Alistair Campbell Appears At Leveson Inquiry After Evidence From Coulson On Murdoch Relationships

Tony Blair's former director of communications has denied there was ever any "express deal" with Rupert Murdoch to win support from his papers before the 1997 general election. Testifying for a second time before the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics, Alastair Campbell said new Labour would have been "crazy" not to try to win over the media mogul. But when asked if there was any explicit deal, he said "absolutely not". Mr Campbell said in the years running up to the election, party leaders made a determined effort to court the News Corp chairman. He said: "Murdoch was the single most important media figure. It would have been foolish on our part not to build some sort of relationship with him." The witness said the party's strategy was to try to win the support of sections of the press and not just the Murdoch empire, although with some newspapers like the Mail, he said all Labour could realistically do was to try to counter the worst of the paper's attacks. After a few years in government, Mr Campbell said it became apparent there was a "real problem" in the relationship between the press and politicians. However, he admitted they did not take action to address the issues.