'I think the Daily Mail IS hugely important tbh. Isn't Murdoch mostly working through red top tabloid papers? I think they are more important than the BBC.'
Good point. I think the BBC is something that everybody watches almost every day and there is a drip-drip Establishment line fed to them that way. But you are right that Murdoch in particular may have more influence because of his papers ability to challenge the Establishment viewpoint, in the way that the BBC usually wouldn't, if they want to. I think the BBC probably has more influence on the people while Murdoch has more influence on the politicians because of what his papers might say.
' I don't think that Blair is the only strategic politician in British history'
I was concentrating more on the lying rather than strategy.
'He's played them like a fiddle and the public have been on his side against any media attacks. He's won over and over again and the fact that most people incl. the BBC and Channel 4 have done everything to sink him hasn't hurt him.'
He is a brilliant politician and communicator which is why he survived for so long under the most brutal attacks the Establishment whizzkids could dream up, but it has done him immeasurable harm. He is finished, he is "toxic" because of how the Establishment portrayed him.
"Self-styled sophisticates may sneer at Nigel Farage, but in another lifetime he’d have been a Spitfire pilot fighting the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain. Most of his critics would have been desk-jockeys in Whitehall or conscientious objectors, if not outright collaborators.
He is a brave man, not only politically, but personally, who has stuck to his convictions in the face of disgusting verbal and physical abuse. Without him, we would never have been in a position to cast off the shackles of Brussels. He deserves a statue in Parliament Square — or a blue plaque outside the Red Lion in Whitehall, at the very least."
www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-3659091/The-day-quiet-people-stood-roared-RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-praises-spoken-EU-referendum-devastating-effect.html
He was an exceptional politician, but not good enough to beat them. Trump is an example of someone who could easily beat them, but that is due to the fact that he is a billionaire and doesn't give a flying duck what they try to do to him. That is exceedingly rare.
'So why has it hurt Jeremy Corbyn so badly?'
It hasn't. He is still leader, he will be around long after Farage has gone. He has the largest mandate of any politician in UK history, he has got record Labour membership figures, he beat every stooge that was thrown at him, and he won by-elections and held on in the biggest anti-establishment populist revolution led by UKIP and Brexit etc that this country has ever seen. He is still in the running and if he takes control of his party, the mainstream media and Establishment will not be able to counteract social media and the party activists if Corbyn manages to come up with policies that appeal to the people on the doorstep.
The media doesn't always win. Cameron had most of the media, the entire Establishment and every fat cat and bigwig from Washington to Brussels on his side (apart from Trump, of course), and Cameron and the media still lost to the people in Brexit.
If Corbyn comes up with good policies, there is no way the media can stop him.