Rupert Murdoch asked for Tony Blair’s help to overcome European commission opposition to a £800m TV deal, contradicting the media mogul’s assertion this week that “I have made it a principle all my life never to ask for anything from any prime minister”.

The minutes of a 1998 meeting between Murdoch and the then Labour prime minister while the former was working on a joint venture between Sky and BT reveal how Blair was urged to take action to help the deal proceed; and how the leader appeared keen to do so.

Murdoch told Blair that “a concerted effort by the prime minister and [the then German chancellor, Helmut] Kohl could rein in the commission in this case”, according to the memo. The businessman added: “Sky’s own investment was very significant (£800m so far) and the success of the venture was crucial to their overall plans for developing digital services.”

Blair, the minutes show, said he was “instinctively sympathetic to what Murdoch was trying to achieve” and “offered to reflect on how best to approach the commission”. He added that he “would get our experts in Brussels to look into it and might take it up with Kohl”, according to the records written by Blair’s private secretary, Angus Lapsley.

Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, and communications director, Alastair Campbell, as well as the Downing Street adviser James Purnell, who went on to become secretary of state for culture, media and sport, also attended the meeting.

Murdoch said on Monday, in a rare direct letter to the Guardian, that he had never asked any prime ministers for anything on a point of principle.

He also denied ever having said: “When I go into Downing Street, they do what I say; when I go to Brussels, they take no notice”. The remark was originally attributed to him by Anthony Hilton, the Evening Standard columnist who used to work closely with Murdoch when he was at the Times.

Murdoch’s attempt to claim he does not lobby prime ministers came after his US-based media empire, 21st Century Fox, launched a new bid for control of Sky. The merger will face the scrutiny of the British government and possibly the European commission.

Asked about the apparent contradiction, a spokeswoman for Murdoch’s News Corp said: “We’re not adding any comment.”

The minutes of the 1998 meeting were released under the Freedom of Information Act in 2008. They record Murdoch explaining to Blair that Sky’s joint venture with BT to offer interactive digital services was being investigated by the European commission and that the then European competition commissioner, Karel Van Miert, “had come up with a long list of complaints and the project was being delayed at huge cost”.

Murdoch told Blair “it would be useful to know more about the timescale for a likely commission decision”. After the meeting, Blair asked British diplomats in Brussels “to look into the current situation in the commission ASAP, and to advise on tactics”.

Finally, Murdoch told Blair “he was surprised that the UK regulators were not at one on the issue” of the joint venture and Blair responded by saying he would “look into what Oftel were saying to the commission”.

Murdoch is facing political opposition to his latest £11.7bn bid for full ownership of Sky. The pay-TV broadcaster is currently 39% controlled by Fox, in which the Murdoch family has a controlling interest.



Speaking in parliament on Tuesday, the former Labour leader Ed Miliband urged the government to block Murdoch’s bid, after a similar approach had to be withdrawn at the height of the phone-hacking scandal in 2011.

“The Murdochs are seeking to turn the judgment of this house, regulator and the country on its head. If it was wrong for them to own the whole thing in 2012, it is wrong today.”

When the bid is formally tabled with the government, the culture secretary, Karen Bradley, will have a “quasi judicial” role and must decide whether to refer it to media and competition authorities.

Rival broadcasters have expressed concerns that Sky will dominate bidding for top-flight sporting events, TV shows and movies.

Murdoch’s 1998 meeting with Blair was not the first between the Australian-born Murdoch and a prime minister to discuss a major deal. It took 30 years for details of a 1981 lunch between him and Margaret Thatcher at Chequers to emerge from the archives.

Murdoch requested the lunch, held on 4 January, to brief the prime minister on his bid for Times Newspapers. But he told the Leveson inquiry into the ethics and practices of the press in 2011 and 2012 that he could not recall the meeting.



Lord Justice Leveson concluded it was “perhaps a little surprising that he does not remember a visit to a place as memorable as Chequers, in the context of a bid as important as that which he made for Times Newspapers. However, perhaps that is all I need to say.”

Leveson commented on how “perceptions at the time and since of collusive arrangements between the prime minister and the preferred bidder are corrosive of public confidence”.

He said the note of the meeting, written by Thatcher’s press secretary, Bernhard Ingham, “is careful to record that Baroness Thatcher did no more than wish Mr Murdoch well”.

“Why then did Mr Murdoch seek an invitation to Chequers?” Leveson asked. “The prospective deal was plainly of great importance to him. He no doubt believed that there was real value in meeting the prime minister face-to-face, to inform her of his bid and his plans in the event that it was successful, and importantly, to form a personal connection. He would have expected to make a good impression on Baroness Thatcher; he would have known of her respect for risk-taking entrepreneurs and that they would have thought alike on the merits of turning around a troubled newspaper company with industrial relations problems.”

In 1976, Murdoch went to see Harold Wilson, the then Labour prime minister, to complain about a deal with unions on wage controls that was hampering him from switching to high-speed presses for the Sun and the News of the World. In a letter to Wilson, he said: “Your good offices in this matter will be greatly appreciated.”

Theresa May met Murdoch in New York in September. The prime minister arranged to see him while she was visiting the United Nations general assembly.