The Guardian, Dan Sabbagh, Monday 5 September 2011
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| Tony Blair and Ruper Murdoch at an awards ceremony in 2008. Photograph: Mike Theiler/EPA |
It was a
relationship that began in political controversy but progressed to a secret
family union: Tony Blair, it was revealed , is godfather to Rupert Murdoch's
nine-year-old daughter, Grace, the second youngest of his six children.
In a
culmination of 15 years of political intimacy, the former Labour prime minister
was present at the star-studded baptism of the child on the banks of the
Jordan, at the spot where Jesus is said to have undergone the same ceremony,
according to an article in Vogue magazine.
With the
Murdochs and their children dressed in white – and present at the invitation of
Queen Rania of Jordan – the event was photographed in Hello! magazine, complete
with an ethereal front cover image of a smiling Murdoch in an open-necked
shirt.
But no
mention was made of Blair's participation, which was revealed only in a rare
interview by Murdoch's wife, Wendi Deng, in a forthcoming edition of Vogue.
Although
she has traditionally kept a low profile, Deng's interview comes after she
catapulted herself into the public spotlight by leaping from a chair to lash
out at a foam-pie thrower who attempted to target Murdoch during his
questioning before the Commons culture, media and sport committee in July.
In the
Vogue article the former Labour leader, is described as "one of Murdoch's
closest friends".
Murdoch's
company, News Corporation, confirmed the longstanding link between the two men,
although it is not known when Murdoch asked Blair to act as a godparent and how
far this predated the actual baptism.
Grace was
baptised a few weeks before Easter of 2010, and therefore shortly before the
last general election.
When the
Jordanian baptism was originally reported by Hello!, it noted that actors
Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, both friends of the Murdochs, were godparents
to Grace and her sister Chloe.
The
involvement of Blair was admitted by Deng in the interview shortly before her
husband flew to London to deal with the phone-hacking crisis in the wake of
revelations that the News of the World had targeted the mobile phone of
murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
Deng, who
said she was not sleeping because of the stress of dealing with the
phone-hacking affair, added in the interview: "Of course, as Rupert's
wife, I think it's unfair on him to be going through this. I worry about him
being alone. He has no PR people advising him. He tells me not to come but I'm
flying to London for the hearing. I want to be with him."
In July it
was reported that Blair rang Gordon Brown to ask him to tell his friend and
ally, the Labour MP Tom Watson, to lay off attacking News Corporation over the
phone-hacking issue. Brown is thought to have refused the request, although
neither Blair nor Brown has confirmed such a conversation took place.
A spokesman
for Blair last night declined to comment on the godfather link.
Blair's
wooing of Murdoch dates to 1995, when the leader of the opposition provoked a
political row by accepting an invitation to address a News Corporation
conference on Hayman Island, Australia, in July of that year. Labour under Neil
Kinnock had previously been demonised in Murdoch's Sun, to the point where some
believed the tabloid's opposition had cost the party the 1992 election.
When Blair
opted to attend, he justified the decision to his spokesman, Alastair Campbell,
that "not to go was to say carry on and do your worst, and we knew their
worst was very bad indeed," according to his memoirs. "It seems
obvious," he added in his book, A Journey. "The country's most
powerful newspaper proprietor, whose publications have hitherto been rancorous
in their opposition to the Labour party, invites us into the lion's den. You
go, don't you?" Blair also noted that Paul Keating, then Australia PM,
felt Murdoch was "a bastard, but one you could deal with".
The
would-be PM's performance at the News Corp event was seen as a clear sign that
Labour was becoming electable – and marked the beginning of a long, close
friendship between the two men.
Labour
benefited from the loyal support of Murdoch newspapers, with the Sun switching
from Conservative to Labour in the run-up to the 1997 election, and the Times
dropping the Conservatives in 1997 and endorsing Labour in 2001. Meanwhile,
Labour placed few restrictions on the operation of either News Corp's
newspapers or BSkyB, in which News Corp owned a 39.1% stake, during its time in
office.
Support
from the Murdoch titles intensified at the time of the Iraq war, and Murdoch
and Blair were in close contact through Blair's premiership, speaking, for
example, on the phone three times in the nine days before the Iraq war.
Information released by No 10 under freedom of information rules also showed
the pair spoke on the day the Hutton report into the death of Dr David Kelly
was published.
By the end
of his premiership, Blair wrote of Murdoch in his memoirs that he "came to
have a grudging respect and even a liking for him". He added: "He was
hard, no doubt. He was rightwing. I did not share or like his attitudes on
Europe, social policy or on issues like gay rights, but there were two points
of connection: he was an outsider and he had balls."
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