‘Brilliant and brutal’: Rupert Murdoch laid bare by his closest aide

HE’S one of the world’s most powerful and talked-about men, but few know the real Rupert Murdoch.

Now a new book by his right-hand man Les Hinton, who worked for Murdoch for five decades, promises to reveal the most intimate ever portrait of the Australian media tycoon.

‘Rupert Murdoch was a big part of my working life and this book contains my version of the truth about him,’ Hinton says. ‘Rupert could be hell to work for and he earned many of his enemies.

‘He’s a driven businessman with heavy boots who bruised a lot of people. But, love or hate him, he’s an authentic colossus. I saw him at all angles: brilliant, brutal and often — to the surprise of many — extraordinarily kind.’

In his memoir, The Bootle Boy: An Untidy Life In News, Hinton relates how he was born during the war in the Liverpool district, and emigrated with his family to Australia. He started work at 15 on an Adelaide newspaper and ended up running News International, publisher of the Sun, Times, Sunday Times and News of the World, before becoming chief executive of Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

‘I would never bother defending Murdoch because he’s a big boy and he can take care of himself.

‘He has become a demonic figure, the manifestation of all the evil things to do with globalisation and the world of crazy capitalism — and that’s a travesty.

‘While it’s true he has contributed to wild and crazy things, there is a great deal more to him than that.’

Hinton, 73, will also reminiscence about his encounters with politicians. ‘Over 50 years, I met a lot of people and saw a lot of things,’ he says. ‘The ones I don’t like will be in no doubt that I dislike them.’

Gordon Brown, he adds, was ‘the most avid in courting favour but when things went wrong for him he became a slightly crazy and halfmad, wounded beast’.