Elisabeth Murdoch takes on fund- raising duties for the Tate

She has dug deep for Barack Obama and the Millennium Dome, now she is being asked to sort out Tate Modern. Elisabeth Murdoch, the daughter of the media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, has landed her first major public appointment, becoming a trustee of the two Tate galleries, Britain and Modern. Her worth, one source tells The First Post, is her deep pockets and her contacts book, not her love of art, although she and her husband, the PR man Matthew Freud do buy modern pictures.

Tate Modern wants to raise more than £100m to build a giant extension to be open in time for the London Olympics, and Murdoch, 39, who was given $100m of News Corp shares by her father last year, excels at giving help. She threw a fund-raising party for Barack Obama in London in April which brought in $400,000 and, when she was managing director at her father's BSkyB, she oversaw the TV company's £12m sponsorship of the Millennium Dome, earning the eternal gratitude of Peter Mandelson, then the Cabinet minister in charge of the troubled project.

Given the Murdochs' closeness to the Labour government, might not Elisabeth's new, unpaid job which is in the gift of Downing Street, also be a reward? "Maybe," says the source, "but it's blindingly obvious that its help with money the Tate really needs.