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In an interview in News Corp-owned The Australian, the News Corporation chairman and chief executive said he wanted Prime Minister Tony Blair to stand down before the election to give him and the British public time to decide between new Tory leader David Cameron and Blair's likely successor, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown.

He told the paper: "We've been a very big supporter of Tony on big issues, he's been a very courageous world leader. We've also been critical of him on other things like Europe.

"But for no reason other than the dynamics of British politics, we would like to see at least a year to 18 months' standoff between Gordon Brown and David Cameron, so we can decide which of those most coincides with our views.

"Those two are going to decide the next election and I think the British public would be cheated if they only got a month or two's warning."
 
The political views of Murdoch, whose media empire includes The Sun and The Times, as well as a stake in BSkyB in the UK, are seen as hugely influential. Prior to supporting Blair ahead of the 1997 election, he had been a strong supporter of the Conservatives.

During the 1992 election a Sun front page article on polling day asked: "Will the last person to leave Britain please turn off the light", should then Labour leader Neil Kinnock become PM. This was seen as a key factor in the Conservatives victory that year, which brought John Major to power.

The paper even went as far as to say "It's the Sun Wot Won It" in a headline the next day.

This latest interview comes as Murdoch looks to boost New Corporation's position in Asia. News Corporation has confirmed it has held talks with Australian bank Macquarie about joining its consortium looking to buy Hong Kong telecoms giant PCCW. 

News Corp is particularly interested in the broadband TV division, which it tried to buy in 2000 when it was put up for sale by Cable & Wireless but lost out to PCCW.

Elsewhere across Murdoch's global media empire, he is reportedly looking at selling off a number of US television stations to buy back the 18% stake in New Corp owned by Liberty Media chairman John Malone.

And in Spain a political scandal involving former Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and News Corp looks set to deepen.

Aznar is to be questioned by the country's public administration department about his failure to declare consultancy work carried out for News Corp from September 2004.

Aznar is a member of Spain's state council, which advises the government and last week he was named a member of the News Corp board.

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