disruption. >> if the newspapers have set the debate, then the political response, which is the setting of policy, may have been determined by the terms of the debate. would you agree? >> it might have been, but not if the policymaking process is working properly. in other words, i think it's always important to differentiate between a media-driven campaign on something they say is important, something they say needs addressing, and in reality whether it does when all the issues are there. i think it's important to accept, and i think this goes for david cameron, tony blair, gordon brown, the amount of time and energy that they -- not just the people who work for them, but they as prime ministers have to divert and dedicate to kind of dealing with what ultimately are media management issues has grown. it's grown and it's grown

because of the way the media is developed. i think that's a problem, too. >> you continue "they and politicians let them have power" by which, of course, you mean it is within the gift of politicians to prevent the press having power but that, of course, might have positive ramifications for pre-press. it also presupposes that politicians are not going to yield to the obvious influences and powers which might intrude on their u agree with that? >> well, i think a lot of this started under margaret thatcher. i think that newspapers were given a sense of power. the numbers that we see, the peerages and the knighthoods and the sense they were almost part of her team. i think it changed under john major. i think when we were in power, i think that we -- i think we maybe did give the media too

much of a sense of their own place within the political firm at. when we should have challenged it more. >> talking about the conferment of power, one of the reasons why the newspapers have such power is the good reason you've identified, namely free press, i understand that. but the bad reasons, and you list three of those at the end of paragraph 26, you refer to the patronage system. the evidence on that you set out. but then the second and the third aspects. the privileged access governments of both colored allowed, the point lord leveson made, the reasons politicians allowed press to have power. is that right? >> yes. >> the efforts made to win media support. which is again another aspect of the same phenomenon, isn't it? >> yeah. i think we might disagree on the word power. because as i say, ultimately the

politicians do have the power. i think all three there are factors within this that have led to a change that is probably unhealthy. >> of course the terms influence and power are not synonyms. one is weaker than the other. you prefer influence rather than power though some would say they're different points on the same spectrum. would you agree with that if. >> no, i think power is a different thing. i don't think newspapers have power. i think politicians have real power. but i think that -- hopefully what comes out of this is a resetting of that balance as it becomes much clearer where power does lie. >> one prefers to use the term power in relation to elected politicians because that's what we confer on them.

one doesn't like to use that term in relation to an unelected organ such as the press. really it's just a play on words, isn't it? >> no, i don't think so. if you look at decisions david cameron is making now, whether it was military action in libya or troops en route to afghanistan or spending on the health service or tax levels, newspapers can't do those things. and that is real power, which he has invested in him because he's the prime minister. newspapers can influence all of those debates. i don't think it is power. >> i'll move to a different topic now. >> maybe slightly -- different. but i wonder whether it is not rather more than mere influence. i don't limit the meaning of the word influence.

because what newspapers have is what is longevity. and politicians tend not to have longevity. so mr. murdoch has been there or thereabouts for 40 years, which is a very, very long time. you make the point that he is the most powerful media owner, and then you describe mr. dacre as the most powerful newspaper editor. but doesn't that longevity give them rather more than influence? i agree, it is not the power to change the law or the way in which this country is run. but it is a very real form, at

the very strongest end of influence. would that be fair? >> yeah, i think in rupert murdoch's case it would be because of the point you make. if you sort of analyze power/influence year by year over the last four decades, as you say he's been a big player throughout that time. for example, i can remember being struck once in a discussion with george bush asking what rupert murdoch was like because he never met him. which i found quite surprising. and whether he's met him since, i don't know. but that was -- i think when rupert murdoch went to the committee and said, i wish these guys would leave me alone, i think that was a little disingenuous because i think he is interested in powerful people, people who make the decisions, make the news. i see it as a different sort of power. i think political power -- i think the political class is kind of to some extent ceded too

much on this ground and needs to get it back. >> in other aspects of the relationship between the media and politicians and obviously vice versa, touched on in the phyllis report which we looked at this morning under tab 21 in the bundle we prepared. contexted in evidence section, section 4, mr. campbell. in background to the breakdown, page 7. they major factors have contributed to the breakdown in relationship between government and the media and the public. the communications strategy adopted by the late administration coming into power in 1997, reaction to the media and the press in particular to that, then the response of the civil service. latest past experience, government communications staff were not up to the mark, so a

