The chairman of the BBC Trust has criticised close relationships between journalists and politicians.

Lord Chris Patten, appearing before the Leveson Inquiry today, said political parties have “demeaned themselves” by paying court to proprietors and editors in the last 25 years.

He said: “I think politicians have allowed themselves to be kidded that editors and proprietors determine the fate of politicians”.

Lord Patten said politicians would make “better decisions” if they paid less attention to front pages.

He added: “I have consistently given colleagues and at least one prime minster the advice that they shouldn’t worry as much about the newspapers.

“I think it is the case that politicians have got closer to editors and journalists…and not always to their advantage. It has been, indeed very, often the reverse.”

Lord Patten told the inquiry it was a matter of “where you draw the line”, and said meetings between journalists and politicians should be welcomed in an open democracy but that ministers seeing executives from “one particular stable or another” was not healthy.

He added: “I think it’s a question very often of how seemly it is for a minister or politicians to behave in a certain away. To appear to be manipulated by some newspaper or a group of journalists doesn’t make very good sense”.

Lord Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong under British rule, was asked about his relationship with Rupert Murdoch. Patten sued Harper Collins after Murdoch, owner of the publisher, tried to block a book he had written on his dealings with the Chinese authorities. He secured an apology and £50,000 compensation.

Lord Patten said he did not have a personal vendetta against Murdoch, who he referred to as an “entrepreneurial genius” who is “serious about newspapers, whether you like it or not”.

He said Murdoch had behaved in China “as a lot of other businessmen do”.

He added: “It was a commercial decision which rebounded to my financial advantage”.

Lord Patten called former editor Kelvin MacKenzie “a bit of a lad” in reference to the headline “It was The Sun wot won it”, run by the paper following the unexpected victory of the Conservatives in the 1992 general election.

He also said the Murdoch-owned Times had covered the phone hacking story “extremely fairly and in a balanced way”.