There is plenty in the Guardian this week to mark Rupert Murdoch’s 80th birthday (today).

This piece details his rollercoaster rise and fall progress through America. It’s detailed and, to be fair, quite entertaining.

Sneer today
But it’s very Guardian – you can almost hear the author’s lip curling, and, of course, the Cifers in the comments section respond in kind the way they always do, like a pack of small yappy dogs.

Roy Greenslade has written a perceptive and honest piece. Greenslade doesn’t sneer; he knows his stuff (first-hand in this case – he once took the Murdoch shilling); and he’s very readable.

Its prevailing message is that Murdoch out-thought and out-fought the British media establishment – and Greenslade tellingly includes the pre-Wapping print unions within that establishment.

Sky’s the limit
He also implies that a key element of the hostility the establishment felt towards Murdoch was sheer snobbery. This is completely true.

Greenslade focuses on how the establishment was appalled at the idea of a foreigner owning a British TV station”.

But there were other snobberies in play. Remember how Sky was referred to as ‘council-house TV’, and the comments on the number of satellite dishes on run-down estates?

Now, of course, that snobbery and elitism has turned to naked fear *- understandable, but no more edifying. (*Preston at his most patrician.)

Wapped up
I remember Wapping. I was involved in some small way. What came to mind as I watched the union attempts to blockade the plant was that old dictum about how generals are always prepared for the last war, never the one they’re in.

So it proved. And may prove again for Murdoch’s current foes.

Happy birthday, Rupert.