Rupert Murdoch at the Leveson Inquiry: Gordon Brown ‘declared war’ over Sun’s change of heart

GORDON Brown told Rupert Murdoch he would “declare war” on News International after the Sun gave its backing to the Conservatives, the media tycoon claimed.

The then prime minister was “not in a very balanced frame of mind”, Mr Murdoch told the Leveson Inquiry yesterday, recalling a conversation he had with Mr Brown in 2009, after the Sun had switched its support to David Cameron’s party.

He told the inquiry: “Mr Brown did call me and said ‘Rupert, what do you know, what’s going on here?’, and I said ‘What do you mean?’ and he said, ‘The Sun, what it’s doing and how it came about’.”

Mr Murdoch says he told Mr Brown the paper had decided change was required in the UK. “He said – and no voices were raised – ‘Well, your company has declared war on my government and we have no alternative but to make war on your company’.”

Mr Murdoch added: “I don’t think he was in a very balanced state of mind… I don’t know.”

Mr Murdoch’s account was rejected last night by Mr Brown, who said he did not phone, meet, or write to the media mogul about the Sun’s change of tack.

“The only phone call I had with Mr Murdoch in the last year of my time in office was specifically about Afghanistan and his newspaper’s coverage of the war,” he said. “I hope Mr Murdoch will have the good grace to correct his account.”

Mr Murdoch said the falling-out contrasted with a warm friendship he had held with Mr Brown. He said: “I certainly thought we had a warm personal relationship.”

The relationship was further strained, however, after Mr Brown made a “totally outrageous” claim about the way the Sun had found out about his son, Fraser, suffering from cystic fibrosis. Mr Brown claimed the paper had hacked into his personal medical records.