rise in the media handling role of politically appointed, unelected special advisers. their more aggressive approach and their increased use of selected briefing of media outlets in which government information was seen to be used to political advantage, later reaction from the media used to far more adversarial relationship with government. while cause and effect there may be disputatious, it's inevitably mixed up. you would say you can't take this to 1997, you should go much earlier in time, your evidence says that. the basic thesis advanced here is not far wide of the mark, is it? >> no, although the specific -- the same page says the specific trigger for this inquiry, i think i'm right in saying, was the very difficult relationships between civil servants and special advisers in one department, department of

transport, and also then the difficulties that we had in relation to what became known as -- everything has to have a ga gate, surreygate, and bristol flats. i think that was the background. then the difficulties with the bbc over iraq. so i think the relationship got into a very, very bad place, there's no doubt about that. and as i say in my statement, i think a lot of the media put the blame on us. i think we put most of the blame on them. and that probably exacerbated the problem. but i think it is -- i do emphasize, as i said earlier, that it's -- this will not be fixed unless the media accept some of their responsibility in relation to how all this developed. i've set out in both statements why i think it's happened. i think some of it's perfectly understandable. but if we just see this as a problem of government

communications, then we're not going to get anywhere. >> usually when one's trying to diagnose the problem, it's sometimes not particularly helpful to dwell on fault and certainly rarely helpful to dwell on personal fault. but are we able to agree that there is responsibility on both sides of -- the. >> yeah. >> -- equation, as it were. the society, the press, and on the side of politicians. in particular there is -- i'll speak for them -- such as you? >> yeah, i will. but what i won't do -- what the media like to do is, until you say it's all your fault, we're not going to engage in this debate. now, this inquiry has actually finally led to it a slightly different place. i don't make any apology for the changes we made in opposition because they helped us to win. i don't make apology for the

changes made in government because they helped us to communicate more effectively and i think that helped the prime minister to be -- to govern more effectively. what i do accept is that at times we probably were too controlling, that at times we did hold on to some of the techniques of opposition when we should have dumped them at door number 10. i also ask you to bear in mind just the sheer volume of issues that we were expected to deal with, be on top of. 24/7 media means just that. you're dealing with this 24 hours a day at a time when, in my case, also trying to be in charge of overall strategy as well. so i think the points that i made earlier about the debit side of the way the media's developed, i don't deny any of them and i think the media has to face up to that. >> mr. marr in his book "my trade" under "the dirty art of

political journalism" page 161, graphic accounts of a certain modus operandi, tales of how new labor had told reporters or producers spread through the wall of press gallery offices and between headquarters, the backlash was slow but it came. at the end of blair's first two years it was a badge of honor to be bollocked and shout back just as loudly. >> i don't really buy that, to be honest. i think that -- was i robust, yes. if a newspaper wrote something that i didn't -- that i wanted to rebut and refute, would i do it, yes. but this bullying thing i think is nonsense, i do. >> persistent attempts to dictate what should appear on a front page or top of a running order became infuriating and hardened journalistic hearts

even before the 1997 election it was obvious labor had spiestiving it off about the running orders, script lines and correspondents being used for news programs and attempting to ambush them before they went on-air to get more favorable coverage. alastair campbell and others would single out and ridicule the correspondents at hostile newspapers. george james, political editor of "the daily telegraph," studiously favorite of the old school, was a favorite target. did that happen if. >> you can ask george but i don't think so, no. >> okay. >> i suspect from the smile on his face, nor does he. >> maybe a different sort of smile, i can't see it. favored reporters were given special treatment just as though editors were made much of in downing street and invited to weekends at checkers. did that happen? >> there may have been some invited to checkers, not many. i'm afraid i don't buy this thesis, no, i really don't.

as i said, most of my contact with journalists who defended what i call the institutionalized dishonesty of the old system, most of my contact with journalists were on the record-briefings where they could quote whatever i said, any of them could come to it. were there some journalists that i liked more then others? you wouldn't be human if you didn't. i think that's just the way of the world. were there some that i trusted more than on the records? certainly. were there some for whom i had complete and total contempt? yes, there were. did i ever kick them out of briefings? no. >> he continues and concludes indeed, political correspondents had a certain alongside their professional -- >> that's what i call the herd mentality. >> yes, it's true. a cynical way some were favored because they worked for murdoch, others were sneered at because they worked for at because they worked for conrad black

disgusted many who worked for neither. >> again, the person at the sun with whom i would have had most day-to-day contact was trechb cabinet because he was the political editor. i think it's fair to say trevor and i disagreed about most things. he was -- i go back to the point i made earlier. everybody thought i was favoring somebody else. everybody thought that anything that appeared in the press somehow came from me. the whole thing was absurd. but the absurdity i think -- and i say in the statement one of the best examples of spin done by journalists is the extent to which the issue of spin became so central to the debate. i had a job to do. my job was to brief the press on behalf of the prime minister and to advise the prime minister and other ministers. and i did that job in an incredibly exposed place. there are half a dozen -- and i know you've got a couple of journalists coming later this week. you no doubt will go into them in huge detail. there are half a dozen issues that get thrown back again and again and again and again.

