Murdoch to campaign against euro

RUPERT MURDOCH will marshall the combined forces of his newspaper empire in a campaign against the euro if Prime Minister Tony Blair calls a referendum. Murdoch would like to see the 'Vote No' message spread through the pages of The Sun, The Times, the News of the World and the Sunday Times in a move that would put the newspaper baron head to head with the Prime Minister.

In an interview with today's Financial Times, Murdoch said: 'Europe is made up of so many diverse cultures and histories that to slam it together with a government of French bureaucrats answerable to nobody...I cannot see anything but benefit by waiting.'

Murdoch's threat is bound to create anxiety within the Government that Blair could find himself struggling to get the pro-euro message across against an unsympathetic media, led by the Australian-born tycoon.

Murdoch said: 'My feeling about the euro is there is a lot of nonsense spoken about it. The five tests etc, but it is a political decision...the central issue is one of sovereignty. If you give up control of your currency, you are going to give up control of your tax system just as night follows day. The idea of Europe having one foreign policy, tying up its military in one organisation, it seems to me 100 years premature.'

Murdoch also reaffirmed his opposition to the monarchy, despite accepting an invitation into the royal enclosure at last week's Golden Jubilee celebrations for the Queen. He said he was not about to take to the ramparts to pull down the House of Windsor', but added: 'I do not think the British monarchy would survive a bad monarch - someone who could not hold his tongue in politics. It would be gone pretty quickly.'

In a wry comment on the Times leader which wrote of the Queen enjoying the unalloyed love of her people, Murdoch said: 'I rather preferred the Guardian line: Nice girl, shame about the system.'

Murdoch, who took up American citizenship to allow him to own a US television network, suggested that both his sons Lachlan and James could end up succeeding him at News Corporation. He has previously said he considered Lachlan, who ran the Australian end of things before joining the executive team in the US, to be his successor. But he said: 'They are very close and get on extremely well. It [the future leadership] will be more shared than it seems at the moment.'

Murdoch also revealed his admiration for Gordon Brown, whom he described as 'a very deep Calvinist who believes in the duty of people to work and I approve of that very strongly'. But as to who should succeed the Prime Minister, Murdoch said that 'depends on Tony Blair. It's a pretty amazing person who steps down'.