Cable needs to show he is not easily intimidated.

People bitch and moan about the BBC and its supposed bias. If bias and commentary were allowed, we’d see Sky News descend to the level of Fox News. Then what?

There is a very slight bias in the BBC but it was a better opposition to New labour than the Tories for most of the last decade. I drred to think what will happen if Murdoch is able to allow opinions on TV. ITV could do the same and possibly even Five. Though BBC will probably still be banned from such opinions.

If Sky news turns into Fox (surely not that different from the Express or the Mail), then Ian Hislop will have to step up to the plate and become Britain's John Stewart...

Oh Private Eye will have a field day with Sky and also ITV if that happened. I doubt that the public here will actually tolerate TV news having a propaganda motive. ITV news already has dire ratings and it can only get worse if they follow the Fox News model.

Probably because they clearly target their broadcast at the Republican party membership, which is roughly 50% of the population. The rest of the media do not make that distinction trying to get a mass audience. That might explain a very large part of it.

It’s going to be bad if the majority of broadcast news loses any attempt at bias.

Really? I'd've though it would be a good thing if any attempt at bias was lost.

Mark

I am clearly not making any sense today.