Blair says feared provoking British media wrath
By Kate Holton and Guy Faulconbridge
LONDON (Reuters) - Tony Blair said on Monday he decided to court the media in Britain rather than risk the wrath of powerful media tycoons during his decade as prime minister.
Blair, the most powerful British prime minister since Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, said that even he was not willing to risk offending the major media groups.
"If you're a political leader and you've got very powerful media groups and you fall out with one of those groups, the consequences is such that you... are effectively blocked from getting across your message," Blair told the inquiry under oath at the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
"I'm being open about the fact that frankly I decided as a political leader, and this was a strategic decision, that I was going to manage that and not confront it. And we can get on to whether that was right or wrong at a later stage, but that was the decision I took," he said.
Blair's relationship with the press, and Rupert Murdoch in particular, came under scrutiny at the inquiry which has broadened out to examine the close ties between politicians, the press and police after initially looking at a phone hacking scandal at a mass-selling tabloid.
Blair said the close relationship between politicians and the media was inevitable but that it became unhealthy when media groups tried to use their newspapers as instruments of political power.
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 the current British Prime Minister David Cameron.
But the grilling of Blair, who was renowned for trying to control the media agenda by "spinning" the news to gain the most favourable coverage, could undermine Miliband's attempt to portray Labour under his leadership as a party above courting media tycoons.
LABOUR AND MURDOCH
Read the original here:
Blair says feared provoking British media wrath