i dealt with thousands of stories. i dealt with thousands of briefings. and i would defend the accuracy and hontsz of thoesty of those y journalist any day of the week. >> without exception? >> no, there are some terrific journalists. >> no, no, no -- >> oh, no, we made mistakes. for sure. but given the pressures we were under they were extraordinarily few in number. >> a different perspective from mr. powell, page 194. just to show that there's always a need for balance. >> i did actually read andrew mar's book over the weekend because it was on your reading list. there were some bits where he was very, very nice about me. i was rather shocked to read that. >> well, that's why we've not referred you to them. this is mr. powell speaking. "anna stow was unfairly

criticized for politicizing the government press service. actually, what he did was to professionalize and modernize it. when we arrived it was in a parlor state and by the time we left it it had regained its confidence and become far better at what it did. the seamy side of political press briefing is the domain of ministers' special advisers and of course of ministers themselves. would you agree with that? >> that's the point i made earlier, that whenever anything appeared in the press that came from the government people assumed it was me but often it wasn't. i would certainly agree that the government communications system that we inherited was not fit for the purpose -- a lot of change had to be maud. robin butler, the cabinet secretary, was very, very clear with me that i had the authority to make change. he then set up the manfield review, which led to substantial changes. i think they're changes for the better. most of them have been kept by gordon brown and david cameron.

and other people got up to all sorts of stuff. there's no doubt about that. and part of politics is part of life. i tried to control at the center. i tried to keep a grip of things. but the reality is there are hundreds of people out there the whole time who -- anybody who works on downing street in the eyes of a journalist is a senior downing street source. anybody who works in the home office is a senior home office source. i think we did a pretty good job in having proper coordination at the center, but it's very difficult to maintain that. >> mr. powell points the finger of blame in a particular place. he says "it's the special advisers like the damian o'brieens, charlie wheelers, and ed balzes, not -- who specialize in character assassination through the pages of the newspapers. what always surprised me was that the assassins managed to persuade the press to keep quiet about their activities.

however many incriminating e-mails or texts they sent." >> that's a very good point. in other words -- >> is all of that correct? >> well, no, not all of it because -- did you if you ask me to single out then i would single out charlie wheeland. i was always clear about that. and i was always clear with gordon brown that i thought it damaged him to have him there. likewise damian mcbride. the point i'm make -- i can remember, for example, one briefing where at the end of, yes, another frenzy and journalists accusing me of lying and politicians then getting roped in to say i should resign and blah, blah, blah. i can remember saying to all the journalists there in the room, right, come on. just say what the lie is and then provide any evidence whatsoever. and they never could. so just -- and that in itself is a form of spin. i mean, you sent me peter

o'bourne's essay he did for the british journalism review. most lobby journalists he said have been deliberately misled or lied to by downing street. followed by zero evidence whatsoever. new evidence of a culture of deception, manipulation of statistics, secretive smear campaigns. he lists david clark, keith hellowell, the drug czar. no evidence whatsoever. and moe came to believe that we were briefing against her because it kept being written. and there's not a single journalist that's ever produced a shred of evidence. and that's way mean by them being the spin doctors. >> finally, they succeeded in building up a dependency on the political correspondents by feeding them constant supplied stories so the journalists were reluctant to endanger that supply by revealing their methods. >> correct. >> and that's why you -- if you look at david cam reron now, he

the prime minister, he has his own media team. i don't think -- take someone like boris johnson. i'm not saying this is going on. but if boris johnson and the people around him want to be briefing the press in a way to undermine david cameron they can do that and they know the journalists aren't going to drop the minute because it's too good a story for them. so we have that in relation to some of the people who work with gordon brown. no doubt. >> by the end of your time in downing street, mr. campbell, you were somewhat jaded, it may be fair to say, mr. blair points out, pages 301, 32 -- 302, pardon me, of his book. al astare was getting exhausted and ratty and he was getting set upon by the media, whom he was coming to loathe. he was therefore not handling quite right. well, i'm not interested in the bit about handling quite right.

