Blair testifies in media ethics probe

Former Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday that he couldn't stand up to Britain's media tycoons while in power, telling an official media ethics inquiry that doing so could have dragged his administration into a political quagmire.

Blair's testimony shed light on the canny media strategy used to create the "New Labour" image that repackaged his party as more mainstream and business friendly, bringing it back to power after 18 years in opposition.

Blair, who was premier from 1997 to 2007, enjoyed strong media support in his early years, including backing from media mogul Rupert Murdoch's influential newspapers. But he found himself isolated near the end of his decade in power due in large part to his unpopular decision to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The ex-prime minister said he long had concerns about what he once described as the "feral beasts" of the media but had to tread carefully where media barons were concerned.

"I took a strategic decision to manage these people, not confront them," he told Lord Justice Brian Leveson, who is leading the inquiry. "I didn't say that I feared them . . . [but] had you decided to confront them, everything would have been pushed to the side. It would have been a huge battle with no guarantee of winning."

Leveson's inquiry was set up following revelations of phone hacking at Murdoch's News of the World tabloid, a scandal that has rocked the British establishment and raised questions about whether top politicians helped shield Murdoch -- and the media in general -- from official scrutiny.

Blair's time at the top has come under particular scrutiny because of the unlikely -- and mutually beneficial -- alliance the media-savvy prime minister forged between his left-wing Labour Party and Murdoch's News Corp. -- a company whose holdings include the populist The Sun newspaper and the right-wing Fox News network.

Blair became so friendly with Murdoch that he was chosen to be the godfather to one of Murdoch's children. The Blair government's relationship with Murdoch has since been described by several former colleagues as having been too close for comfort.

The former prime minister made no apologies for courting Murdoch, saying he was just one of several media tycoons who could make life difficult if they weren't happy with a position he was taking.

He denied doing any kind of deal with Murdoch, "either express or implied" -- although he acknowledged calling the Australian-American tycoon ahead of elections to make sure that Labour could count on News Corp.'s support.

Prime Minister David Cameron is also expected to testify before Leveson, whose inquiry was set up last year after it emerged that reporters at the Murdoch-owned News of the World tabloid had routinely hacked into the phones of public figure and crime victims.