When Malcolm Turnbull fronted the media on Thursday to lay out the next steps in the Liberal party leadership contest, he pointed to forces “outside the parliament” who he believed had helped to foment disunity and call for a change of PM.

There is a widespread view among government MPs and other commentators

that those forces outside parliament include the News Corp-owned newspapers, Sky News evening commentators, as well as talkback radio hosts.

As pressure on Turnbull’s position has ramped up in the wake of the LNP’s poor result in the Longman byelection in late September, MPs and staff report a negative feedback loop, where persistent criticism from conservative media figures triggered a slew of complaints from branch members and constituents.

The pressure became particularly intense during the government’s deliberations on the national energy guarantee.

One government figure told Guardian Australia that feedback from constituents before the Neg was shelved ranged from “you are dead to me” to “oppose the Neg, make the country great again”, to “time to stump up, oppose this madness” – pressure that intensified as a consequence of editorialising by conservative media commentators.

“That stream started after a majority in the party room backed the Neg, and it didn’t stop,” the MP said.

News Corp columnists have been strongly opposed to the Neg and over the past fortnight have been talking up the prospect of a challenge from the former home affairs minister Peter Dutton.



A spokesperson for News Corp denied Murdoch had met with Dutton last week while Murdoch was visiting from the US.



However, Lachlan Murdoch is close to the former prime minister Tony Abbott, as are a number of the News Corp columnists.

“The reality is that a minority in the party room, supported by others outside the parliament, have sought to bully, intimidate others into making this change of leadership that they’re seeking,” Turnbull said as he announced that he would call a party room meeting at midday Friday, if a majority requested it.

He will not be a contender for the leadership if the meeting occurs.

“It’s been described by many people, including those who feel they cannot resist it, as a form of madness,” he said of the destabilisation campaign that has run for the past few weeks. “And it is remarkable we’re at this point where only a month ago we were ... just a little bit behind Labor and in our own polls a little bit ahead.”

This was a deliberate effort to pull the Liberal party to the right, he said.

“I just say that what began as a minority has by a process of intimidation persuaded people that the only way to stop the insurgency is to give in to it,” he said. “I do not believe in that. I have never given in to bullies but you can imagine the pressure it’s put people under.”

Turnbull refused to name names but earlier in the day Chris Uhlmann, the Nine Network’s chief political correspondent, delivered a caustic assessment of News Corp’s role, comparing the Sky News line-up to Fox News, which has been strongly supportive the US president, Donald Trump, both in the campaign and after.

Uhlmann said some of the columnists had crossed the line and were ringing MPs to urge them to vote against Turnbull’s Neg.

This comes despite Turnbull having a former Murdoch editor as his chief of staff. Clive Mathieson, a former editor of the Australian, moved up to the role a few weeks ago after joining the prime minister’s team as deputy chief of staff in 2017.

The renewed drive by News columnists to get rid of Turnbull can be traced in the News Corp publications.



In the days before the party room vote on the Neg, News Corp commentators lined up to warn Liberals to “stand against Turnbull’s global warming idiocy”, as columnist Andrew Bolt termed it.



The newspapers reported that eight would cross the floor. Bolt warned the Liberal party should look for new leaders who had the guts to stand up to Turnbull’s plan.

By early last week Dutton was on 2GB with Hadley, warning that the Liberal primary vote in Longman of 30% would spell disaster for the Liberals if repeated at a general election.

On Tuesday the Telegraph’s Sharri Markson wrote: “The energy policy has thrown the prime minister into his own world of woe and there are now live discussions about his leadership.” She said Dutton was considering a challenge.



She was joined by Bolt, Miranda Devine, Janet Albrechtsen and the “Sky after dark” team in talking up Dutton and slamming Turnbull over the next few days.

Just how close are these relationships? Bolt acknowledges he is friends with Abbott, as is Lachlan Murdoch. Credlin, Abbott’s former chief of staff, is close to both Abbott and a number of the conservatives. And insiders at News say Credlin and Bolt have direct lines to Lachlan Murdoch.

A small insight into how it might work occurred this week, as Hadley read out a text from “an anonymous Liberal MP”. In what he says was a slip of the tongue, he read that Morrison had refused to serve as “my” deputy. He then corrected himself to say Dutton’s deputy. Did the text come from Dutton himself? Hadley denies it.