A SAD BUSINESS

Andrew Neil laments

the break-up of the marriage of Anna and Rupert Murdoch

WHEN the Evening Standard left a mes- sage on my voice-mail early on Tuesday morning asking me to comment on rumours emanating from New York that Rupert and Anna Murdoch were separat- ing I did not even bother to return the call. It was obviously just a malicious piece of Manhattan tittle-tattle unworthy of any response.

That was before I learned that the story had appeared as a diary item in the New York Post (Proprietor: R. Murdoch): none of his newspapers would have dared print it without clearance from the man himself. Even so, the news came as a shock. We are used to senior courtiers being regularly banished from the Court of the Sun King when they incur their master's displeasure (as most eventually do). But nobody thought that the Queen would ever end up

in exile.

The Murdochs' 31-year-old marriage was a marvel to behold. Despite Rupert's peripatetic rollercoaster business life, Anna was his rock. Elegant, determined and intelligent, she was the perfect tycoon's wife: always there for her husband and ready to defend him but also a formidable person in her own right.

Though the demands of Rupert's global business empire brought its inevitable strains, they were very much in love and, despite their joint disdain for overt displays of personal emotions, not afraid to show it. They walked arm-in-arm at company conferences. On the way to brunch one day in New York, they held hands in the back of the taxi. It was a mar- riage I admired, even envied.

Much has been made of Anna's position

on the board of News Corporation, the holding company for his worldwide empire, but she has not been a seminal influence on the business. Despite her distaste for the topless girls on page three of the Sun, she never succeeded in getting Rupert to ban them. He rarely consulted her on busi- ness strategy or major acquisitions.

But she provided him with a stable, lov- ing family life and did a splendid job in raising their three children. She brought them up in a no-nonsense fashion, as befits her Scottish roots, and as they were grow- ing up I never saw them behave like spoilt rich kids. The Christmas Day I spent with the family in Aspen in the mid-1980s was a delightful, low-key affair and the children were great fun to be with. They have grown up to become well-balanced and polite adults. This is largely Anna's work.

Anna's biggest influence on her husband was effectively to convert Rupert, the grandson of a Scottish Presbyterian minis- ter, to her staunch Catholicism. A few years ago they secretly reaffirmed their marriage vows in New York's St Patrick's Cathedral, the most famous Catholic church•in America, and Rupert was recent- ly honoured by the Pope.

Anna's strict Catholicism can sometimes make her appear stern and unbending, even humourless: she will brook no argu- ment, for example, with her belief that all abortion should be illegal (she is not too keen on birth control either). Rupert went along with this fundamentalist agenda: they both share a fiercely right-wing view of the world.

Perfectly accredited, as you can see.' Anna is one of only a handful of people who have ever been really close to Rupert. The others are his children, his sister Helen and his mother, the redoubtable Dame Elisabeth, who has been just as shocked as everybody else by the break-up. He has never allowed himself to become too close to any colleagues because he always realised that one day he would probably have to turn on them when, in his view, they had passed their sell-by date: it Is always more difficult to sack your best friend, whereas courtiers (no matter how senior) are disposable. But close family were thought to be sacrosanct — and safe. The only time in 11 years that I saw Rupert and Anna bicker was in the sum- mer of 1994, when I took them to Daphne's restaurant in Chelsea. Over din- ner Rupert lamented having to live in Los Angeles (because of his Fox film and tele- vision interests) and wished he could spend more time in New York, which he always refers to as 'the capital of the world'. Since they had only just moved their main residence to LA from Manhat- tan, Anna was infuriated by such talk. She had settled into their beautiful Spanish-style mansion overlooking Beverly Hills and had no desire to return to New York. For the first time, they began to argue in front of me. 'You're a perpetual motion machine!' Anna snapped at her husband. 'I've had enough of keeping up with you. I'm staying in LA.' Rupert looked sheepish and I changed the subject. A year later, at the Hayman Island compa- ny conference in Australia, famously addressed by Tony Blair, they were still arguing about the same thing.

These strains have grown, to produce this week's split. In recent years, as he approaches his 70th birthday, with intima- tions of mortality but still so much to do, he has given the impression of being an old man in a hurry. This has made him increasingly unpredictable, whimsical and irascible. 'He's constantly spinning wheels,' was how one senior executive described it to me, 'which makes him impossible to live with.'

This took its toll even on what was undoubtedly a strong marriage (a weaker one would have been torn asunder years ago). Anna could not get him to reduce his Punishing travel schedule and relentless deal-making. If anything, he has speeded uP in recent years as he tries to consoli- date his satellite television interest in the Europe, I,e, Far East and win a foothold in continental turo- him. the last great virgin territory for In the past month alone he has made a failed bid to buy an Italian television net- work, broached taking over the Springer newspaper empire in Germany and bought a telecommunications company in Russia. Even when he is at home he is usually on the phone teeing up the next deal. This is not the behaviour of a man anxious to spend more time with his wife in the twi-

light of his years.

Anna hopes that the separation will con- centrate his mind and bring him to his senses. It is sad that it has come to this even sadder if the gambit fails, as I suspect it will. Anna always regarded herself as the `princess regent' of News Corp should Rupert's executive jet fall out of the sky (he's unlikely to be run over by a bus), and he was happy to contemplate her being at the helm until the children were ready to take over.

But Rupert has now identified Lachlan, his 26-year-old son who is already boss of his massive Australian interests, as his nat- ural heir-apparent, much to the chagrin of his 30-year-old daughter Elisabeth, who is currently a big cheese at BSkyB.

Rupert has encouraged sibling rivalry between his three children (the more bohemian 23-year-old James looks after new media developments in New York), which has been another cause of friction between him and his wife. But he already regards Lachlan, who shares his right-wing agenda and tough approach to business, as `first among equals'. Whether the huge financial institutions , who now own most of News Corp will be content to see another Murdoch at the top when Rupert throws off his mortal coil is another matter: I have long thought that when Rupert dies, News Corp is so unique- ly his creation that it will die with him, as shareholders sell off its constituent parts and make a bundle.

But Rupert has developed a dynastic obsession in recent years and is driven by the desire to complete the empire that he wishes to bequeath to his children. If that means losing a loyal wife of three decades' standing then it will undoubtedly make him pause: the prospect will cause him grief (`very painful' and 'torn', in the words of his New York Post). But as friends, col- leagues and courtiers have found out the hard way, when it comes to a choice between sentiment and business Rupert will always chose business. I hope I am wrong but I fear that Anna is about to find out that it applies to wives as well.

Andrew Neil is editor-in-chief of the Euro- pean and the Scotsman.