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p >> it's fair to say afte p september 11tseptemb engaged in foreign policy. i do remember getting-- i was aware of his views. he was expressing them publicly. >> is there anything further that you can help us with the passage of that act, in particular the concessions which were made by the lords at the end of the day? going back to paragraph 51 to 53 of your statement.

>> going back to mr. murdoch, the three telephone calls before the start of the iraq war in 2003, something that i think you can give very clear evidence about, the fact that they probably occurred or did occur but the substance of the calls, you can't assist us with. is that the same? >> well, can i only give you evidence as far as it relates to what i wrote in my diary. i don't actually remember the calls but i did write in -- on march 11, 2003 about one of the calls.

>> it does appear that it was a call that tony blair had made. whether that helps you or not, i don't know. >> let's don't use the phrase implied express deal, let me use none of those words. let me understand what's going on here. the government was more than just contemplating heading for a war. mm-hmm. >> it was obviously understandable if they wanted to discover what the reaction from

those who were responsible for our media was going to be. and i could equally understand why a prime minister might think it of value to seek to get across in an unvarnished way, unmediated by other press comment, what was really going on in his mind to try and put the best case, which of course is presumably what he was thinking about, for the conclusions that he'd reach. but what i'm interested to know is where that leads. is it requesting support, is it neutral as to whether you have support, is it -- i mean, what's going on here? do you understand my question? >> yeah. i mean, look, by this point as you say it was perfectly clear

where this was leading and equally it was perfectly clear that most of of tthe media were opposed to what we were doing and mr. murdoch's titles were in favor of what we were doing. i think it's also fair to say that the prime minister would have appreciated that support at that time because it was probably the most difficult decision he ever had to make. it was the most difficult period of the time that i was with him bar none. but as i say in my statement, in terms of i wouldn't want to put too much significance, given all else that he was dealing with at that time when he was speaking to presidents and prime ministers around the world the whole time, i wouldn't overtate the significance of a couple of phone calls with rupert murdoch. so in terms of what i think is going on here, as i said, i'm

relying on what i've written in my diary, what i think is going on is that rupert murdoch has taken the call and is wanting to have a shout about what's going on. i go about the point the made earlier, it may be different from some of the other media owners is that he's a news man. he's interested in what's going on in the world. so i think that's what's going on but i can't help you beyond that because i don't remember the call. but certainly at that time it was a very -- he was in a very, very difficult position and we were all -- in terms of the decisions that were taken taken and the policy that was being pursued, it was hugely unpopular. we knew that.

most of the rest of the media, because they were opposed by the war, the bbc because of the dispute we got into with them, most of the right-wing paper because they hated tony blair by then, it was a pretty difficult paper landscape. whether rupert murdoch was, well, i'm kind of the last one standing, i don't know. that's all i can really give you is what i've put in my diary on that day. but there were two -- according to the cabin office, there were only between 2002 and 2005, tony blair spoke to rupert murdoch six times on the telephone. three of those calls were doing this period and i think it's a combination of rupert murdoch trying to find out what's going on and also probably just saying we're going to support you on this. does that help? >> why would he need to do that? >> well, he wouldn't, he wouldn't.

again, i can't really help you beyond what i put in my statement. it was the biggest issue anywhere in the world. >> i understand that. but it's -- i suppose it goes back to the whole question of the perception of the reason why this intensely difficult time which you've described, which we all remember simply from what we were watching and reading about, we weren't involved in these decisions and i can understand he's talking to world leaders about this phenomenally important decision that three times he should feel it significant enough to chew the kud, talk to, listen to, warn

newspaper -- and it's what it leads -- it's whether it is appropriate to draw any conclusion about the relationship because that, i suppose is what i'm supposed to be thinking about. >> if i suspected rupert murdoch, i suspect had he been in london for that time, would he have seen him for a cup of tea or a half an hour chat, i suppose he would. i said before he's a very, very significant player in the media landscape. put it this way. i was, if anything, surprised at how few phone calls there had been when the cabin office produced this record. not that there had been, as you seem to think, so many. >> it's not so many, it's just

the fact of them against all the other competing demands upon his time. he knew what the view of the sun was. he made it abundantly clear. he didn't have to speak to mr. murdoch. he could pick up a copy of the times. >> i can see why you say that. it's important to remember -- you see, we're looking to this now and people may think it's odd that i don't remember something that i've written about but i just don't. and for me as well there was so much else going on at that time. but i -- it doesn't strike me as that odd, not the least because by then i think it's fair to say tony blair had very few strong supporters in the media left and whether one of these calls came from him, i have no idea.

