Original subtitles

This programme contains some strong language

Rupert Murdoch is an enigma.

Owner of The Sun,

The Times, The Sunday Times,

Fox News and hundreds of other media outlets across the world...

..and yet, his story is rarely told.

..to people who've lost their jobs? We have nothing to say at all.

He was, and remains,

one of the most interesting people in the world.

I used to say at the time,

I learned more from listening to him

for five minutes than I would

two or three years at any other media company.

To some, he's an extraordinary businessman.

Morning, Mr Murdoch!

To others, he's a darker force.

I call my cancer, the main one,

the pancreas one, I call it Rupert.

The pollution of the British press

is an important part of the pollution of British political life.

For decades, Murdoch has been

a force in politics at the highest level.

This is a foreigner,

interfering in British politics.

We learnt a long time ago

what to do!

The Murdochs always rally around one another,

but what divides the children is that they each have their own

interest in what they're all going to get out of this huge inheritance.

I don't believe that David Cameron,

or Tony Blair, really dared cough

without getting permission first from Rupert Murdoch.

Who do I admire?

Who would I look up to?

Certainly, Rupert Murdoch comes top of the tree, erm, simply because of

his swashbuckling ways of doing things. He's getting on with it.

This series tells the rise and fall,

and rise again, of the Murdoch dynasty.

What a story! What a story!

I mean, God, you know?

Let's go!

Thank you to my very good friend,

Rupert Murdoch. There's only one

Rupert that we know.

BEEPING

My name is Les Hinton.

I worked for Rupert Murdoch

for 52 years, from 1959.

Rupert has these management conferences every few years...

..but this was an early one...

..and we were having it in Hayman Island,

which was an island at that time which the company owned.

It's an idyllic tropical island.

Beautiful place.

Rupert said, "Well, let's take over the island."

What are you hoping to get out of this conference?

I guess we're going to, erm,

er, get a good understanding of where the company's heading for.

Looking forward to it. Ha!

Hoping to spend three days,

meet all my colleagues.

All the divisions are powerhouses.

I think that Fox is, uh,

an important cog in the wheel.

So, what future direction do you see for the News Corporation?

A very bright one. OK.

Thank you very much. It's a pleasure.

In 1995, there are a number of things

coming to a head in the Murdoch empire.

He's about to turn 65 - retirement age,

so the question of who will take over is coming into focus.

Hello again. How are you?

He wants to pass his empire on

to one of his children.

Family has always been very important to Rupert Murdoch,

particularly from the point of view

of forming a dynasty.

He had always wanted at least one of his children

to take over from him.

And the three candidates are all on Hayman Island.

His daughter, Elisabeth...

..and his sons, Lachlan and James.

He used to like to play them off against each other,

to see how they would survive.

I've met all the kids.

Elisabeth is

the child that Rupert has told people

is the most like him.

Elisabeth comes across as clever,

thoughtful, and she's complimentary about her father.

I think he gave all of us, erm,

a sense of braveness.

Erm, if you work hard

and you take risks,

you're actually OK.

Lachlan is someone who wants

his father's approval. He spent

a lot of time modelling himself after his father.

He was known as the Prince.

Lachlan has a confident, easy-going air,

and if he's in a battle with his siblings,

he seems to be enjoying it.

We love getting in debates and we hate, you know...

And it gets to a point where, sometimes, you'll have... Well,

family members will have dinner with people and they will, er,

if no-one's really talking about much, or no-one...

no-one is enjoying a debate, we'll start taking positions

against each other we don't really believe in,

but we just want to, you know, cause some, er, some excitement.

And then, there's James,

the black sheep of the family.

He's dropped out of Harvard

and invested in rap music.

He had piercings and tattoos. He was a bit of a rebel.

I was then 28,

and Lachlan and James were both in their sort of mid-20s.

I got out to Australia...

..and we went out one night, we were having dinner,

and then we ended up playing snooker at a...

in a snooker room until about

four or five in the morning

and had lots to drink. And I thought they were fantastic, the sons.

I mean, James told me that he'd been running this sort of

rap record label and it got lively in negotiations with

some of these rappers and, you know, a lot of them would be armed,

and that James at one stage had had a gun under his desk,

just in case. And I think he said, "Just don't tell Dad that".

But before Rupert can think about succession,

he has a more pressing problem.

