22/07/2011 Newsnight

Tonight, Norway reals from an unprecedented terrorist attack.

First a car bomb, then a gunman at a youth camp kills at least ten

people. Parts of Oslo now look like a war zone. Suspicion immediately

fell on Al-Qaeda, now there are other theories emerging, including

home-grown anarchist and far right groups. With the number of dead

rising, we will speak to the Mayor of Oslo and the British Ambassador

there. Also tonight, we obtain evidence of

phone hacking beyond News International. We have been told by

a former Sunday Mirror reporter that hacking fopbs phones was rife

at that paper too. We will put that to an ex-Sunday Mirror journalist

and one of the MPs leading the charge against phone hacking.

Rembering Lucian Freud, through the subject of one of his most

celebrated paintings. Good evenings, this has been

Norway's blackest day since the Second World War. With two deadly

attacks in and around Oslo in the space of a few hours. One struck at

the heart of the Government area, the other, a youth camp of the

governing Labour Party. By the latest count, 17 people have died,

Al-Qaeda was suspected but there's also the possibility that this was

the work of a neej - Norwegian extremist group. The Prime Minister

there has said the gunman in custody for the second attack is a

Norwegian citizen. A cry for help from outside Norway's shattered

Government headquarters this afternoon. Minutes after a bomb

blew the building open. Shattering the mid-summer peace of a normally

quiet capital. At first all was chaos. With debris scattered all

around, and reports of victims trapped amid the rubble. It was

soon announced that the Prime Minister, Thorvald Stoltenberg was

safe, the police say seven people lost their lives. For Norwegians

completely unaccustomed to terrorism, it is inhe can

publicable and deeply shocking. it is inexplicable and deeply

shocking. We thought that something like this would happen one day, but

not at this scale. All of Oslo could hear the tremendous blast. We

thought it was lightning striking everywhere close to us. I certainly

did, I thought it was lightning outside my house, but it was a

massive bomb in the centre of town. The people walking around in town

now looking at the bomb damages, these are houses we have seen all

our life, now the windows are gone and they are damaged. It is

shocking, something like this, happening here, in Oslo, no, no, it

is not supposed to be possible. News of more horror followed

shortly afterwards, from the even more unlikely setting of an island

in a lake near Oslo. Here were Norway's governing Labour

Party was holding its annual youth conference, a gunman, who has now

been arrested, opened fire with an automatic weapon. At the same time

there is coming really strange reports from this youth camp that

the shooter there, he was talking Norwegian, and he had blonde hair,

and he looks like a Scandinavian, and what is this, we really don't

understand what is happening? We always thought if somebody would

take us, it would be a foreign terrorist group. And if there is

Norwegians involved in this, it is very, very difficult to understand

what is actually happening. And also the violence of it, what is

happening in this youth camp. This execution-style killings. There

were Twitter reports of terrified teenagers hiding in bushes, and

attempting to swim to safety. But police now say nine or ten were

killed. So far, though, there is no clear theory about who might be to

blame. The three possibilities are some kind of far right group in

Norway, which is possible, but there is a very large device in the

centre of Oslo, some kind of Islamist group, again it is

feasible, but really coming very much out of the blue. Or just

possibly a Libyan connection. The point about the Libyan connection

is Gaddafi claimed three weeks ago he would strike at NATO targets,

but this double attack on the youth group as well as on the centre of

Oslo rather rules that out. This is why we're really in the realms of

speculation at a very difficult time for the Norwegians.

shooting on the island, where the Prime Minister was due to speak

tomorrow, lends some credence to the idea that the attacks may have

had their origin in Norwegian domestic politics. Others think

Islamist militancy is more likely. Last year three Muslim immigrants

to nor way, supposedly with links to Al-Qaeda, were arrested for

allegedly planning a terrorist operation. But there's no evidence

yet, that today's attacks did have an Islamist origin. Only

suggestions of possible motives. Norway may have been targeted

because, besides its participation in the air operation in Libya, it

also has a small contingent of troops in Afghanistan. Or there may

still be anger that a Norwegian newspaper reprinted several years

ago, cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, originally published in

