Episode 21 The Phone Hacking Inquiry

Campbell was among those giving evidence. From me, good night.

I do not think that on policy, anything was traded. The cost of on

personalities, that sort of thing. There was something going on on

The first four-week on the press and politicians, it was something

we have not heard too often. The case for the defence of News

International. On a day 70, there was a fightback by the firm. It was

against that barrister, Robert Jay. He suggested that Rupert Murdoch

might be suffering from selected Amasia. It is quite well as Mr

Robert Jay did last week. He muddy the boundaries that there was no

difference between a newspaper and a politician it agrees with, and a

cropped deal between the two. As for that allegation about Robert --

Murdoch's memory in the 80s. If he says, I cannot remember anything

about it, it is because 31 years later, he simply cannot. Your

suggestion that he might be lying is not an argument was to be based

on evidence. It is a conviction determined not to face the evidence.

And then, God. Or Gus O'Donnell. He was the former Cabinet Secretary.

He said a crucial role. He was asked why Andrew Coulson do not

have top-level security clearance. In the light of the terrorist

incident, the airline bomb plot, it made more sense for him to be

deviated before we could give him regular access to these papers. It

was not an issue because we thought he would not be interested in that

aspect. Lord Justice Leveson asked for some predecessors and their

levels of clearance. Lord O'Donnell did not deny there was an issue

with the News Corp stock that he held on to without telling anyone

else. There was a form that should have been signed. Is this all

shareholding? Conflicts, basically. In the light of what we have heard,

what such a sign made by it Mr call some? Are a form was signed but it

did not disclose shareholding. After all that, he was asked for

his views on a Jeremy Hunt, his special adviser has resigned over

the handling of a decision-making In terms of authorisation,

ministers should authorise their special advisers as to what they do.

I expected the minister to be clear about what he thought his special

adviser should be doing. A careful adviser -- a careful answer. The

next witness was a political appointee, Tony Blair's appointee,

Alastair Campbell. He had been vetted at the top level. I remember

being told early on that I would have to go through a process.

Security clearance looks a distant concern. Tony Blair was hoping to

get hostile papers on side. strategy was to counter the

influence I had seen as a journalist who supported the Labour

Party, and to try to ensure that we had a more level playing field

where we could communicate to the public what we were trying to do. I

have written about this in my witness statement where there was

an aspect of Europe, and we talked about whether to do it and we did

not change policy but we knew what they wanted, that requires. I felt

uneasy at times. But we should not -- Rupert Murdoch is an important

player in the landscape. There was no mystery about Rupert Murdoch's

importance on New Labour efforts. The quick -- the question is, did

he demand or get anything in return for his newspaper's support of Tony

Blair? Nothing was traded between Rupert Murdoch or any other owner.

They work telephone conversations between the two people. It was a

I would not want to put too much significance... When he was

speaking to presidents and prime ministers around the world, I would

not overstate the significance of a couple of phone calls with Rupert

Murdoch. Me deer moguls have prime ministerial intention -- attention

that other business people do not. Alastair Campbell admitted there

was an issue there. There was a They had good access to government.

The fact that businesses believe media, that does not give them

What did his familiarity with the press breed in Campbell? Not the

highest of opinion. They expect openness and transparency from our

natural lives, apart from themselves. Even at the very top of

the political tree, no-one is immune to a fascination with middle.

I remember being struck once with George Bush. He asked me what

Rupert Murdoch was light because he had never met him. I found it

surprising. He was criticised by people at the height of his power.

There were times he was to I ask you to bear in mind, the

sheer volume of issues we were expected to deal with, 24/7 media

means just that. You are dealing with these 24/7. You are trying to

be charged with overall strategy. On day 71, former News -- Rebekah

Brooks and her husband and four others were charged with conspiracy

to pervert the course of justice. Both denied wrongdoing. She said

she was baffled by the decision. Events have not gone unnoticed.

Labour asked Jeremy Hunt to remain accountable to Parliament, despite

his appearance before Lord Justice Leveson. One Conservative MP said

that they should get all the material first. The judge had a

warning. If the evidence had been forced into the public domain, so

that mines are made up and conclusions are reached, Mike

reaction would be that I would consider it unfair to subject the

witnesses for further question before the inquiry. That would

require them but only to answer to the inquiry, -- is parliament

published material on this affair, Lord Justice Leveson would not ask

questions about it at all. But he did say that he heard from Jeremy

That will be explored under oath. A political editor of Sky News said

that swore honesty had not been the hallmark of every government.

obligation to tell the truth at all One famous episode, a Perth the

celebration for Rebekah Brooks, hosted by Sarah Brown, it let him

baffled. You can be blamed with The famous Wendi Deng pyjama party.