He's not getting on with the British Prime Minister, John Major,

and the Major government is now threatening

to regulate his business empire.

Why have you come halfway around the world

to talk to Rupert Murdoch and his men?

Well, it's important, obviously, because this is a major conference

of one of the largest media outlets in the world. I think it's important

the Labour Party makes the case as to why,

in a world of very great change, we are the best people

to handle that change. OK, thank you. OK.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thanks.

Thank you. Nice to meet you. Bye-bye.

The Hayman Island conference was a very...

quite a controversial moment for us. You know, we had people in our own

team who were saying, look, don't do this, you shouldn't do this.

But I think Tony and I were immediately, let's do it.

Paul Keating, the Australian Prime Minister,

had some really good advice about

how to deal with him. He said, "Listen,

"two things you need to know about Murdoch.

"He's a really hard bastard," he said, "and the only way

"to deal with him is to be a really hard bastard.

"Cos if not, he'll have no respect for you at all."

And he said, "The second thing you have to understand about Rupert,"

he says, "in his orbit, in his world view, the priorities are as follows:

"Number one, Rupert Murdoch. Number two, Rupert Murdoch.

"Number three, Rupert Murdoch. Number four, Rupert Murdoch.

"That is it." You know?

"It's all about him and his business interests."

It's said that what drives Rupert Murdoch

can be found in his childhood.

His father had a small newspaper empire,

but he died prematurely, before he could hand it over to his son.

The trustees split up the business,

leaving Rupert feeling robbed of his birthright.

He inherited just one newspaper

but, from there, he built.

A lot of his impetus came from

the idea that he was going to

win back those newspapers

and show the world

what could be achieved.

Rupert believes that it's necessary

to have all forms of media

at your beck and call.

Buy a populist newspaper...

..and then branch out and get a serious paper...

..and then expand into TV.

And it gave him immense power.

Next, he wants to conquer the British market,

and he uses the same plan,

starting with the tabloids,

the News of the World and The Sun.

Rupert saw newspapers

as a political weapon.

Next, he tries to buy The Times and The Sunday Times...

..but that's a problem.

There are rules in Britain about how much of

any industry one person can own.

But Prime Minister Thatcher

and Murdoch are politically aligned.

She lets him buy the broadsheets,

and then take a large part of satellite network BSkyB...

..and his papers back Thatcher's government

all the way, destroying

every Labour Leader of the Opposition.

Now Blair's trip to Hayman Island

sends shock waves through the Labour Party.

"What the hell are you going there for, Tony?

Surely it's not a suntan?!

No, Murdoch is not to be trusted."

But then, I knew what his answer was. You have to...

make sure they're not anti-Labour. And I couldn't dispute that,

I just don't like the price that comes with it.

Blair makes his pitch for Murdoch's support.

I was sitting in the audience for it. He turned it on

fantastically for that audience.

It was a brilliantly articulated speech,

it was passionate, it was detailed.

I know and, er, Rupert Murdoch made a reference to this,

relations sometimes between News Corp press

and the British Labour Party have not always been,

let us say, what they might be,

but there have been changes on both sides

and the past should be behind us.

Neither of us are in the business

of trading policy or editorial support,

but what I want is for you to know where we are coming from.

And Murdoch said something like, you know, he says,

"We're probably going to end up like

"two porcupines making love,

"very slowly and very carefully." I thought,

a bit fucking weird!

Our policy is to be within Europe,

fighting for British interests,

not to follow the policy that he would

and surrender British interests.

Hear, hear! Why can he not

stand at that dispatch box, as Prime Minister,

and say that their views are wrong? Because if he carries on...

You said, "I can imagine myself supporting Tony Blair."

Are you going to support him? Well, we'll have to find out

what the difference is between Mr Blair and Mr Major,

before we make that decision. Are you preparing...? Right now,

from this distance, it's rather confusing.

Just as he hasn't made up his mind

as to who to support as Prime Minister,

he's also still deciding which of his children

should take over his business.

Let's go!

For 29 years,

Rupert has been married to Anna.

I find Rupert a very gentle man.

He's very compatible.

He's a generous man.

Er, he's also highly idealistic,

which I think is something that

most people don't understand.

And it's their eldest daughter, Elisabeth,

who seems to have got what it takes to succeed him.

What? You're on Candid Camera.

Oh, shut up!

She's fast-tracked to the top of BSkyB Television.

