Westminster blog

One key part of Gordon Brown’s trip to the US has until now remained a secret: the prime minister caught up with Rupert Murdoch.

The meeting, held in Mr Brown’s suite at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, lasted about half-an-hour. We’re not sure what they chatted about. But the timing of the get together should give us a clue.

Mr Brown’s meetings with the media tycoon have begun to synchronise with the electoral calendar — they met at Chequers last year just before the prime minister decided against calling a general election. Mr Brown is probably wishing he could delay today’s local elections too.

One wonders whether Mr Murdoch already knew that his stable of UK papers would back a Tory candidate for London Mayor (you can read the endorsements here, here and here). Whether he told Mr Brown that The Sun and The Times were deserting him, at least for now, was probably irrelevant. I’m sure Mr Brown got the message.

Those who have worked with Mr Brown say he pays incredibly close attention to how the papers cover him — much closer attention than the average reader. The mayoral result on Friday may well reinforce his theories about the power of the press. More seasoned observers of Mr Murdoch’s career may well see it as another example of how seamlessly he moves with the prevailing political winds.