Denmark. Or the attacks may be linked to plans to prosecute this

man, an Islamist activist of Iraqi Kurdish origin, accused of

threatening to kill Norwegian politicians. So far there are no

answers. Beyond a confirmation that the gunman on the island was

Norwegian. That points back perhaps to a domestic motive. But the

priority in Oslo tonight is to calm people's fears. TRANSLATION: This

evening, and this night, we will take care of each other. Comfort

each other, talk to each other. And stand together. Tomorrow we will

show the world that the Norwegian democracy will be stronger when it

counts. We will find the guilty, and hold them responsible. The most

important thing is to save human lives. But with such devastation in

their midst, it will take many norges a long time to come to terms

with - Norwegians a long time to come to terms with what's happened

in their usually calm country. Our security correspondent is with

me now. Where is the finger of suspicion pointing right now, with

all the new information that has been emerging? It has shifted

through the day. Initially when it was the car bomb, outside

Government office, that looked like Al-Qaeda, that was the suspicion,

that this might be because of troops in Afghanistan, or one of

the other reasons we heard about. But then the shooting at Utoeya

began to ING chat picture a little bit. Shooting people is something

we saw in the Mumbai attack, this looked like an unusual place to go

to shoot people, at a political youth rally. It wasn't a typical

search for a simple mass casualty target, you would normally see from

Al-Qaeda much that was the first suggestion that it was something

different. The person looked Nordic, we had confirmation that the person

arrested was Norwegian, and there is a link between the events. He

was seen in Oslo earlier, he's probably behind both events. That

has shifted the focus towards some kind of person with a political

grievance. Some kind of domestic extremist, who targeted first the

Prime Minister's office, and then a political youth camp from the Prime

Minister's party. That is very much more where the focus is going.

Officials are still saying they don't want to speculate and say

definitively what they think was behind the take. Which means at the

moment there is still plenty of different theories in answer to the

question of why Norway? Those theories are still in play, a

Norwegian who might have been radicalised, that's why you can't

rule out an Al-Qaeda link theory. But the balance has rifted towards

some kind of agrieved individual. But the question is an individual

by themselves capable of this, this is a big car bomb. It is not always

easy to build the car bombs. Even with gos sick extremism, like the

Oklahoma City bomb, Timothy McVeigh had helpers. There will be

questions about who else was involved and are they still at

large. We go life now to Oslo, joining us on videophone is the

British Ambassador to nor way. On the phone we're joined by the Mayor

of Oslo. Mayor, do you believe this is the

work of a single person? I'm not sure what I believe, it has been a

terrible day, today we have had a lot of people living in London, New

York and other places has been through this kind of situations

before us. And update us if you will on what has emerged, in terms

of how many people have died and where the police inquiries are

pointing at this time? The good thing is the situation seems to be

under control now. We have lost a lot of people and a lot of people

are injured, it is terrible. It is unacceptable that someone can treat

other people that way. Ambassador, you heard it, didn't you, you heard

the explosion? Yes, I did indeed, I was in the embassy building at the

time, it was at about 3.30, when everyone was still at work.

Although the embassy building is about three miles away from the

down town area where the bomb exploded, the whole house shook and

there was a huge noise, in fact I thought maybe it was an explosion

in the basement, a bass pipe or something. It really was a very

sizeable blast. What did it make you think of first of all, your

first instincts? I wondered if a huge ferry had crashed into the

harbour or something. There was maybe some problem with

construction works. It was very difficult to know. And I'm sure

that a lot of people in Oslo would have thought that their first

reaction would not be that it could be a terrorist, because we have

just not seen this kind of incident in Oslo ever before. I think it is

a real watershed for Norway and our hearts and thoughts really do go

out to all the people of Norway and the Government in the midst of this

dreadful tragedy. Why do you think Norway would have been targeted in

this way? Well, it is very hard to say, isn't it, we don't yet have

clarity as to what the motives were, or who was involved and I think we

need to get more information on the ground about that. But it's clear

that in Norway as well as the UK and other capitals around the world,

we do need to continue to be extra vigilent about terrorists from all

quarters. So you weren't aware of any specific threat to Norway?

I mean we have regular dialogue with Norway as with many other

countries, and a close co-operation with the police and other Security

Services about the risk of terrorism, and the Norwegian

Government are well aware about those risks and have been works

very hard on that preparedness. As many people have said it is always

different when you have the attack on the ground and you can't quite

prepare yourself for the horror and difficulty of what Norway has had

to go through today. Mayor, how much in your mind changes with this

information that's now emerged, that the suspect in the custody of

the police is a Norwegian citizen? Whether it is a terrorist or some

other crazy person who has done this, the most important thing is

we stay together, and we don't give up and we see that the people of

the world need each other, and it is important to try to stop this

kind of action. But there have been difficulties, haven't there, with

extremist groups at home in Norway, whether they be neo-Nazis or

anarchists? Not that much. I think this is, I don't know yet, but this

is probably a crazy man, and it is difficult to protect society from

crazy people. The good thing is the police and the rescue teams were

well prepared and they did fantastic job today.

