Miliband’s Murdoch-baiting will haunt him

Ed Miliband’s call for Rupert Murdoch’s media interests to be broken-up was an act of political suicide. It will be protracted and painful. It may be another three and a half years before voters return to the polls for a General Election, by which time phone-hacking will be a distant memory and the Sun on Sunday will be selling just as well as its decommissioned predecessor. This is speculation, but of one thing we can be sure: whilst the entire political establishment felt duty-bound to give voice to the often misplaced outrage felt by voters, it was Miliband that twisted the knife. The Labour leader is acting like a man whose pollsters are telling him he’s having a ‘good scandal’ and, apparently made delirious by his first, heady days of minor triumph he seems determined to ram home his advantage, but if he imagines Murdoch won’t be back for revenge he’s being horrifically shortsighted.