Ex-PM spoke to Murdoch before war

The telephone conversations were among six calls between the two men detailed by the Cabinet Office in response to a Freedom of Information request from Liberal Democrat peer Lord Avebury.

The information was released on the day after Mr Blair handed over power to Gordon Brown last month, after a three-and-a-half year battle by the Lib Dem peer. Lord Avebury waited until now to publicise the release.

No details were released of what subjects Mr Blair and the News Corporation chairman discussed in the calls on March 11, 13 and 19 2003, ahead of the launch of US-led military action in Iraq on March 20. Further conversations took place on January 29, April 25 and October 3 2004.

The Cabinet Office response also listed meetings between Mr Blair and Express Newspapers publisher Richard Desmond on January 29 and September 3 2003 and February 23 2004. The release covered the PM's phone conversations and meetings with the two men between September 2002 and April 2005.

Lord Avebury initially asked for the dates of Mr Blair's phone calls and meetings with Mr Murdoch and Mr Desmond in October 2003. When this request was rebuffed by the then leader of the Lords, Baroness Amos, he made a complaint under Freedom of Information legislation.

In 2005, Downing Street responded that the information was exempt from disclosure because of the need for the Prime Minister to be able to undertake free and frank discussions. The Cabinet Office said that releasing the timing of the PM's contacts with individuals could be prejudicial to the effective conduct of public affairs because it might lead to the content of their discussions being disclosed.

Their arguments for secrecy were backed in a July 2006 ruling by Information Commissioner Richard Thomas, who said that the timing of any calls need only disclosed if they were official contacts, with civil servants taking minutes.

The peer lodged an appeal last August with the Information Tribunal. On June 28 this year, a day before evidence was due to be served on the parties to the case, the Cabinet Office made the surprise announcement that it would release the information.

Lord Avebury said: "This is a welcome blow for the cause of freedom of information, but it shouldn't have taken so much time and effort to extract information that was so clearly of great public interest. Rupert Murdoch has exerted his influence behind the scenes on a range of policies on which he is known to have strong views, including the regulation of broadcasting and the Iraq war. The public can now scrutinise the timing of his contacts with the former Prime Minister, to see whether they can be linked to events in the outside world."