Elisabeth really is such an interesting and kind of humble,

erm, smart executive.

When I profiled her,

I thought she was the real deal.

She spotted shows in England

and said to her father, "You've got to put this on in America."

And she made him a lot of money.

You could argue, in some ways, Elisabeth was the favourite.

She would be the natural person to succeed Rupert Murdoch.

As children of the founder,

we care passionately about the future of the company

and very responsible for the future of the company...

..but in terms of executive succession, you know,

that's up to the board.

And having met with Blair...

..now Murdoch takes his daughter, Elisabeth, to Number Ten

to see what the Prime Minister has to offer.

JOHN MAJOR: I did invite him to dinner. We had a dinner

in February, 1997.

Er, this was a private discussion.

There was nobody else there except my wife and Elisabeth Murdoch.

HE CLEARS THROAT

Raise your hand and read from the card.

I swear by Almighty God that the evidence I shall give

shall be the truth, the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth. Thank you.

Mr Murdoch said that he really didn't like

our European policies. This was no surprise to me

that he didn't like our European policies,

and he wished me to change our European policies.

If we couldn't change our European policies, his papers could not,

and would not, support the Conservative government.

My feeling - and he did not say this - my feeling was that

what he was edging towards

was a referendum on leaving the European Union.

It is not very often someone sits in front of a Prime Minister

and says to a Prime Minister,

I would like you to change your policy,

and if you don't change your policy, my organisation cannot support you.

People may often think that, they may often react,

but it is not often that point is actually directly put to

a Prime Minister in that fashion.

Erm, there was no question of me changing our policies.

Blair wanted to meet privately

with Rupert, so they came up to my place, in Hampstead.

So, there were six of us - Rupert,

his wife, Anna, Cherie Blair, Tony

and my wife at the time and myself.

I remember the skill of Tony

when issues such as...

the European issues like the currency came up, how cleverly

Tony was able to just guide and change the subject.

When they left,

Rupert said, "I like him. I like him.

"Cherie's a bit strange," he said, "but I like him."

Good morning.

I'd like to formally confirm

that I've seen Her Majesty The Queen this morning

and sought her permission for a dissolution of Parliament

and a general election on May 1st.

The Sun newspaper, which claims

it helped swing victory for the Conservatives

five years ago, says it's now

backing Tony Blair for Number Ten.

The move's being announced

on the front page tomorrow.

During the campaign, the Editor of The Sun is on holiday,

so Deputy Editor Neil Wallis is in charge.

I edit my first paper, but there was a...

a sort of fairly standard page one

about the election, and as soon as

I set foot inside my office,

Mr Murdoch's, er, comes on the phone and said,

"Hated your paper this morning.

"You've got this all wrong.

"I'm coming down now." Click!

Two or three minutes later,

my door opens,

Rupert comes up and says,

"You're getting this wrong.

"You've got this totally wrong.

"We are not just backing Tony Blair,

"but we are going to back

"the Labour Party and everything he does in this campaign 200%!"

He said, "And you've got to get that right!"

The power of owning a tabloid newspaper

is that you can reveal people's secrets,

their sex lives, on the front page.

It was, listen, it's fair game.

We're going to target Tory MPs. And I did two of them.

The News of the World was like having a division of the SS

at your beck and call, and it could be sent into action

and it would execute your orders

to the fucking full stop.

Everyone's life would get destroyed,

and whatever you asked to be delivered would be delivered.

You had to break the law,

you con people, you lied to...

almost to everyone you came across to do with the story.

Rupert Murdoch.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

When you see that somebody's life has been stomped on

and their prospects ruined

and their family dragged through the mire...

Well, you very seldom find that on The Sun. You do find occasionally...

LAUGHTER

No, no, you find the big news

covered brilliantly. We don't believe that people

who set themselves up in positions of privilege,

or as public figures, or as public role models,

and either make money from that or get power from that,

we believe they should be looked at.

We're living in a democracy now and we want to judge...

Our readers... Have this... ..and your viewers want to judge people

by what sort of character they have,

who are setting themselves up as fit to lead the world.

Meanwhile, inside the newsroom of the News of the World,

a young Deputy Editor is starting to make her way

within the organisation,

so effectively that she will go on to change the power dynamic

inside the Murdoch family itself.

I was instantly really impressed. She was a real firebrand.

