Ruling the world is a family affair

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From Murdoch to Bush, real power is still found in dynasties

How long will you stay then, Mr Murdoch? How long do you wish to be master of your media universe? Questions growing ever more pressing over the last few years as the old boy hits 70 ... 71... 72. But now we, and Rupert's shareholders, have our answer. How long will you stay?

There's irony here, of course. Murdoch has a sardonic Aussie wit (of the kind best found in Foster's Lager ads). He probably - well, possibly - doesn't see himself as immortal (as they say in Carlsberg commercials). But if you are his two competing sons, Lachlan (31) and James (30), then the joke is more of a four XXXX-er. Their dad was 22 when he inherited, and began to rebuild, the wreck of his dad's empire. How middle-aged do they have to be before this 21st-century fox thinks they are ready?

Dynasties go beyond a recycled Joan Collins pushing Linda Evans's shoulder pads down the stairs on cable TV - or another duff book from Jeffrey Archer. Dynasties are what make much of the wider world go round.

India was built on the Nehru legend, and that legend still lives in Sonia Gandhi. Bangladesh is bedevilled by the ruling wives and daughters of assassinated presidents. No sooner have you bid an untender farewell to one Assad than another's sitting in Damascus. The obscure stans of Central Asia - Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and the rest - are stuffed with sons and daughters poised to take over when president papa slopes off to the last great bank vault in the sky.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1066709,00.html