whether one of them was actually about placing a call, i don't know. >> well, there's a limit to how far we can go with it and i recognize that. but i read into what you're saying to me that i should not read too much into the fact that there were these calls, notwithstanding the pressure upon the prime minister's time and all the other problems he was facing. >> yes, because even at times like this, he would have spoken to all sorts of people. and i think it's -- no, i wouldn't read too much into it to be absolutely frank. and i know that one of your previous witnesses has said that without rupert murdoch's support we couldn't have done the iraq war so it's complete nonsense. complete nonsense. tony blair believed in what we were doing and the government

supported what was being done and so did parliament and that was way, way, way more important than any newspaper support. >> all right. i think that's a convenient moment to take a break. >> all rise. >> i think you wanted to correct something about one of the five pledges. >> i thought it was one of the five pledges but it's not. but it was announced before the article. >> paragraph 53 of your statement, this is the back door point. you say there tends to be a media presence in downing street most of the time and there's no particular need or desire to advertise a meeting, makes sense to avoid the front door.

not very transparent some would say. then you say slightly tongue in cheek, partly our thinking was for the rest of the media, murdoch was uniquely neural jik. >> no, it's what i thought. if he entered the meeting, it would be what is he doing there. i tended to go in the same door. it just way of avoiding attention, i guess. but i take your point. >> do you think there's something about the fact that we now make it -- or we, the government now make their links with senior editors and proprietors much clearer, that you're going to get rather more concerned that some proprietors

get more access than others and that's not fair? >> i would hope that what comes out of all this is not just the great openness and transparency that you were talking about this morning but also perhaps a greater distancing between the two sets of people. as i said in my statement, i think there is a real public interest in politics and other walks of life having relationships with the media that allow them to debate, be challenged and so forth but i think if we could get to a situation where there wasn't this sense of it being relationships that just get mangled, the political, the perm, the commercial. i can see why you might think they're all just kind of interwoven. >> well, it's a topic i would certainly welcome your view on but we'll let mr. jay take his own course and if it's not covered, we'll come back to it.

>> so there's one further point about mr. stubs that i missed and it's a footnote to major 634, volume one of your diaries, you describe him as rupert murdoch's economic guru. you were making a serious point there, weren't you, mr. campbell? i didn't write all the footnotes. i think he was -- i think he was an economic adviser, guru, one of those words.

>> was it a sense that if mr. murdoch was not around, was there a sense you were talking to him? >> no, i wouldn't say that. it wasn't as if he was a spokesman. >> you say in your statement that you attended i think both her weddings. >> no, it's the perception for the first one and the wedding for the second. just on the first one i was, as it were, independently friendly with her husband. >> would you describe it as a friendship or relationship borne out of circumstances? >> i think it's difficult that once you're at a certain level in politics -- again, in one of these books tony blair and have i a discussion about this, i think it's difficult to develop friendships with people from any walk of life where they might

actually feel that they can get something from you. so i think we were friendly, we were very friendly, and i liked rebecca but i think friendship overstates it. most of the friends that i have are journalists, friends that i used to work with when i was a journalist. but i liked her and obviously because in my job and her job we spoke a lot. >> now, many people have observed and some witnesses have said that she's a consummate networker. is that something -- >> yeah. and i think she would see that as part of her job. >> in the late 1990s, did you assess that her star, as it were, was clearly in the ascendancy and therefore it was important that mr. blair and the labor government come close to her? >> no, not particularly. i think she was obviously very bright.

you always had -- i had a sense very early on that rupert murdoch really liked her and i think within the rupert murdoch setup, there's that sense of who is he, as it were, bestowing his favor upon and i think rebecca was a rising star and i think we would have ensured that tony blair, as i say in my statement, right across the piece of all the media titles, that over time that he would see most of the key people. i think that's what we did. >> in paragraph 64 of her statement, she referred to her being almost a constant presence in and around mr. blair, senior cabinet minister and special advisers. would you agree with that assessment? >> i mean, look, all of the papers the prime minister and the government are probably the most covered people, including on the tabloids.

so so in a sense what i would say is we were a constant part of her life and indeed of everyone else's life so i wouldn't overstate that. and i think that does overstate it. >> in terms of your making contact with her, we know mr. blair didn't have a mobile phone, how many times a week was it? >> that would i make contact with her when she was editor? sometimes every week, sometimes every day. really it would depend what was happening on the news agenda. average probably once or twice. >> if she wanted personal access to either mr. blair or a senior cabinet minister, did she tend to organize that through you or not? >> cabinet minister i can't speak for but in terms of tony blair probably through me oraan