Unbelievably hard working,

really ambitious, really driven and really talented.

One of the most talented journalists

I've ever worked with in my life, and one of the best.

But a classic Rupert executive, in a way,

or the ones that he really likes.

Funny, sharp, ferociously loyal,

very driven and wants to win.

Rebekah is an extraordinary person. She is probably

the most manipulative person that I've come across.

She's brilliantly flirtatious with men

and she's brilliantly flirtatious with women.

Everybody thinks that Rebekah is their special friend.

Well, that's everybody who IS anybody, everybody who has power.

I think a lot of people who worked closely with Rebekah

say that, from an early stage, she set out to cultivate Rupert Murdoch.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Don't wake up on May 2nd

to the same old Tories back again!

In the middle of the election campaign, The Sun newspaper

asks for an article from Tony Blair.

Then, as now, Europe was a huge issue,

so I asked for a piece,

a first-person piece from Tony Blair,

saying what their cut-and-dried position was.

Then the piece arrived, and it was sort of a piece of PR flimflam

that actually said nothing.

And I said, "I'm not running this, Alastair, because

"it's just saying nothing."

But I said, "For this to be coherent,

"for this to have an impact...

"..this needs to say you will not go into the euro without a referendum."

And I duly got a piece - under Tony Blair's name - committing them

to a referendum on the euro,

if it was ever considered that they would go into it.

The price of Rupert Murdoch's

support for Tony Blair

was that Blair promised he would not

take us into the European currency

without first having a referendum.

And if Rupert Murdoch had not done that,

we would have joined the euro in 1999

and I doubt Brexit would have happened.

So, I think when we look at the long history of Britain's relationship

with the European project that

led ultimately to the Brexit vote,

I think that was a decisive

intervention from Rupert Murdoch.

Good. To be honest with you, I did ask him whether he wanted me

to do this and if he'd said no, I wouldn't have done it,

but he said, yes, do it. And I think historically,

some of this stuff is really important.

MUSIC: Things Can Only Get Better by D:Ream

# Teach you now that things

# Can only get better

# Can only get, can only get

# They get on from here

# You know, I know that

# Things can only get better

# I...

# Sometimes lose myself in me

# I lose track of time

# And I can't see the woods for the trees

# You set them alight

# Burning the bridges as you go

# I'm too weak to fight you

# I got my personal health... #

In 1997, Tony Blair sweeps to victory,

but for many in the Labour Party,

the support he got from Rupert Murdoch is hard to bear.

ALASTAIR CAMPBELL: After we've been to the Hayman Island...

..Neil and I ended up having

probably the most vicious argument we've ever had.

When I really kind of pushed him on, you know,

"What is this all about?", when it came down to it,

I think it was really about the fact that we'd,

in his eyes, been courting Murdoch.

Somebody that had been so kind of

vile and vicious and venomous about him.

And I said to him, "Look, we didn't give him anything."

And he said, "Yeah, but you will. Yeah, but you will."

You'll win a bit of support from...

I think his phrase was "a few racist bastards",

and then as soon as they turn,

they'll turn and then, you know, they'll try and kill you.

CHEERING

That is the sort of dance with the devil

that some of the Labour Party would worry about.

Thank you very much! I guess the way to think of it

is like you've got a wild dog in the corner of the room

and it's sort of there the whole time, and you're aware of it,

and you just want to keep it quiet.

That's kind of, that's how I thought of it.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Thank you!

Well...

..a new dawn has broken, has it not? CHEERING

Do I think that Tony Blair owes

Rupert Murdoch that victory? I do, really.

What we did was to say to the British public, this is who he is,

this is what he can be.

Three million newspapers a day

is ten million adults reading something every day.

But again, don't forget, though, the country was ready for a change,

and that's what Rupert spotted.

We have been elected as New Labour

and we will govern as New Labour.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

I did the profile of Murdoch

for The New Yorker.

I spent, you know, an enormous amount of time with him.

He opened up his kingdom to me

and his family, and...

he cooperated, and I was grateful.

And you go into his, his office was all white,

the walls were white, the couches were white, er,

and everything was quiet. It was very peaceful.

And you looked at him, he had white hair,

but if you looked at his sleeves

rolled up and you looked at

the hair on his arms,

they were black, it wasn't white.

And I remember looking at him, thinking, there's a fox there,

you know, it's... These white walls and white couches

and white hair are a deception.