Ambassador, the mayor thinks most likely a crazy man, but certainly a

man with a huge amount of resources, large amounts of explosives, do you

think that the possibility that it is most likely a crazy man is cred

snbl I don't know, I don't think that it is right to speculate at

this stage. I know the police and Security Services here are working

extremely hard to find out more information, they do have the

suspect, who they have apprehended, from the shootings on the island,

I'm sure they will find out more information from him. It does bring

home to all of us the ambient danger that exists in all of our

cities around people who want to do harm, and that is something that we

all need to work together very closely to combat.

Thanks to you both. We will return to the story later on in the

programme. There have been plenty of hints and

allegations of phone hacking beyond News International, but little more

than that. Tonight, though, Newsnight can reveal evidence that

it was also a routine practice at the Sunday Mirror, part of the

relentless quest for salacious celebrity gossip.

Celebrity scoop, life blood of the tabloids, drugs, surgery and sex.

Private lives dished and served for the millions, the engine driving

the phone hacking scandal. Day after day, News International's

reputation has been dragged through the mud, with fresh evidence about

phone hacking. The phone hacking and other dubious activities had

not been the sole preserve of the Murdoch group. Tonight we throw the

net far wider with evidence that another major newspaper group has

been involved. Our primary source is someone who

worked at the Sunday Mirror for several years. We're told our

informant witnessed routine phone hacking in the newsroom. And

remembers one high-profile target We have spoken to two other sources

who helped coroborate our story. They both say private detectives

were used and phones were hacked. Our primary source who used to work

at the Sunday Mirror, said these techniques were routine. A few

people on the news desk and designated reporters would do it

pretty much every day. One reporter, very good at it, was called The

Master Of Dark Arts. At one point in 2004t seemed the only way people

were getting scoops. If they didn't randomly hack people in the news,

they would use it to stand up stories people denied. We were told

the technique was used against numerous celeb tee, in a drive to

beat the News of the World at its We're told they also employed

someone to obtain confidential records by tricking the targets

over the phone. I was told he successfully managed to get

hospital records. He could pretend to be famous people, or failing

that he could pretend to be their lawyer or someone related to them.

I was told he had got Leslie Ash's medical records, through the dark

arts. In truth, journalists have sailed

close to the wind for many decades. The classic things we got up to in

the 1980s was paying policemen, following people. Bugging people's

houses. I personally bugged a prison officer's house, who was,

incidently breaking the law, and we were able to prove it through that

operation. There's no doubt in my mind, that if I was still a

journalist, I would have had no choice but to use the technology

available, that means phone hacking. It doesn't mean that I would have

happily sit back and hacked into a phone of a murder victim. But I

would have seen politicians and showbiz people as fair game.

journalists were hacking phones, did the management know. Celebrity

interviewer Piers Morgan, was editor at the time our source was

working at the Sunday Mirror. Under the cloak of parliamentary

privilege earlier in the week, one journalist alleged Mr Morgan had

hacked phones, something he angrily denied on CNN He refuse to, deshe

is not covered by privileged, she came out with an absolute blatant

lie during those proceedings. At no stage in my book or outside of my

book have I ever boasted of using phone hacking for any stories, for

the record n my time at the Mirror and the News of the World, I have

never hacked a phone, told anybody to hack a phone, or published any

story based on the hacking of a phone.

We asked the publisher of the Sunday Mirror to comment about our

source's evidence tonight. A There was no doubt that the use of

dubious technique was not confined to the Murdoch group alone. Our

evidence represents the first chink in the armour of other newspaper

groups and publisher, who will be viewing the forth coming hacking

inquiries with some trepidation. With me now two of the people you

saw in that report, Louise Mensch, a member of the committee, and a

former tabloid journalist for the Mirror, you are not the source, I

should mention. We will go on to the Piers Morgan spat earlier in

the week. You have talked about a wider culture of phone hacking on

Fleet Street, what do you make of what we have found? It doesn't

surprise me. I know the BBC is respected around the world, and

wouldn't run the story tonight unless they were absolutely sure of

the source and wouldn't run it frivolously. I hope news

organisations like CNN in America will take very careful note of this.

