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At a media briefing during the Milken Institute conference in Los Angeles, Murdoch said he supported Blair's points system on illegal immigration.

"The idea of a points system for immigrants... I think is great. The Conservatives want to do the same thing, but they would put an absolute cap on it and I think that's wrong," he said.

The Murdoch-owned Sun has yet to declare who it will back in the 2005 General Election, having batted for Blair in 1997 and 2001. The paper has led a highly critical campaign against Labour on the subject of immigration and travellers.

The only paper to declare for Labour is Sun rival the Daily Mirror, which came out early for Labour despite intense criticism over the Iraq War.

It is likely, considering the stance on the last two general elections, that Murdoch's UK newspapers -- The Sun, The Times, The Sunday Times and the News of the World -- will be fighting Blair's corner.

The News International camp is not the only one yet to decide where its suport should be directed. The Guardian, The Independent and the Financial Times have yet to declare.

Separately, the former director-general of the BBC, Greg Dyke, has publicly said that he no longer trusts Blair and will be voting Liberal Democrats for the first time.

He told ITV News last night: "I could not vote for a Labour party with Tony Blair as its leader."

Dyke and Blair clashed in 2004 over the Andrew Gilligan 45-minute WMD claim affair and the subsequent Hutton Report, which caused Dyke to be ousted as director-general of the BBC.

However, Dyke made clear that with a change of leadership the story could be a different one.

"If it had been a Gordon Brown Labour Party, yes, I might have voted for him because I have much more trust in him," he said.

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