Blair met with Murdoch 38 times during the time he led the Labour Party from 1994 until 2006. Moreover, ahead of the general election on 1 May 1997, Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper The Sun shifted its allegiance from the Conservative Party to the Labour Party.
Moreover, in July 2006 Blair was in Pebble beach, California, where Murdoch’s New York-based News Corporation conference was located. About two weeks later, Clive Goodman, the News of the World’s ‘rogue’ reporter, who was blamed for the phone hacking practices, was arrested.
In an interview with the Huffington Post UK, Martin Moore of the Media Standards Trust said the relationship between Blair and Murdoch was certainly more complicated than a simple deal because Blair’s policies benefited Murdoch’s media empire and in return his newspapers supported the Labour government.
“It would be terribly interesting to understand a bit more about the relationship…Whatever deal or no deal there was, if there was a perception that people in the government were very close to News International that’s going to have a trickledown effect,” said Moore.
ISH/PKH/HE
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