As a member of the culture select committee, what will it mean you do

next, are you yourselves going to call more people to account, as you

did the Murdochs? The Murdochs were called to the select committee

because there were questions over testimony that News International

executives have formally given to the committee. It wasn't a general

inquiry but to ask them about testimony to give to the previous

committee which proved not true. The committee conduct add report

into this in 2003 - conducted a report into this in 2003. I

wouldn't be surprised in the autumn if we take a deeper look at this.

Will you call and push for this? make collective decisions on the

select committee, I can't and don't want to pretend to speak for the

committee. It is clearly something I have taken a lively interest in.

Whilst there is no doubt at all that the Murdoch papers have

enormously serious questions to answer, many of which we posed to

them last Tuesday, it is, as your report says, there is no doubt this

goes on in other newsrooms. The big news of the week that hasn't been

much reported across the press, who I believe are scared of the widen

of the investigation. Is the files from operation MoT, and the

information report "What Price Privacy", which detail illegal and

legal transactions with private investigator, some with invoices

naming journalists, have been passed to the police, bringing

other newspaper groups into the frame for the first time. We have

had an idea of what your tabloid career has been like, does any of

what we have discovered tonight in terms of the Sunday Mirror surprise

you? It doesn't surprise me. I think we need to make a point here,

private detectives are used by the BBC, ITV, everybody uses them. In a

way I understand where Louis is coming from, but where will we -

Louis is coming from, where will we draw the line. You have somebody

from the Sunday Mirror saying this and that the other, but the phone

hacking is after my time f the technology had existed, I have no

doubt I would have used it, just like everybody else. Had any

compunction about it at the time? would have had great compunction

about doing anything when it came to murder victims or things like.

That but politicians and certain celebrities would have been fair

game. That's sort of irrelevant now because I was never part of that.

But what's more important is, number one, everyone's using

private detectives, number two, policemen have been paid all along,

and number three, what is the problem Louise has got with Piers

Morgan. I don't get it. We should focus on illegal activity, phone

hacking, we have found not just that journalists would do this when

there is a certain suspicion, but on a fishing expedition, listening

to Liz Hurley's voicemail and listening to lunch plans? This is

interesting and relevant, I work with a lot of the journalists

supposedly under suspicion at the moment. They were fantastic

journalists in the 1980s when it was competitive, and circulations

were high, and profits were high, and a lot of money around for the

stories. What appears to have happened is the technology came in

and it went to their heads. It appears that way. They ended up

literally not having to leave the office to get fantastic story. It

was too easy. I can't speak for individuals but that is my

perspective. Piers Morgan, was it blatant lie what you said in

parliament? As I said, the parliamentary privilege is there

for a reason T allows members of the parliament to raise issues

which might cause them to be sued outside of parliament. If there are

anacrocies said under parliamentary privilege, they can be removed

through parliamentary privilege, I don't want to go further. Let's

stick to the specific point, because it is important, you talked

about raising inaccurate things under parliamentary privilege. We

and many other people look at the quotes you referred to, and there

is no suggestion he boasted about using phone hacking? As I have said

corrections have to be made under parliamentary privilege, I can't

get into it on Newsnight. Perhaps you mean to make a connection

somewhere else? Can I ask now, you have a huge downer on Piers, who

happened to work for the Mail on Sunday, and who happened to give

you a hard time in a story a few weeks ago. I rest my case. Why are

you raising it if you don't? have an obsession with Mr Morgan,

he didn't say that stuff, you were wrong, you used parliamentary

privilege. You were turned over for writing a novel in the Mail on

Sunday, which they alleged was based on a true event. I had no

idea that Mr Morgan worked in the Mail. He did. He works Assawi a

columnist on the Mail. Is there something personal that led to you

pointing the fringeer in that way? It is the Mirror Group and

associated newspapers who I went on about in some depth in my question.

