Blair, Gordon may have grown 'closer than was wise' to Murdoch: Ex-UK minister

London, May 22 (ANI): Former British leaders Tony Blair and Gordon Brown may have grown 'closer than was wise' to media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, a former UK minister has acknowledged.

In evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, Former Labour cabinet minister Lord Mandelson said the amount of personal contact between the two leaders and Murdoch led to 'adverse" comment.

He suggested the same was true of current Prime Minister, David Cameron, and other Conservative leaders.

Mandelson, the former business secretary, however, denied there had been any 'faustian' pact between the ministers and Murdoch, The Daily Star reports.

"I reject the view that, under either Blair or Brown, some sort of Faustian pact was forged between the government and Rupert Murdoch involving commercial concessions to him in return for support from his newspapers," the report quoted him, as saying.

According to the report, Mandelson claimed that 'the contrary' was the case.

"It is also arguably the case, however, that personal relationships between Blair, Brown and Rupert Murdoch became closer than was wise in view of the adverse inference drawn from the number of meetings and contacts they had," he said. (ANI)