Murdoch ‘threatened Major over Europe’

Rupert Murdoch sat at John Major’s dinner table before the 1997 election and threatened that unless the Conservative government changed its policy on Europe, it would lose the support of News International papers, the former prime minister told the Leveson inquiry.

In a strong attack on News Corp’s influence on UK life, Sir John said that parts of Murdoch’s media empire, an apparent reference to The Sun, had “lowered the general quality of the British media.” “I think that is a loss. I think that it is evident which newspaper I am referring to and I think they have lowered the tone. Its interaction with politicians has done no good to press or the politicians. The sheer scale of the influence he [Mr Murdoch] is believed to have, whether he actually exercises it or not, is an unattractive facet of British national life.” He said he thought it was more likely that sensible legislation to control concentration of media ownership was “infinitely more likely to be enacted” if the major political parties put aside partisanship to unite rather than try to court the favor of media owners who might not like those measures. He pointed out the irony that in a “country that prides itself on one-man, one-vote, we should have a man who can’t vote with a large collection of newspapers and a large share of the electronic media outlets.”