Background Information on the Relationship
with Rupert Murdoch. "There have been changes on both sides. The past should be behind us," he said, in the course of a speech on social policy delivered at a resort in Hayman Island, Queensland, off the Great Barrier Reef.
Margaret Beckett, President of the Board of Trade, dismissed as "unworkable in law and practice" a Lords amendment to the Competition Bill to outlaw the cut-price campaigns by newspapers such as The Times, owned by Mr Murdoch's News International. Her comments came as one Labour MP said News International had admitted to him that the price war it was waging had cost it £75 million. Mrs Beckett told MPs, during debate on the Bill, that a little-noticed clause of the measure, which enshrined European jurisprudence into British law, would offer newspapers (and any other industry) full protection from predatory pricing. However, her claims were immediately questioned by MPs and disputed by spokesmen for the Independent newspaper - one of those worst affected by the price-cutting by The Times. Mrs Beckett said the amendment, proposed by Lord McNally, would be overturned in its committee stage, because the issue of unfair competition and predatory pricing had to be left to regulators rather than politicians. She rejected accusations that the Government was seeking to remove the amendment in order to pay back favours to Mr Murdoch for the support that his newspapers, especially the Sun, gave to Labour during and since the election.
Blair aids Murdoch's Italian
TV bid' (23rd March 1998).
[top] According to Turin's informed La Stampa newspaper, Mr Blair "secretly" contacted Mr Prodi last week to support Mr Murdoch's bid to gain control of Mediaset, the media company controlled by Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's former prime minister. Downing Street last night confirmed that Mr Blair and Mr Prodi had spoken by telephone last Wednesday, but said the call had been initiated by the Italian premier to discuss matters related to Britain's current presidency of the EU. Asked about La Stampa's claim, Downing Street flatly denied that Mr Blair had been involved in a "lobbying" operation by calling Mr Prodi on Mr Murdoch's behalf. In Milan, Mr Prodi seemed somewhat evasive when asked to comment on the La Stampa report. He said: "Tony Blair and I ring each other regularly, over everything to do with relations between Italy and Britain. But this weekend we did not hear from each other." News International, which owns Mr Murdoch's British newspapers, including The Times and Sun, said firmly that it would not comment on the report. To avoid Italian rules that prevent non-European companies from controlling Italian television companies, Mr Murdoch proposed acquiring Mediaset's stake through his British satellite television company, BSkyB, in which his News Corporation media conglomerate owns a 40 per cent controlling stake. But Mr Berlusconi turned down the offer on Friday after talking to his business associates and his oldest children, who play a prominent role in his media empire. The two media tycoons had met at the weekend in London, where they are reported to have laid the ground for future collaboration. According to La Stampa, Mr Blair's telephone intervention was an attempt to "sponsor" Mr Murdoch's efforts to break into the Italian business scene. Mr Blair was reported to have asked to be kept fully informed on the development of talks between Mr Berlusconi and Mr Murdoch. It concluded that the reason for Mr Blair's conversation with Mr Prodi last week was to "facilitate Mr Murdoch's Italian debut via BSkyB". Despite Downing Street's efforts to conceal details of Mr Blair's contacts with Mr Murdoch, the media magnate later admitted that the Prime Minister had agreed to lobby his Italian counterpart over his attempt to break into European television.
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