More boring than the Borgias

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sceptical about monetarism: Murdoch is a born-again Friedmanite.

The much heralded guarantees of editorial independence which-were extracted from Murdoch when he bought the paper, were simply sops to appearances as he eased himself into ownership. In fact, Murdoch's editors have independence like Ford cars were reported to have colour range. ("You can • have any colour so long as it's black")

Throughout Evans' resignation saga, the famous six "independent" • directors stood and watched silently.

Evans' problem was that when it came to the crunch, nobody in Fleet Street really believed that the editor could or should stand up to the proprietor. The common line in other Fleet Street start with you can buy up whole industries on the cheap. And one place where they seem to have taken this lesson to heart is South Africa. Allen Adams, Labour MP for Paisley is writing to the Secretary of State for Industry about where the newspapers was that once an editor had "lost the confidence" of the newspaper owner, he should do the decent thing and quit.

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Evans, like many editors, has a self-image of the newspaper editor standing against the tide. In fact the days when newspaper editors were progressive were the days of the rise of capitalism and are long gone.

Today they are no more than puppets. So Evans gave way once again to an old style, patrician. Charles Douglas Home is the nephew of the former Tory Prime Minister, a man who believes the Times should strive to return to the dear days when top people did not have to be told that they ought to be buying it.

At the same time, Douglas Home is no fumbl ing amateur. He chose his moment to go to Murdoch and resign and calculated correctly that Murdoch would rather lose Evans and see all the old stalwarts leave the paper.

He led a pro-Murdoch, anti-Evans lobby amongst the staff which became increasingly open. While it is supposed officially to be heresy to challenge an editor's right to edit, Douglas Home showed that when the proprietor is on your side, it can come to an open split in the office without any public criticism.

In the end, boring saga oi not, Evans was forced to grasp the golden goblet which the chief of the Borgias handed him and swallow its poison. To play at being in charge of a news-. paper is one thing. To own it is something else.