India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has defended his friendship with media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, saying they had 'a working relationship' until he left office. Blair told the Leveson Inquiry into Press Standards that he had not changed any policies to please the newspapers owned by Murdoch. "It was a relationship about power. I find these relationships are not personal; they are working [relationships], to me," The BBC quoted Blair, as saying. He also said that he would not have become a godfather to one of Murdoch's children based on their relationship in office. "Despite all this stuff about me being godfather to one of his children. I would not have been godfather to one of his children on the basis of my relationship in office," Blair said. "After I left office I got to know him. Now it's different. It's not the same," he added. According to the report, Blair admitted he had 'flown half way round the world' to Hayman Island, Australia, to meet Murdoch and News Corporation executives when he was Labour leader in 1995. He said he wanted to persuade the organisation against 'tearing us to pieces'. Blair said a close relationship was inevitable, but also involved a "certain level of tension". "If you look back over time there's nothing wrong and indeed it would, it would be strange frankly if senior people in the media and senior politicians didn't have that close interaction," the report quoted him, as saying.

Tony Blair defends 'working relationship' with Rupert Murdoch