And the nature of relations between Mr Blair and Mr Murdoch is

And the nature of relations between Mr Blair and Mr Murdoch is likely to be resurrected on the back of Miss Gunn’s comments.In the 1992 general election, the Sun, News of the World, the Times and the Sunday Times all supported the Conservatives But in 1997 only the Sunday Times remained loyal.. The man voted the “worst judge in Britain” made legal history yesterday by resigning after a report concluded that his conduct had weakened “public confidence in the whole judicial process”. Rebel Labour peers joined forces with the Opposition this week to defeat the Government and defend newspapers including The Independent and the Daily Telegraph from predatory pricing tactics by the Times which sells at below cost price.Mr Blair has persistently denied that he cosied up to Mr Murdoch in the run-up to the election. Fifteen of his judgments are current being challenged in the Court of Appeal.
It is believed to be the first time that a High Court judge has resigned after criticism, and his departure raises questions about who polices the 100 High Court judges. The decision by Sir Jeremiah Harman, 67, to stand down from his pounds 112,011 job as a High Court judge follows a controversial career, which has seen one of the judiciary’s most senior members regularly criticised for being rude and a bully. And it was immediately after the Labour leader wrote a Euro-sceptical article in the Sun that the newspaper pledged its support.Mr Murdoch, who is not based in the UK, attended one of a number of meetings Mr Major held at Chequers for editors during the campaign.The revelation comes at a time when the Government is coming under increasing pressure to tackle Mr Murdoch’s domination of the media in Britain. THE MEDIA tycoon Rupert Murdoch, offered John Major a pre-election deal for his support, it was claimed last night.

This Mother Courage is never unlikeable.Ben Twist is to be applauded for seeking to avoid sedulous imitation of Brechtian precept, but here it results in softening the focus.The songs, some of which are banged out with a big mike, often have a syrupy strain with a plaintive violin weeping under the line, and the soldiers who shoot Katrin are tastelessly comic. The Euro-sceptic Mr Murdoch made clear that it was the question of the single currency which would dictate who he supported.
And he implied that his best-selling newspaper, the Sun, would back the Tories if the premier came out against the European single currency.When Mr Major refused to change his policy of “negotiate and decide”, the Sun went over to Labour in what was considered a vital boost for Tony Blair.Details of the pressure Mr Murdoch brought to bear were revealed last night by Sheila Gunn, who was Mr Major’s political press secretary, in a rare insight into the workings of the News International press baron.She said: “It was made plain to us, the Conservatives, that Mr Major’s stance on the single currency was a key factor for Rupert Murdoch in deciding which party to back at the last election.”The implication was very clear to Mr Major that if he changed his policy and came out firmly against joining the single currency in the first wave there was still a possibility that the Sun would back the Conservatives.”Miss Gunn, a former journalist on the Murdoch-owned Times, said it was very noticeable that Mr Blair became more sceptical in Europe as the campaign went on. Captions and the location of the Thirty Years’ War are replaced by a medley of war images smudgily projected on sheets crossing the stage.Instead of widening the reference, these have the effect of diffusing it, and there is little sense of the play’s epic movement through time and across the plain of Europe’s desolation.Jeffrey WainwrightUntil 28 Feb (0161 237 9753). When she must deny that she knows her dead son, no one could be fooled Ultimately, Courage is a victim. There is a fine, rasping edge to her Ulster voice, but she never seems truly resilient.

shows that mime can go far beyond a silent clown busking for laughs. By combining the physical expression of dance with the visual power of painting, mime cuts through the spectator’s consciousness in a way that scripted theatre cannot: passing from the eyes straight to a deeper level of the brain, without the intervening analysis and association of language. It is said that we make all our important judgements of people on their appearance, not their words. The David Glass Ensemble’s work plunges through this chink in the emotional armour to leave its spectators spiritually shot-blasted. The sense of searing loss which it leaves in the soul is beyond words is loosely based on the Hansel and Gretel fairytale. On the bare bones of this structure are plastered layers of symbolism and imagery.

It is a dream play, with all the floating, intangible metaphors and sensations of a nightmare. Watching it is like listening to a poem in a foreign language – one feels that if one could only understand it, there would be deep, insightful messages. But even in its ungraspable, incomprehensible form there lies a beauty and poignancy which is mesmeric and moves in a mysterious way. The trick lies in not thinking and not analysing, but just allowing the performances and the music – a vital and intrinsic component from composer Jonathan Cooper – to find their own path.As befits the first part of David Glass’ Lost Child Trilogy, the pervasive image is one of children abandoned, clinging for security to a few souvenirs and memories of a childhood washed away by tides of fear and loneliness. Yet everyone viewing this production will tell you their own interpretation of what they thought they saw. Some may refer to Jung, Freud or Janov, to the bandage-wrapped anguish art of Gottfried Helnwein or the bleak emotional desolation of Edvard Munch, or argue that the piece is an exploration of the loss of innocence, the bondage of family ties, or the rituals of pain involved in leaving childhood behind. They will all be right, for this is a piece that works on levels too deep to identify or enumerate.This is the first production in an ambitious programme from the Ustinov’s new associate director Fiona Clarke.