There's really a fox in that body.

Very cunning.

Murdoch has always created this...

this sense of family first.

I love my kids, I want all my kids

to work with me at the company.

It's always been a dream of his.

Lachlan is in Australia, running - amongst other things -

the newspapers that Rupert felt

he should have inherited from his father

and has now bought back.

And Rupert has bought his son James' rap record label...

..and given him a job at the company in New York.

It's a... It's a double-edged sword,

that level of affection and control

that Rupert Murdoch exerts over his children. You know,

he alternately rewards and punishes them.

But when Rupert Murdoch helps his children,

it both sort of helps them, but it hamstrings them at the same time.

They can never really be their own people.

My impressions were that Lachlan has

a charming personality that James lacks.

James has more brainpower than Lachlan,

but Lachlan's not a dope.

Elisabeth has both charm and brains.

Elisabeth has been given a promotion

at satellite TV network BSkyB - the company

some say Rupert cares most about.

I had always heard that she would be the natural person to run...

to succeed Rupert Murdoch.

Then Elisabeth falls in love

with PR advisor and New Labour supporter Matthew Freud...

..great-grandson of Sigmund Freud...

..and a man who has serious reservations about her father.

I do remember sitting in the kitchen

and Matthew was making sausages - he loved to cook -

but I remember thinking how immense this kitchen is.

Matthew was more dominant a figure.

I was stunned at how freely

he discussed Murdoch

in a negative way, and it was quite blunt.

The relationship with Matthew was driving her away from her family

and making her family very unhappy.

Murdoch was convinced that Matthew was like a fifth column.

CHILDREN CHEER

Not long after New Labour's election victory,

politics, celebrity

and the Murdoch empire are all connecting.

Rebekah is going out with Britain's biggest

soap star and New Labour supporter Ross Kemp.

The extent and the depth of involvement of

News International, on the one hand,

and the British Government, on the other,

is unprecedented. This just wasn't Rupert Murdoch,

this was all of his editors,

all the senior executives,

and they were influential on policy

and they were influential in the papers. It was a two-way street.

I would go and see Tony Blair

quite often, er, and would have an hour or so

private meeting in his office.

And what I got to realise when I was editing The Sun

is that the words that I would use in leaders

were often reflected in things that Downing Street said.

It was unprecedented. This was almost incestuous. It was almost

the line between Church and State - if I can put it -

between Press and State

became so blurred that, at one stage,

it was quite hard to tell which was which.

Rebekah Wade, rises to be

Editor of the News of the World

and really a phenomenal figure,

linking the British media and political class.

And she becomes damn nearly

an official member of the Government, and in receipt of

all kinds of brilliant stories about what the Government is going to do.

She's close with

Alastair Campbell...

..and she's also good friends

with Gordon Brown's wife, Sarah...

..and she has access to the Prime Minister.

Rebekah had Tony Blair as a best friend. That's the Prime Minister.

Pretty good for a journalist.

Quite extraordinary.

Read from the card, please.

I swear by Almighty God

that the evidence I shall give shall be the truth, the whole truth

and nothing but the truth. Thank you.

Look, the... In the relationship between senior media people

and senior politicians, that relationship is inevitably

going to involve a close interaction,

and I think that has always been the case

and it's going to go on being the case.

And what is more, erm,

that interaction will always involve a certain tension.

The power that is exercised by a certain part of the media, erm,

and the use of newspapers particularly as instruments

of political power then creates a situation in which

that relationship is not merely sensible, but essential,

and where I think that relationship

can be - and sometimes is - unhealthy. So, what...

in a sense happens is not necessarily

you become particularly close, but the relationship is one in which

you feel this...

this, you know, pretty intense power

and the need to try and deal with that.

And I'm just being open about that, erm...

..and open about the fact, frankly, that I decided...

as a political leader, erm, and this was a strategic decision,

that I was going to manage that and not confront it.

Now, we can get on to whether that was right or wrong

at a later stage, but that was the decision I took.

Media mogul Rupert Murdoch has just completed

one of the biggest and toughest deals of his career -

the dissolution of his 31-year marriage to Anna Murdoch.

He divorces Anna.

I mean, I was knocked. It was the biggest surprise

of all the surprises I've had about Murdoch,

because I thought he was so dependant and so in love with Anna

and, yet, he turned on her. But...

I mean, I was stunned.

