Friends Are For Favors.(Rupert Murdoch)(Brief Article)

The surest sign that Tony Blair was kick-starting an election campaign wasn't his traditional trip to Buckingham Palace to tell the queen. More important was Rupert Murdoch's early-May call on 10 Downing Street. Through two decades and three prime ministers, the News Corp.'s chairman has reigned as Britain's political kingmaker. Support from the largest of Murdoch's four British papers, The Sun, helped Blair win in 1997, and its declaration back in March that a Labour victory was "in the bag" killed any suspense surrounding next month's election outcome. Blair began courting Murdoch in 1995, when the Labour leader flew to Australia for a meeting. At the time, the move bordered on heresy for Old Labourites: Murdoch's Sun had been virulently anti-Labour during the '80s and early '90s. But Blair's radical pragmatism echoes Murdoch's own.

Opportunism, not ideology, drives Murdoch. Whether backing Tory or Labour, cold warriors like Margaret Thatcher or communists in Beijing, one aim remains: the desire for a friendly market for his expanding media empire. Murdoch's much-ballyhooed coziness with Margaret Thatcher revolved around business, not ideology, says Sir Bernard Ingham, Thatcher's former press secretary: "Murdoch was interested in commercial success, full stop." In New Labour, Murdoch has found people he can do business with. The Sun's editors have a "several times a day" phone relationship with Blair's press secretary, Alastair Campbell, says one media critic. And there's a tight web of connections between New Labour and Murdoch's companies. BSkyB's press head was a former adviser to Blair's Culture minister, while another key Blair aide just opened a public-relations firm. Its key client: BSkyB.