> What is significant is the evidence of how capital is seeing opportunities to
> control politics. It would be a mirror image of what certain capitalists did to
> the Conservatives under Major, threatening to run anti-Europe candidates
> against the official candidate in elections, creating a rolling movement of
> opinion against Europe in a situation where the pro-Europeans
> felt they could not argue openly.
>
> It looks as if the June elections could be a testing time for the strength of
> capital's determination to get Britain into Europe.
>
> Other straws in the wind are Blair's "prepare and decide" statement earlier
> this week, which would probably not have been done without some positive
> signals that he could avoid suicide at the polls. It is also just alleged that
> he has had secret talks with Clarke and Heseletine, which would be consistent
> with his pattern of all-party consensus to undermine the
> Conservatives on various fronts, eg reform of the House of Lords.
>
> As I reported earlier this week, the Murdoch press, (Sun and Times) was
> somewhat more measured about Blair's speech on Europe than might have been
> expected.
>
> This coincides with a move by Murdoch's News International to establish an
> alliance between BSkyB and the French digital pay tv company Canal Plus,
> which would give NI a strong base in Europe to fit in with his global strategy.
> Murdoch has frequently built his power not through the rampant application of
> free market techniques, but through studying political
> shifts closely and taking advantage of them, as well as promoting them.
>
> No conspiracy and no corruption need occur, but it will be interesting as
> Britain edges nearer Europe, if the French find ways of allowing Murdoch a
> place in the sun in an enlarged Euro zone, while the Sun itself casts more
> dappled rays on Blair's european aims.
>
Murdoch, with whom we have a great deal of experience negotiating in Asia, is a firm believer of oligarchic monopoly.
Henry