In the end Rupert Murdoch decided he didn’t want a fight with the Tories after all, so he pulled the plug on Kelvin MacKenzie’s bid to give David Davis a run for his money in the upcoming by-election.
The whole plan had been conceived as a terrific wheeze at the 40th birthday party of Sun editor Rebekah Wade. Murdoch was in cavalier form and said to MacKenzie, his favourite former Sun editor, that he would bankroll a MacKenzie bid to ensure that Davis was given a real fight.
MacKenzie was much taken with the idea and beetled round to BBC1’s This Week, where he told Andrew Neil the news on air. But, in the cold light of dawn, Murdoch was having second thoughts.
Murdoch has no great love for David Cameron or the Cameroon Tories. But he’s concluded that they are going to form the next government, and Murdoch always likes to be on the side of the winners.
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