* Questioning of Blair will throw spotlight on Labour’s ties
to media
* Blair spoke to Murdoch three times in run-up to Iraq war
By Kate Holton
LONDON, May 28 (Reuters) – Tony Blair’s decision to openly
court Rupert Murdoch to win power and ensure favourable coverage
during his decade-long tenure as British prime minister will
come under scrutiny when he faces a media inquiry on Monday.
The inquiry, ordered by Prime Minister David Cameron after
Murdoch’s now defunct News of the World tabloid admitted hacking
phones, has tarnished Britain’s elite by laying bare the
collusion between politicians, the police and the media.
Blair kicks off an important week at the Leveson inquiry by
answering questions about his often obsessive media management
which included courting Murdoch.
The inquiry has so far focused on the conduct of the media
and the close ties between Murdoch’s empire and serving
ministers, helping the opposition Labour Party leader Ed
Miliband consolidate his position with attacks on Cameron.
But the grilling of Blair, who recast the relationship
between the media and politicians by “spinning” news to gain the
most favourable coverage, could undermine Miliband’s attempt to
portray Labour as a party above courting media tycoons.
While Blair is no longer active in British politics, the
inquiry may still prove uncomfortable as it examines issues such
as his decision after stepping down as prime minister to become
a godfather to Murdoch’s daughter Grace at a ceremony on the
banks of the river Jordan.
“Blair led the way in having no shame about courting
Murdoch,” said Ivor Gaber, professor of political journalism at
City university.
“He set the style and the standard and if you regard Cameron
as the ‘heir to Blair’ then it’s not exactly surprising that he
followed suit.”
Murdoch told the inquiry last month that he had never asked
a prime minister for anything.
Blair set the tone for his relationship with Britain’s press
when he flew to Australia in 1995 to speak before a gathering of
Murdoch’s executives who had previously used their British
tabloids to vilify his Labour Party predecessors.
The decision infuriated much of his left-of-centre party who
saw the Australian-born tycoon as a right-winger who had helped
to keep them out of power for years.
“People would be horrified,” Blair said later in his
autobiography. “On the other hand … not to go was to say carry
on and do your worst, and we knew their worst was very bad
indeed.”
“The country’s most powerful newspaper proprietor, whose
publications have hitherto been rancorous in their opposition to
the Labour party, invites us into the lion’s den. You go, don’t
you?”
The speech received a standing ovation and Murdoch indicated
for the first time that he could be willing to switch the
allegiance of his newspapers to the Labour Party.
“If our flirtation is ever consummated Tony then I suspect
we will end up making love like porcupines, very, very
carefully,” he told him.
With the backing of Murdoch’s top-selling Sun tabloid, Blair
swept to power in 1997 and again in 2001 and 2005. But with an
ever increasing reputation for public relations “spin”, he
started to face questions over his sincerity.
“Tony Blair quickly became famous in Fleet Street for
inviting in one group of newspaper people and telling them how
sceptical he was about Europe; and then inviting in another lot
and telling them how keen he was on Europe,” Andrew Marr, a
senior BBC journalist, told the inquiry.
“But the different groups compared notes, and his reputation
was not hugely enhanced.”
Much of that came to a head when Blair and then U.S.
President George W. Bush agreed to invade Iraq, going against
the public opinion in Britain.
Blair is likely to be asked why he spoke to Murdoch three
times in the days leading up to the Iraq war and whether this
had any impact on the fact that all Murdoch’s papers supported
the unpopular invasion.
He will also be asked whether his reliance on Britain’s
press meant that he did not properly scrutinise their role in
society and whether any group, such as Murdoch’s News
International, had too much control of the market.
“There was a desperation to get the Sun onside and to get
News International on side, basically at all costs,” Liverpool
University’s political professor Jonathan Tonge, told Reuters.
“And if that meant sacrificing a serious analysis of the
relationship and the health of the relationship, then so be it.”
