Tony Blair faces grilling over ties to Murdoch

"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?"

The speech received a standing ovation and Murdoch indicated for the first time that he could be willing to switch the allegiance of his newspapers to the Labour Party.  

"If our flirtation is ever consummated Tony then I suspect we will end up making love like porcupines, very, very carefully," he told him.  

With the backing of Murdoch's top-selling Sun tabloid, Blair swept to power in 1997 and again in 2001 and 2005. But with an ever increasing reputation for public relations "spin", he started to face questions over his sincerity.  

"Tony Blair quickly became famous in Fleet Street for inviting in one group of newspaper people and telling them how sceptical he was about Europe; and then inviting in another lot and telling them how keen he was on Europe," Andrew Marr, a senior BBC journalist, told the inquiry.  

"But the different groups compared notes, and his reputation was not hugely enhanced."

Much of that came to a head when Blair and then US President George W. Bush agreed to invade Iraq, going against the public opinion in Britain.  

Blair is likely to be asked why he spoke to Murdoch three times in the days leading up to the Iraq war and whether this had any impact on the fact that all Murdoch's papers supported the unpopular invasion.

He will also be asked whether his reliance on Britain's press meant that he did not properly scrutinise their role in society and whether any group, such as Murdoch's News International, had too much control of the market.

"There was a desperation to get the Sun onside and to get News International on side, basically at all costs," Liverpool University's political professor Jonathan Tonge, told Reuters. "And if that meant sacrificing a serious analysis of the relationship and the health of the relationship, then so be it."