They all used Rupert Murdoch to get ahead. (Emphasis mine.)
Blair, along with Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, was present when Murdoch’s daughters, Grace and Chloe, were baptized on the banks of the Jordan river in 2010. The Vogue article says that he is Grace’s godfather. She was born while he was still in office. The piece also describes him as “one of Murdoch’s closest friends.”
The admission is one of the clearest signs yet of the deeply close ties that Blair’s Labour party cultivated with Murdoch after decades of poisonous relations. Top members in the party were convinced that Murdoch held the key to their electoral success, especially after 1992, when The Sun famously proclaimed that it had played a crucial role in Labour’s shock loss to John Major. As Blair turned the party rightward, he also began a campaign to woo Murdoch. In the most infamous incident, he even flew to Australia in 1995 to attend a News Corp. conference. Blair’s plan paid off when the Murdoch press endorsed Labour in 1997.
