Murdoch’s Fool

Shakespeare’s Fools are entitled, privileged. And in ways that no other characters are. They may presume to speak up, to tell the truth as they see it, fearless on all occasions – whether they are dealing with princes or paupers.

They use a variety of means: they sing; they dance; they juggle; they joke - they do stand-up.

A particular favourite for me is the Fool in King Lear. Yet while the Fool tells Lear when he’s being foolish and is listened to, others who do so are given short shrift. When Lear’s favourite daughter, Cordelia, doesn’t go along with his wishes, she is disowned.

As Isaac Asimov puts it: “That, of course, is the great secret of the successful fool – that he is no fool at all.”

So many corporate and political leaders seem to surround themselves with yes-men (and women). Maybe it would be a good idea to appoint some licensed jesters, whose job it would be to puncture idiotic balloons.

I only ever met one ‒ Paul Birch at British Airways ‒ but he lasted eighteen months in the job.

So how to give them protection?

Mad Lear understood that his own Fool was intensely loyal and spoke out of love for him. Stalin, I sense, was less forgiving.

Does Rupert Murdoch have one? Could be useful.

With Larry Lamb at the Gabba

The opening of The Iron Lady in London reminds me of the two days that I spent with Sir Larry Lamb at the England-Australia test match at the Gabba in Brisbane in 1982.

These were days of cricket-watching, drinking and talking. He did a great deal more than me of both the last two.

And we ate soft-shell crab, a Queensland delicacy.

By this stage Larry was editor-in-chief of The Australian. Previously, in London, he had been the pioneering editor of Britain's biggest-selling newspaper, The Sun. Two stories he told stick in the mind.

First, of the daily meetings prior to the 1979 election that he had with Margaret Thatcher and Tim Bell to plot the following day’s front-page headline in The Sun. It’s generally agreed that swinging that mass-market tabloid behind Thatcher won her the election.

Then, of his rejected proposal to build an executive loo at The Australian. “Tell him to piss out of the window like the rest of us,” was apparently Rupert Murdoch’s decision. Larry was not best pleased.