Tony Blair received a strong endorsement for his stand on Iraq from Rupert Murdoch yesterday.

"I think Tony is being extraordinarily courageous and strong on what his stance is in the Middle East. It's not easy to do that living in a party which is largely composed of people that have a knee-jerk anti-Americanism and are sort of pacifist," said the media tycoon.

"But he's shown great guts, as he did, I think, in Kosovo and over various problems in the old Yugoslavia."