but you were coming to loathe them, presumably. >> not all of them. i was coming to loathe -- well, i had come to loathe the culture that i've set out in my statements. there were some individuals that i had come to loathe. i'd come to loathe their self-obsession, their obsession with me, the negativity, the trivialization. i had come to loathe all that. yeah. but let me just say on the other hand, as i said in my first statement, some of them were and are fantastic first-rate journalists who i think were as worried about the culture as i was. but couldn't actually -- didn't feel empowered to do anything about it. but i was certainly ready to reach the exit door. >> lord mandelson, one of his concluding observations, it's an

interview mr. warnersly carried out. lord mandelson referred to page 9 of mr. warnsly's book. there was a great emphasis on managing the media. the expense of managing policy. it was a sense that if you got the story right you'd achieved something and that's not how government is. do you feel there's any validity in that comment? >> no. i think the policy process was always taken more seriously. but i think we all spent far too much time sfoexed on -- and i speak now as the guy who was in charge of this. the politicians spent way too much time worrying about this stuff. >> what you said, media issues take up much too much time of the prime minister and other senior ministers. >> yeah. but just in their defense, it's very difficult when these full-on frenzies are coming at you. there comes a point where the prime minister will say i need to get out there and deal with this.

my point is i think that i think they can have a lot more space and the public are much more savvy about this now and the more strategic the politicians will be the better it will be for them, the less they're focused on the day to day. now, back in the beginning when we started out i think we had to adopt the approach that we had because we had to recalibrate the playing field. but i think now hopefully there's the window, to use your word earlier, to get to a much, much better position. but it's going to require change from both the politicians and the media. >> well, you said politicians need to get political power back. >> yeah. >> how? >> not at the expense of a free press. i think they have to get a sense of their own power back. you made the point earlier about access. they probably do spend too much

time -- look, diary secretaries are used to to being people off and saying no, there's not enough time in the diary. i think the senior politicians need to do more of that with the media. the great thing about the whole sort of change and internet and the media and so forth are the direct channels of communication now. just as the public can shape a different media landscape so can the politicians, and they should. but i think there's a sense of them still judging their success or failure far too much on what sort of press they're getting. when i saw them, for example, the list of direct contacts there's been between this government and the murdochs since the election, michael go, for example, i couldn't believe it. wasted his time. to my mind. better things to do. >> we will look at the future again at the end of your evidence. i've been asked to put questions

to you from a list of different sources, most core participants. i'll do that now, mr. campbell. >> am i allowed to guess who they are? >> i don't really think it matters, mr. campbell. it's the question of the messenger. but feel free. paragraph 7 of your state. page 00794. in the third line you refer to taking a more strategic, a more proactive approach to communication. did this entail on occasion eck on mi e he can on mizing with the truth, which you continued to deny as an invention of the press? >> i don't think i denied them as an invention of the press but i might have dealt with them in the way i felt would best benefit the government. you have to remember my job was not -- i wasn't the press's representative on downing street. i was the prime minister's spokesman. and he with talked earlier about the -- if you've got a room full

of journalists who are being briefed by other people somewhere in the system that there's this problem and i'd be stupid if i sat there and said there wasn't a problem. but what i would do is say look, we're not going to focus on that, we're going to focus on this. we're going to focus on the budget. we're going to focus on welfare reform, whatever. it wasn't that i was denying, but i would choose my words very carefully in how i dealt with it. >> paragraph 12 now. page 00797. at the very bottom of the page you refer to the remarkable shift of opinion made by some of the murdoch titles on the issue of scottish nationalism and independence and in particular the movement of the scottish sun. the "times" made mr. sammand man of the year. you're not suggesting some sort of causal connection there, are

you, mr. campbell? or are you? >> cause between what and what? >> well, between the support the murdoch papers were beginning to give mr. samman, in particular in scotland, and the "times" making mr. samman man of the year. >> i think the -- i do think rupert murdoch decided samman was someone he wanted to be supportive of for whatever reason. alex samman probably was one of the men of that year. i'm simply making an observation. i do think there's a bigger point in that paragraph. i think the prime minister david cameron and nick clel nd and miliband are getting disproportionately whacked at the moment because of their stance on the media. i think it's revenge for who set

this inquiry up. i do believe that. and i don't think i'm alone in nap and i think the support for alex sammond is potentially related to that. >> paragraph 7 lessons to learn. 00812. this is a more general question. do you not think the government's constant attempts to repackage hold announcements, we're talking now of the labor governmen government, the government's constant attempts to repackage old announcements stories and news and put the best comcomplex on figures create a legitimate thrust in what you were saying? >> i think again -- sorry to keep going on about the treas y treasury, but there was a time when there was so-called double accounting whwa