Rupert versus the volanco
I am currently observing the decline and fall of the Murdoch Empire with a flickering 3G card ensconced in cottage near a sleepy Cornish hamlet. Observing the Westminster village take on the media village from this outsider’s redoubt is interesting.
News filters through that News of the World staff have been offered up to assuage the angry volcano gods of Parliament. Having not seen eruptions subside, the village Chief tain has generously allowed his high priestess to hurl herself into the caldera as well to protect the inheritance rights of his son, whilst postponing his mooted takeover of the prime real estate in the path of a lava stream.
Meanwhile he and his empire are under investigation by various witch doctors for selling juju-juice unethically obtained from the gall-bladders of goats by non-licensed practitioners operating outside the code of conduct of the snake-oil merchant’s guild.
That the Chieftain’s aides were often slipping the same witch doctors canisters of the stuff to treat their patients whilst the village guards were bribed with nuts and berries not to notice, is off course entirely beside the point. The witch doctors have a score to settle after various friends of the Chieftain exposed their practice of demanding extra offerings for rituals of dubious worth.
The long oppressed pygmy tribes, more frequent victims of the Chieftain’s disdain than wrath, are cock a hoop. They are claiming credit for being right about the Chieftain all along, despite spending a vast amount of their own energy trying to attract his attention with primitive dancing displays and occasionally writing op-eds for his village newsletters.
I think it unlikely then that this crisis will see the pygmies taking over the village, and even more unlikely that any dilution in the power of the Chieftain will lead to a flowering of pygmy-friendly pluralism. Village feuds have a habit of turning into long-running tit-for-tat vendettas and power struggles rather than holding hands around the camp-fire in a show of mutual respect.
The illicit trade in gall-bladders should, we all hope, subside. It is at any rate already illegal in the village and persuading the guards to enforce tribal law by hurling a few of their dozy leaders and most egregious nut-crunchers in the volcano should help revitalise their love of justice.
Whether the Chieftain and his empire will survive remains an open question. His pending grilling at the hands of the various tribal councils for the effective redistribution of tar and feathers should not prove fatal, but will impede his movements. His reputation for being master of this volcano has gone, but then there are other villages. Sometimes it’s best to just get in the canoe and paddle to a different island.