hunter or sally morgan or one of the people around the prime. >> did she manipulate the fractious relationship between mr. brown and mr. blair? >> i don't think so, no. i mean, it was a very difficult part of my job, the fact that the press were writing about the difficulties in that relationship all of the time and i was having to be out there as an advocate for the government, explaining what we were trying to do, focusing on the important things and so forth so, no, i don't think she did. i knew that she spoke to gordon and the people who work for him and that perhaps they sometimes said things to her they wouldn't have said to us. >> was she increasingly seen as having influence over mr. murdoch? >> i think my sense was the most influence person in terms of rupert murdoch was rupert

murdoch. was she important in the organization? yes. >> were minister afraid of her? >> well, if they were, they shouldn't have been. >> yes, but do you think they were? >> i don't think so. i don't think so. minister were -- one of the reasons why even though it's fair to say i think i'm somewhat p & g at news international now, i would -- i mean, rebecca was always very, very straight forward to deal with and there were a number of stories that i dealt with with her, which was very difficult for individual minister where robin cook was one, steven buyers was another where she was always -- we had a sense of i had a job to do, she had a job to do but we could be straight with each other. >> was the sun ever fed stories by you? >> yeah. so were other papers. i mean, i would say that we were

one of the prime sources for every media organization in the country. >> so it wasn't a question of prioritizing the sun you feel, it was just part of your job to -- >> well, look, most -- we made a lot of changes in 1997, the biggest of which was putting the briefing on the record and most of my contact with the media was on the record briefing. every single paper thought that we favored other papers. the mirror thought we favored the sun, the sun thought we favored the mirror, the telegraph thought we favored the times. you couldn't win really. >> mr. morgan told us he thought there were probably 60 meetings with mr. blair and you were also present at the meetings.

is that right? >> i suppose so and some of those were probably receptions and what does that work, six a year. is that a lot? piers was the editor of the one labor supporting newspaper. there was an annual lunch that we had at the labor party conference. but certainly i would be present at most of those meetings probably. >> but in relation to the iraq war when mr. morgan in particular was hostile, it was a question, though, of enabling the mirror to put the best possible gloss on stories? >> this whole thing about spin i think is totally overdone. journalists aren't stupid and the public aren't stupid and most of the presence of the prime minister and people's lives would be what they saw on the television and when they saw him on the news and they saw him in the house of commons. so most of the discussions i would have had with piers would actually have -- certainly during the iraq war we had a

fairly fundamental disagreement. he was the editor, i was the prime's director of communications and strategy. it was an up-and-down but pretty good relationship. >> paragraph 46 of your statement you deal with contracts with others as well. >> mm-hmm. >> interestingly you recall that viacom, it's the middle of page 46. where viacom express newspapers intruded on their privacy. >> as i say, an irony lost on

all but her and her husband. >> i'm sure this is an example of genuine amnesia but i'm not suggesting for one moment that -- i do mention that. paragraph 26, please. >> 26? >> 26 now. >> are you moving away from proprietors? >> i'm moving to the more general but not dealing with proprietors in particular. >> let me just ask you the question about them. there's obviously much more contact with them, proprietors and soonier minister and people such as yourself than there

would be for other interest groups. is there a risk do you think that that access can indeed work the other way so that therefore there is a risk, which has to be guarded against. i'm not saying it can't be guarded against, that their particular interests and that could be commercial or personal, by which i mean the paper, or it could be that which they are campaigning, achieved a greater prominence than would be perceived by somebody in quite a different situation by somebody who doesn't have the same access? >> absolutely. i totally accept that. >> is that a problem? >> yeah, i think it is a problem. i think is means that the

interest of one section of the national make-up does have gr t greater access than others who should have just as good access to government. owe the proportion owner media does give them disproportionate access. i don't say it's the same as power but it does give disproportionate access. >> but once you've got disproportionate access, the risk is that the influence is that much more potent. >> i agree with that. >> now, using your experience both as a journalist and as somebody who has worked in government and the rather higher

grade view you've been able to take in life since you've ceased, how can that be fixed? >>. >> i think openness is an important thing and transparency. i think i'm right for example for saying the american president's diary is published so that you can see what he's doing with his time. but do i think that it can only be fixed -- i say this when i addressed the point about the phyllis report in my statement, i think it can only be fixed if both sides of this acknowledge the problem is not just the other side. there is a tendency for those of us on the political side to say it's all your fault and there's an even stronger tendency on this side to say it's all your

fault. i think unless we can get beyond that, we're not going to get anywhere. so openness, a greater explanation i think from the -- see, i think the politicians have done a very, very bad job of standing up for themselves in terms of what their legitimate role is, what their legitimate functions are and how they have to engage with the media because if they don't, they're going to get blown away. so there's got to be a proper reckoning of each other's power and each other's status. i think where we've got to is where some elements of the media kind of think they're above politics and they're actually phone hacking above the law. >> well, it's the quite -- i'-- i'd particular late is slightly differently or i'd like to suggest it might be slightly differently articulated by saying