When his children are asked about it, they put on a brave face

and seem supportive of their father.

In some sense, we're...

we're quite honestly very surprised by it

but, at the same time, we...

we had our own relationships and...

and understood that sometimes, um,

the world isn't perfect

and that people can grow apart.

Lachlan, James, they were not happy. They're very close to their mother.

Rupert has fallen for a woman 37 years his junior,

who had been working as an intern in his Hong Kong office,

Wendi Deng.

She was much younger than him,

much younger than me,

but ambitious, clever,

came from a sort of working-class,

communist Chinese family.

She came over to America, worked in

a Chinese restaurant-kitchen,

but ended up getting to

one of the big schools.

But she was a very, erm, very ambitious woman.

His daughter, Elisabeth, seems taken aback,

but is supportive of her father.

Wendi makes Dad very happy,

um, and she's delightful.

And, um, it's...

It's something I couldn't have foreseen but, you know,

Dad seems extremely happy and Wendi seems extremely happy,

and you can't begrudge them their happiness.

# Pie Jesu

# Pie Jesu... #

I remember, erm,

being told that Rupert Murdoch had asked me to sing at

his wedding to Wendi Deng and it would take place on his yacht.

# ..Pie Jesu... #

I had been told by my management

that he had specifically asked for me to sing Pie Jesu.

And when I raised to my management the point that,

erm, Pie Jesu was actually a requiem, which is a funeral song,

and he said he didn't care whether it was a funeral song.

He liked that song and he wanted me to sing it, which I did.

# ..Pie Jesu

# Pie Jesu... #

And I remember being told that, you know,

the offer of money, or the offer of the favour,

in order to basically get good press.

# ..Pie Jesu... #

And I also remember being 13 and thinking,

why on Earth would anybody

take a favour over £100,000?

PIE JESU CONTINUES

But being advised by management and by certain members of

the record company to take the latter option,

that he was a very, very powerful man,

I was in the early stages of my career and could absolutely

do with a favour of this magnitude.

And, yeah, I sang, I sang at the ceremony.

We were on his boat until two in the morning

and I'm getting off the boat and he grabs hold of me and said,

"You're not going to hear from me for a month." He said,

"I'm going to just spend time with Wendi and I'm going to read."

PIE JESU CONTINUES

Sunday evening,

phone goes at home

and it's Rupert.

20 minutes later, I'm planning to take, erm,

six particular executives

to Italy, where he's on honeymoon in a villa.

So, we spend four days there,

talking about a whole range of issues.

Rupert's best friend is the business.

That's his life's devotion.

He never stopped working. I don't think in his mind,

Rupert ever could distinguish between being on duty and off duty.

And all thoughts of retirement are off the table.

Who will take over his empire?

Well, it's Rupert, for the foreseeable future.

He lets the cameras film his exercise regime.

The message seems to be that he is

as energetic and vigorous as ever.

Wendi was definitely dominant in that relationship.

She gained more and more influence over him over time,

and it was a bomb inside the family.

There were rumours that James

and Lachlan had pulled together information that they had

approached their father with.

I mean, they suspected that she was a spy.

Soon, Wendi is pregnant,

and if any of this has caused upheaval inside his family,

Rupert seems remarkably unconcerned.

He and Wendi are happy to be filmed relaxing

and calmly discussing their plans for the new arrival.

I think I'll speak Chinese only.

He will speak English only.

So, the baby can speak two languages

quite easily when he that young.

That's the theory. Maybe it will be no language, we'll see.

Ah! Just be confused.

No, no, it should work well. Yeah.

You know, I think when you're in love with someone,

you want to have children with them. I...

It makes sense, I think.

I'm surprised but, erm, it's, er...

Yeah, I can't wait to welcome the baby. You know, it's...

It'll be exciting.

While Elisabeth seems a little

uncomfortable and bemused by it all,

Rupert is cheerfully helping Wendi

deal with the media spotlight.

We're both very excited. Yep.

You've got to look at the camera now, like the interviewer. Ah.

You've got to learn to perform. OK! I'm not very good.

You'll be the perfect mother. Yeah!

They have two daughters,

Grace and Chloe.

Murdoch will go on to choose

interesting godparents for them.

In Grace's case,

it will be Tony Blair.

By 2002, the Blair government

and the Murdoch empire are ever more intertwined.