I remember at the Cabinet telling me about that at the time. And I

just thought, this is completely bonkers. That this sort of intimacy

is being indulged him between the Prime Minister add the Prime

Minister's wife and the senior proprietor of's wife. Assault at

the time, it will end in tears. News is part of BSkyB which is part

of News International. There were three discussions with Rupert

Murdoch. Even in the wake of the phone hacking scandal, politicians

are keen to turn up at Rupert Last month, I was at the party and

all sorts of people were turning up. I see nothing wrong with holding a

party or inviting people to it. I was a little surprised that they

all tell the need to turn up. People looking inward to draw their

own conclusions. A day 72, a ball like links -- more links like those

from a man who was 13 years a Labour Secretary and he knew how

close MPs and members of the press could become. He suggested Rupert

Murdoch had toyed with politicians. The perception I had was that he

enjoyed the fact he had been willing to play with political

leaders in a way that senior executives of the Other Papers had

not because their loyalty is ultimately predictable. In the days

before Blair, Jack Straw have felt the smack of the Murdoch titles

disapproval himself up. I dug out one example of this from my files.

The main story in The Sun in April in 1992 days before the election. I

will put this in his evidence. -- in as evidence. It says shadow

Education Minister lectures us while living in luxury. This is

minor but it had a consequence. Every burglar in Oxfordshire knew

that to be one day of the year we would not be in our house was on

election night. We got burgled and a lot of property was stolen.

the years passed, Jack Straw grew closer to one of their editors. He

explained this in his witness statement. He said it during

appeared as Justice Secretary would often travel to London. After a

while you made arrangements to meet up with an editor and sit together

for the journey. In general terms, where the discussions which you had

with her on the train other than social or private? There were

private in the sense that neither of us broke them up on a blog.

Their word social. They were political. We were told about well

as in the papers. We would gossip about personalities, that sort of

thing. Political reporters don't need to rely on listening in to

commuters conversations. The contents of speech is a brave to

journalists long before they were delivered. He said it was absurd.

It becomes a trip on the public. You get the Today programme

desperate for daily sight of the speech said that their man is able

to say confidentially what he had learned about what would happen

later in the day. He has been left with a pretty jaded view of the

media. I'm constantly amazed that newspapers are complaining about

low turnouts at elections. And not understanding that they have

contributed to a significant degree to a culture in which politics is

seen as boring and completely self- serving and is not for smart people

to get involved in. I have never taken part in a conspiracy. I have

never seen any of my colleagues don't serve. -- doing so. It took

part in plenty of cock-ups. That is life. John Major said the only

people who have never made a mistake are people who have never

made a decision. I say, they are called journalists. One report made

imperious. He knew he was responsible for the report on the

debt of Stephen Lawrence. It came from someone in Number Ten. There

was a leak inquiry which took some time but we were not able to take

disciplinary action. We knew who they were and they subsequently

left. There was criticism for the way other ministers had handled

reporters. I saw that gradually, some newspapers or journalists were

being favoured by Downing Street for some particular ministers. They

were involved in groups. It was very incestuous and unhealthy. They

did not like it. I tried to get on doing things in a different way.

Alastair Darling did too. I think there was some connection with the

approach we adopted and the fact that we survived the government

while others did not. Under a 73, the suggestion that relationships

like those left to journalists and ministers and strong. There was an

amateur in Fleet Street surrounding the troubling evidence around phone

hacking. I feel the scandal was a systematic negligence by the press

over a huge period of time. I felt this was a perversion of our

democracy because it was starting to become a private conversation

between elite groups. Rather than a proper popular engagement. He

traced those problems back to New Labour's time in power. People who

tried to report objectively and fairly were frozen out, bullied and

not given access to information. a journalist faced a charge, it

fell to the judge to make the case for journalism. Almost every

reporter in the land is decent. I would not say there are some

exceptions but I would make use of the opportunity to say that the

majority of journalism is people doing their job honourably,

honestly with dedication, fearlessly and in the public

interest. Perhaps the next witness would have agreed. The long-

standing editor of the Sunday Times and briefly the editor of the Times

itself up. He accused Rupert Murdoch of misleading, -- comments

about a secret meeting with Margaret Thatcher. It was not even

known to the Cabinet that Mrs Thatcher had a secret meeting with

Mr Murdoch and he kept it secret to the point of telling the officials

-- official historian of the time that no such meetings took place.

This had to be accepted, although it was a falsehood. In the end

there was no monopolies referral. Rupert Murdoch told the inquiry

that once he had taken control of the papers, Evans said, tell me

what you want me to say. Murdoch had demanded nothing more than

consistency. He painted a very different picture of their

relationship. That night I took him to my home to meet my wife and had

dinner. By the time we reached dinner, it was almost fisticuffs.

He had the paper open with his biro pen cowed into the business news.

Sport! Didn't dare tell you, Sport! Werribee four pages of sport! I

said, just a second. In the wake of those rows, head Ben after furious.

He referred to him as evil incarnate, the personification of

that. He had his heart removed long ago as well as all his moral

faculties and human sensibility. Rupert Murdoch's barrister started

the week saying that he had been subjected to allegations that were