There are very few people in the post-war era who can claim to have inflicted so much damage

on a global scale as Rupert Murdoch. Now, it's just been announced that he's stepping down

as the chair of Fox and Newscore. Before you crack open those bars of champagne,

steady on, the monstrous influence of course of his contemptible media empire will sadly not vanish.

But nonetheless, we should take stock of exactly what he's done to democracy all over the world.

Now, I went on sky news this week and here's what.

How do you think Rupert Murdoch is going to be remembered?

Well, he's the Rupert Murdoch is the most poisonous individual of my lifetime.

20 years ago, just an example on the road to war in Iraq.

Rupert Murdoch owns 175 newspapers all around the world and all 175 newspapers backed the Iraq war.

They softened up public opinion for what was a calamity that took the lives of hundreds of

thousands of people and unleashed terrible blood and chaos. And why do I mention that?

Because it shows that the idea that we have this free press with all these newspaper outlets

and media outlets he ran full of rigorous journalism, coincidentally or backed this catastrophic war.

Many other examples, though, in the 1980s, when the bodies of hundreds of thousands of gay men

were being ravaged by AIDS all over the world, his newspapers whipped up the most vile,

bigotry against gay men. If you think about the United States,

we mentioned Fox News, they're peddling of conspiratorial nonsense about the Obama administration,

the Islamophobia, that paved the way for Donald Trump, who he spoke to every single week when he was

president. Or if you think about the climate emergency, spreading climate denialism about what is

an existential threat to human civilization, his attacks on migrants refugees.

You're a big fan then, right? Huge fan. But I think it's really important we say this because

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