Murdoch had access to Blair

all the time. Whenever he wanted it.

He'd be given it private,

secret if he wanted, public if he wanted. And it got

really bad at the time of the Iraq War,

when the Murdoch press became the...

would pump out lie after lie -

I use the word totally advisedly - about the, er,

the reasons for war.

Murdoch was the big cheerleader,

the biggest and most important cheerleader for that.

In foreign policy in these days,

Murdoch was a hawk.

I think he saw it as

his job to keep Tony Blair's feet to the fire

and to make sure that Britain stood

alongside America when

that invasion took place.

The power of the Murdoch press

is in playing the role of the glue

between the US and the UK

administrations, between the Bush

White House and Tony Blair...

..so that they would look at what

we were saying in London,

and they would look at what we were saying in New York

and Washington, and it was always the same thing.

Morning, Mr Murdoch!

Murdoch would call him regularly,

he would give him the latest information

he had gleaned from Washington and the White House.

He, in turn, would find out what Mr Blair was about,

will the Labour Party be solid?

I think it's now been established

that in the week before the land war began,

the Prime Minister spoke to Rupert Murdoch almost as much as

he spoke to his Foreign Secretary or his Defence Secretary.

That's influence.

And on the eve of war,

Murdoch is one of the last people

Blair speaks to...

TONY BLAIR: Tonight, British servicemen and women

are engaged from air, land and sea.

Their mission - to remove Saddam Hussein

from power and disarm Iraq

of its weapons of mass destruction.

..and 160 of Murdoch's

newspaper editors around the world

support the war.

EXPLOSIONS

But just as Murdoch is approaching

the peak of his powers and influence,

there's a problem...

Good morning...

..as Rebekah Wade and her colleague, Andy Coulson,

give what should be routine evidence to a Commons Select Committee.

Do either of your newspapers ever use private detectives,

ever bug or pay the police?

We have paid the police, erm, for information in the past,

and it's been... And will you do it in the future?

It depends on... We operate within the code and within the law,

and if there's a clear public interest, then the same holds for

private detectives, subterfuge, video bags, whatever you want to

talk about. It's illegal for police officers to receive payments.

No, no, we don't... As I said, within the law.

OK, thanks, Chris, you've got your answer.

Thanks very much for the evidence and the courtesy

with which you have given your responses.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

In the eyes of anybody watching,

that's a confession of paying bribes.

And the amazing thing about that is that nothing happened.

Er, there should have been a police inquiry

to find out who was receiving these bribes. That didn't happen.

The way the tabloids had behaved

was like they thought they were above the law,

that they could do what they want.

Coercion,

bullying, blackmail,

fraud, deception.

Er, illegality, in terms of unlawful

news gathering, you know, private detectives.

Being able to get people's phone bills, bank accounts,

medical records, ex-directory numbers, travel itineraries.

All of these things were available

and readily used, and I used many of them.

You can see there's a potential there for a kind of blackmail,

isn't there? The Editor of the News of the World

sits down for lunch with a senior politician and...

unspoken between them is the fact

that the Editor of the News of the World knows

a certain amount of information about that politician.

Nobody will mention it, but it's there.

And it's going to shape the way that conversation goes

and the kind of dealings which are going to go on

between those two individuals.

I think it's very frightening.

It's quite scary for the politicians,

it's very scary for democracies, cos there's...

they have a hold over the politicians.

Can we just have it down for a bit now, OK?

If you don't film now, just for a bit? Thank you.

Yeah, no. No, no. No filming, just for a bit.

It's exciting being a reporter because people do come out of

a clear blue sky and tell you amazing things!

Well, Murdoch's a proper danger to

liberal democracies, if liberal democracy is your thing.

They all develop this wonderful chorus of attacks,

and they were aiming it all at Rupert, above all.

Delighted with that judgment.

Their Nazi lie was completely invented.

We've got to take responsibility for the decisions that we've taken.

My answer is yes.

I just thought, this is war.

This story was always about power...

I can't say any more. There's a lot I'd like to say, but I just can't.

..and the fear that people have of that power.

Gentlemen, clear away. Otherwise, arrests will take place.

Mr Murdoch, you must be the first Mafia boss in history

who didn't know he was running a criminal enterprise.

Mr Watson, please. I think that's inappropriate.

That's when it went nuclear.

He just had his head in his hands.

It was coming at him from all sides.