Alastair Campbell returned to the Leveson Inquiry today to deny an “express deal” between Tony Blair and Rupert Murdoch.The former Labour spin doctor said Murdoch turned his newspaper’s support to the party after it became obvious Blair would win the 1997 general election. He admitted the Sun was seen as a "significant player" in the media, but said the paper backed the winning party rather than deciding the outcome of the election.He said: “There was a sense of a hierarchy which papers were more important than others and I think the Sun, I wouldn’t call it iconic but I think it was a significant player and I think within the media marketplace, Rupert Murdoch then had, probably within the press, a greater share and greater power than perhaps he does now because of all the change that have happened with television, internet social media and so forth.”He added: “My point is I never was witness to and don’t believe that there was ever a discussion and said ‘now Tony, if you do this and this and this my papers will back you’ – it just never happened.”He said Blair “didn’t particularly like” having to meet with Murdoch, but said they would have been “foolish” not to engage with his newspapers – claiming this was the reason behind Blair writing an article in the Sun on the Euro, in 1997.Campbell said Blair assured Tessa Jowell policy deals would not be made with proprietors, when the minister took over as culture secretary following the election. He also played down a series of phone calls between Murdoch and the Prime Minister in the lead-up to the Iraq war.He told the inquiry: “"I wouldn't overstate the significance of a couple of phone calls with Rupert Murdoch... Even at times like this he would have spoken to all sorts of people. No, I wouldn't read too much into it, to be absolutely frank."Of the six phone calls recorded by the Cabinet Office between Murdoch and Blair from 2002 to 2005, three took place in March 2003, shortly before the government’s decision to go to war was announced.Campbell added: “In terms of the decision that was being taken and the policy that was being pursued, it was hugely unpopular. We knew that... it was a pretty difficulty media landscape... I was if anything, surprised at how few phone calls there had been when the cabinet office produced this record.“It doesn’t strike me as that odd, not least because by then I think it’s fair to say Tony Blair had very few strong supporters in the media left."Campbell praised the Hacked Off campaign, along with non-profit organisations the Media Standards Trust and Full Fact for representing genuine concerns about the media, and said a future regulatory framework should allow for the investigation of trends as well as individual complaints.He told Lord Justice Leveson he believed education secretary Michael Gove recently spoke out against the inquiry as part of a wider political strategy to retain the support of the mainstream press. He claimed party leaders David Cameron and Nick Clegg, along with Ed Miliband, were being “disproportionately whacked” in the media for setting up the inquiry.He added: “I don’t think that David Cameron particularly wants to have to deal with this, I don’t think he wanted to set up the inquiry. He had to do it in the end.“I think it would be very difficult for him not to go along with whatever recommendations or at least a very large part of the recommendations the inquiry produces but I don’t think there is much of an appetite.”Campbell denied reports he bullied reporters who wrote unflattering stories about the Labour government but admitted he held some journalists in “complete and total contempt”.He added: “I had a job to do. My job was to brief the press on behalf on the Prime Minister and to advise the Prime Minister and other ministers, and I did that job in an incredibly exposed place... I dealt with thousands of stories, I dealt with thousands of briefings and I would defend the accuracy and the honesty of those against any journalist any day of the week.”