Brown ‘obsessed’ over Murdoch
By politics.co.uk staff
Former prime minister Gordon Brown spent his time in Downing Street “obsessed” with winning over Rupert Murdoch, a new book has revealed.
‘Where Power Lies’ by Lance Price, deputy to Alastair Campbell from 1997 to 2001, documents Mr Brown’s concerns with maintaining the support of News International while in power.
The decision to scrap the 10p income tax band, which eventually had to be abandoned in humiliating fashion and triggered a decline in the polls, was designed to appeal to Mr Murdoch, the book claims.
Peter Mandelson’s special adviser Patrick Loughran was among those who suggested that New Labour’s second and last PM was interested in nothing but getting good press.
“He was obsessed with News International, completely obsessed. We would go into meetings on election strategy or the pre-Budget report or some big announcement we were doing and within a minute Gordon would turn it into News International and Rebekah Brooks.”
Mr Price quoted one civil servant as telling him that Mr Brown was “in denial”.
“Gordon said it was all a media creation. Everybody looked at their shoes when he did it,” the Independent newspaper quoted the book, published tomorrow, as saying.
