The below is an extract from Andrew Neil's evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, published today. You can read the whole document here.
‘How we treat Rupert Murdoch’s media interests when in power,’ Mr Blair told me in 1996, a year before he became Prime Minister ‘will depend on how his newspapers treat the Labour party in the run up to the election.’ That is exactly how it panned out.
The Sun and the News of the World fell in line behind New Labour in the run up to the 1997 election, The Times stayed broadly neutral and the Sunday Times unenthusiastically Tory. After the election, The Times quickly fell in line as the New Labour house journal, its chief scribe in that role Tom Baldwin, now chief spin-doctor to Ed Miliband (just one example of the Downing Street/Wapping revolving door).
In return, New Labour in power did nothing to undermine or threaten Mr Murdoch’s British media interests, despite a deep desire among many in the Labour party, especially (but not exclusively) on the Left, to ‘cut him down to size’. Demands for a privacy law (which Mr Murdoch abhors) were kicked into the long grass. Control of 37% of national newspaper circulation was tolerated (indeed supported now most of the 37% was rooting for Labour). BSkyB was allowed to grow unhindered and light-touch media regulation became the consensus of the day.
There was a strong body of opinion that wanted tougher cross-ownership rules to stop powerful newspaper groups becoming powerful broadcast groups (and vice versa). New Labour resolutely repelled tougher cross-ownership then went further: the Labour 2003 Communications Act ended the ban on foreign ownership of TV licences, paving the way, in the years to come, for the Murdoch News Corp to attempt to buy the 60% of BskyB it did not own. This was something Mr Murdoch’s people lobbied hard for, with his support, and they had unique and extensive access to the levers of power at the heart of the Blair government to make this lobbying effective. When Mr Murdoch testified before this Inquiry that he had never asked government for anything it gave me cause to wonder if he had forgotten this — or forgotten he was testifying under oath.