Matthew Norman's Media Diary: Murdoch the muddled kingmaker

If the political historians of tomorrow ever need a hint (and where would they look if not here?) as to how Gordon Brown survived so long in office, they might consider the touching friendship between Sarah Brown and Sun editor Rebekah Wade. The Sun's continuing support for Gordon is, on the face of it, against the form book and interests of a paper whose political raison d'être is to wait until Rupert Murdoch decides who will win the next general election and become the future PM's most zealous cheerleader, allowing itself to claim credit for the victory and add to the leverage with which Mr Murdoch bullied Mr Tony Blair into promising a referendum on the Euro. Currently, there is little doubt as to who that next PM will be, and less as to who it won't be.

For this insight we can thank Mr Murdoch's own imperial proconsul Irwin Stelzer, who describes Gordon as "finished". Yet still The Sun backs a certain loser. I've had a think about this curiosity, factoring in Mr Murdoch's fabled inverted snobbery about Old Etonians and other potential influences, but the only explanation that makes any sense is that Rebekah, champion ingratiator of a cloyingly incestuous journo-political age, goes to Sarah's "slumber parties" at Chequers.

Touching as it is to imagine the ladies huddled up under the duvet eating Häagen-Dazs, watching Sex And The City DVDs and giggling about the awfulness of men (see Ross Kemp, below), and delightful as her personal loyalty might be, you wonder how she will respond when the order comes, as come it surely will, to swing behind David Cameron. Presumably, by palling up with Samantha Cameron, and swapping pyjama parties at Chequers for "Come To the Opening Of An Envelope!" soirées at Smythson's in New Bond Street.

OR COULD it be that Mr Murdoch has stopped telling even his more pliable editors what to think because he can't decide himself? His indecision over the US election has been an amusing diversion for almost two years, and shows little sign of resolving itself with little more than a month to go. First, he performed a staggering volte-face, even by his own gyroscopic standards, by cosying up to Hillary. When Obama beat her, and briefly looked a shoo-in for the White House, the old goat suddenly came over all liberal, and expressed his distaste for his own Fox News. Then a few days later Sarah Palin arrived and swung the polls, and he decided a bellicose, evangelical-fuelled cultural war-promoting campaign was just the ticket. And now? Who knows? His wife Wendi was pictured at a Washington charity do last week with Palin (and Sarah Brown), so perhaps he's still behind McCain. Then again, at the time of writing shortly before that uncertain first Presidential debate, the polls are moving firmly in Obama's direction. Affecting the part of kingmaker is seldom easy, but when you can't decide who the king is likely to be it's an absolute nightmare. We would urge the gallant Papal knight to pray for guidance.

SUCH DISTRESSING news about ITV scaling down its coverage of local news. How on earth will we cope?

AND SO to Ross Kemp (Ross Wade as was). Ross, who hasn't summoned the police to save him from a slightly built woman for years, is TV's hardest man, yet he is also its most sensitive. Two press releases arrive in quick succession, the first regarding his trip to Kenya to "investigate the Mungki, an outfit labeled as 'the most dangerous gang in Africa'." However, it seems that while there (and the lack of cynical opportunism jogs the lachrymose) Ross discovered poverty, and swiftly made another programme, the subject of the second, about Nairobi's street children. Can anyone sniff another Bafta on the

breeze for the hardest softie on telly?

REGULAR FEATURE "Daily Mirror Exclusive of the Week" takes a surreal turn, with the award going to the only genuine world exclusive the paper has had in an eon, for which it claimed no exclusivity whatever. "Phew!" was the front page headline on Friday. "US saves world economy with $700bn bail out". I'm not sure how this happened, since it was clear the negotiations had broken down shortly after 10pm on Thursday night, and no other paper I saw made the same howler. Still, I'm sure they know what they're doing.

TREMENDOUS TO hear Kathy Lette on Gabby Logan's Radio 5 Live show last weekend. If there's one thing you want to hear on God's own Sabbath, it's Kathy highlighting the added importance, for the post-partum woman, of penis girth over length. Kathy's arduous battle with Genital Tourette's Syndrome, the subject of a forthcoming, Bafta-tipped Sky One documentary presented by Ross Kemp, is unending, but her fortitude does her credit and we wish her well.

ANOTHER tour de force, finally, from the bejewelled pen of Jon Gaunt. Among much else that delights, my favourite columnist turns his mind to George Michael. "I wonder if, coked out of his head, he remembers to practise safe sex with the multiple, anonymous partners he picks up in toilets?" muses Gaunty in The Sun. "Or is the thrill of his encounters more important than safety?" What, a guy with one of the planet's more recognisable faces who pops down to Hampstead Heath in the middle of the night, with illegal drugs on his person, for sex with strangers? You think the danger might be a turn on, Gaunty? Well, it's an intriguing idea, but we mustn't rush to judgment. Let's have a good, long ponder, and maybe return to it next week.