Rising Son

On 28 August, James Murdoch delivered the James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture, a speech named in memory of the prolific Scottish writer-director-producer who died in 1974. The first MacTaggart lecture was a socialist polemic from the playwright John McGrath. In subsequent years, it became part of the Edinburgh International Television Festival, a “wee gabfest” where, founder Gus Macdonald said, program-makers “would be allowed to speak freely because their bosses wouldn’t be there”. The rebellion present at the lecture’s origin has since been quashed by the bosses themselves, who now dominate both the audience and the lectern … which brings us back to the fourth child of Rupert Murdoch.