The question is not what happened in a book, the question is what

happened under the editorship, at the time of the person concerned in

the Mirror Group newspapers and the Associated Newspaper, and the

questions raised as to whether or not this is wider than the murd mur

press. Are you going to have - Murdoch press. Are you going to

look at the BBC and ITV to see if they have employed private

detectives, most have. We are not talking about Inspector Morse, the

files in Operation Motorman look at hacking into people's personal

phones and addresss and medical records. The BBC are not raised in

Operation Motorman. The reason I raised the other names, the Mirror

Group, is they are named in the Operation Motorman files. Is it

time for them to open up their books? Everybody should open up

their books, because they are as guilty as each other. The ones with

alleged illegal activity should be the ones to take the first steps?

think everybody has. If you dig harder. You would accuse the entire

press of it? Everybody at some stage. Hacking I can't speak for

personally. But I'm sure versions of that have been used by the very

private detectives hired by everybody. I watched a documentary

on television the other day and I heard the voice of a guy who was a

conman, he has been jailed and he was being used as a journalist by

somebody on that programme. I point somebody out the statement from

Trinity Mirror you quoted there used the present tense, our

journalists work within the code, in answer to the question did it

happen to in the past under certain editorships, haven't been responded

to, the response was "they work within the Escoda", so it is

whether they have always worked within the code.

We have to leave it there. He was painting until the day he

died, the tributes to Lucian Freud, make no doubts to the statement of

greatest British artist. He famously said he painted what he

saw, not what we wanted him to see. Many wouldn't have been flattered

by the result who sat for him, but they would have felt privileged to

I do start most self-portraits and destroy more than any other picture,

because they seem to, in my case, they seem to go wrong so very, very

often. I haven't found a way of doing them, not that I have found a

way of doing anything, but I feel that they should become easier and

they don't. He wasn't overfond of his self-portrait, and certainly

not of having his likeness captured on camera. This is from one of the

very few occasions when Lucian Freud agreed to be filmed. What he

really liked was looking at other people. Hard, for hours and hours.

Painting real people as they really were. To him. With models they

would have an idea about posing in itself, which is exactly what I'm

trying not to do, I want them to be themselves. I don't want to use

them for an idea I have got, where I must use a figure, let's have

that one. I actually want to do them. I never think about technique

in anything. I think it holds you up. You have to paint on trust.

One of Freud's non-models was Sue Tilley, who posed for his Benefits

Supervisor Sleeping. Which fetched more than �17 million. I went to

meet Sue this afternoon, at a cafe where Freud entertained many of his

sitters to lunch, or take away treats. What do you think he saw in

you, what traicted him to you as a painter? - attracted him to you as

a painter? I was very puct actual, very reliable. I know that sounds

ridiculous, but that is what he demanded most. People think it must

have been fantastic, I ran in there and went hi there and let's make

the most expensive painting in the world. We would have a chat and

that was t he always showed me when he was in the papers. He was always

excited when he met someone famous. Like Kylie Minogue. You wouldn't

think he would know about all modern things. He was desperate to

get Kate Moss to model for him. He said she was the biggest party girl

he had ever met. To hear Lucian Freud tell it, though, you would

think he led the life of a monk. I try to keep as calm as I can

always. I'm always on the occasions that things go well, I try to

recreate circumstances, similar ones, hoping the result will be

similar, but it doesn't, of course work. But I even think of what I

have eaten, or haven't. People speak about Freud, they always talk

about the eagle-like eyes. That was the secret of his brilliance. He

just looked harder than anyone had ever looked at things before, he

saw things no-one saw before. Freud's gaze was such a

democratising instrument in that sense. Whether it was Kate Moss,

the Queen, a benefit supervisor, he looked at you in exactly the same

way. When his own gift failed him, which wasn't often, Freud turned to

other masters for instruction. to the national gallery, rather

like going to a doctor for help. But if you are painting humans you

have the best subject matter in the world. That's all from Newsnight

tonight. Jeremy is back with more on Monday, when Peter Mandelson

will be present a mea culpa of will be present a mea culpa of

sorts. From all of us goodnight. Good evening. Some pretty lively

showers through the night to the south-east and East Anglia. Easing

away on Saturday morning, bright and chilly start elsewhere. Colder

through the day along the eastern coasts. For North West England,

also the west Midland should be dry and sunny. Patchy cloud through

inland areas, one or two showers, always cloudier towards the coast.

One or two showers across central southern England. Very well

scattered, much lighter than seen this week. Through Wales. We are

closer to a ridge of high pressure, things will be not only dry but

sunnier, and also warmer, feeling the full benefit out of the breeze

of the strong July sunshine. Warm across Northern Ireland. Cooler

towards the north coast, thanks to the breeze coming off the sea. A

strong breeze across Scotland. Cool on the eastern coast. Central and

south western Scotland 21 in the spells.

Saturday even a few outbreaks of rain in the east coast. Linked into

the same system bringing showers into Paris, clearing away. If you

are heading to the Mediterranean, dry, sunny and warm weather, heavy