I came across this article on Prison Planet originally.
(Taken from the Guardian)
Memo shows how Blair aided Murdoch
- David Hencke and Rob Evans
- The Guardian,
- Saturday November 1 2008
- Article history
A newly disclosed Downing Street memo has revealed how Tony Blair helped Rupert Murdoch overcome an official investigation which was jeopardising one of his big investments. It shows that Blair, while prime minister, immediately ordered his top officials to help the tycoon who was frustrated that a potentially lucrative scheme was being blocked by a long-running European commission investigation.
Blair told the media magnate that "he was instinctively sympathetic to what Murdoch was aiming to achieve". The tycoon eventually won approval for the plan. BSkyB had teamed up with other big companies to develop an interactive scheme in which people could shop and manage their finances through their televisions.
The memo is the first to be disclosed under freedom of information legislation documenting the contents of meetings between Murdoch and Blair. Blair has been accused of granting political favours to Murdoch in return for support from his newspapers; Lance Price, a former Downing Street spin doctor, said Murdoch seemed to be one of the four most influential people in the administration.
Over the past couple of years I have been chronicling, the to'ings and frow'ings of this NULabour Experiment , though I must admit, I haven't studied the Gorden Brown Stewardship as closely as have the Bliarite Years but it is a strange sycronity that I was just re-reading this part of the NULabour history the other day.(Taken from "From Here to Modernity. A musical tale of poverty, war and political ambition."
A piece I have been working on for a few years, that I hope to finish it over the winter.)
On the 18th of March 1997, Rupert Murdoch's publication The Sun newspaper declares that it will support Labour Leader Blair at the general election.
That year’s election on the 1st of May 1997 sees the nation swing towards Labour by a landslide and by the next day, Tony Blair becomes the youngest prime minister since 1812 and with a Commons majority of 179.
The country was dazzled by this new broom that came to sweep out the dirty gutters, the blocked drains, the floors of the dusty and staid rooms of power. They were singing a new song, not the old songs but new, with rock star accompaniment, possibly with the remnants’ of the disbanded Red Wedge movement, the musically dubious promise that “Things could only get better."
Of course, with Tony Blair's training with the Durham's Chorister School, he ensured they were all singing from the same hymn book and a feeling of real change sweeped across the nation.
What we forgot about brooms though, is the story of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, the power rested within the broom and not with the Apprentice.
Well NULabour certainly turnout to be a Micky Mouse outfit!
Newly disclosed Downing Street memo shows how Blair aided Murdoch | Politics | The Guardian
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