there was a great emphasis on managing the media, the expense of managing policy. there was a sense if you got the story right, you would achieve something and that's not how government it. 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 focused 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. >> well, it chimes with 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 frenzis 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 they can have a lot more space and the

public a much more savvy about this now. and i think the more strategic the politicians are the better it will be for them, the less they're focused on the day to day. back in the beginning when we starred out, i think we had to adopt the approach we had because we had to recalibrate the playing field. 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 from the media. >> 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 when do spend too much time. look, diary secretaries are used to fobbing people off and saying

no, there's not enough time. the senior politicians need to do more of that with the media. the great thing about the whole sort of change and the internet and social media and direct canals can of communication now just as the public can shape a different immediate landscape, so can the politicians and they should. 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 and when i saw for example the list of direct contacts there's been between this government and the murdochs since the election, michael -- i'm not going to believe it. you wasted his time to my mind. better things to do. >> we will look at the future again at the end of your evidence. i have been asked to put to you a line of questions now by various different sources. most of them coparticipants. i'll do that now, mr. campbell.

>> am i allowed to guess which they are? >> i don't think it really matters, mr. campbell. it's the question, not the messenger. feel free. paragraph 7 of your statement page 00794, in the third line, you refer to taking a more strategic, a more proactive approach to communication. did this entail on occasion economizing with the truth more particularly the tensions between mr. brown and mr. blair which you continued to deny as an invention of the press? >> i don't think -- i never denied them as an invention of the press but i may have dealt with them in the way that i felt would best benefit the government. you have to remember i wasn't the press's representative on downey street. i was the prime minister's spokesman. and as we talked earlier about the -- if you've got a roomful of journalists briefed by other people somewhere in the system,

there's this problem and i'd be stupid if i sat there and said there wasn't a problem. wlald do is say 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 128 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 scott shch nationalism and independence, in particular the movement of the scottish son. the times made plif salmon man of the year. you're not suggesting some sort of cause or 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. salmon in particular in scotland and the times make mr. salmon man of the year? >> i think the -- i do think rupert murdoch had decided that salmon was somebody he wanted to be very, very supportive of for whatever reason. salmon probably was one of the men of that year. i'm simply making an observation. there's a bigger point in that photograph. i do think that the prime minister, david cameron, and nick clegg and miliband are all get diagnose disproportionately whacked at the moment because of their stance on the media. i do believe that. i think partly the coverage of cameron at the moment is revenge for having set this inquiry up. i do believe that. i don't think i'm alone in that,

and i think that the support for alex salmon is potentially related to that. that's what i think. 123450e78, lessons to learn, page 00812, this is a more general question. do you not think that the government's constant attempts to repackage old announcements, we're talking now of the labor government -- >> yeah. >> -- the government's constant attempts to repackage old announcements stories and news and put the best complexion on figures create eight legitimate trust in what you were saying? >> i think again, excuse me, sorry to keep going on about the treasury but i think there was a time where there was so-called double counting. >> which was, frankly stupid. this thing about renouncing is difficult because the reality is

that andrew landsly made a speech at the royal college of nursing today. i don't know whether he had any major announcements to make or not, but that would have been seen by the people who were there and there was bits on the news. largely of the hostile reaction to him. he therefore, to my mind, is perfectly justified then in going on to another venue at another day and saying the same thing again and hoping to get coverage. now, is that renouncing? i don't know. communication, what my definition of strategic communication is the communication of what you're trying to do over time. and retaining the media's interest in that is not easy when what they keep saying is what's new. and the one we talked earlier about the whole business of politicians trying to be more strategic, the media want news 24 hours a day. that's the business that they're in. and they look to the politicians because they're the most high profile people in the country, possibly with the exception of

footballers. they look to them to provide that news. now all i'm saying is i think the politicians need to step back from that. it's not their job. their job is to govern. so is that -- >> paragraph 60, mr. campbell, page 00829 where you deal with special advisers -- >> yeah. >> -- it's your experience the relationships worked well. you explain two lines from the bottom of the page, i would add that any sensitivity issues, the need for special advisers as senior in the system as jonathan and i would not do anything that general direction and often specific checking from our employer. >> uh-huh. >> so you can enlighten us as to what the practice was between 1997 and 2003.

>> i did stay involved with tony blair and later with gordon brown, but before example when people talk about blaming their advisers or we've talked about some of gordon's special advisers, i don't think it's enough for a politician to say well, they're freelance, doing their own thing. jonathan and i were both very, very senior in the system but if we were dealing with difficult sensitive issues, we knew at all times we were representing the prime minister. and special advisers are very special appointments by ministers or in our case the prime minister. that's why i think there was a lot of justified skepticism following the evidence of one of your recent witnesses. >>. >> i've been asked by one cole participant to ask you questions about the black royal incident in 2002.

the death of the queen mother, which of course was in april 2002. >> uh-huh. >> i provided you with a little clip, mr. campbell. of materials. actually, we've got it -- >> can we just get the chronology right? there was a piece in the mirror on sunday which is -- >> no, i think the spectator was the first piece. >> right. >> april the 13th. peter oborn. how tony blair tried to muscle in on the mourning, totally untrue. >> the piece certainly one of the pieces you complained about to the pcc was published in the mirror on sunday on the 14th of april, 2002. >> that's right. >> do you recall that? and the -- we've got a proof print of the story. downing street wanted tony blair

to have a bigger role in the sermon as the queen mother's death it was revealed last night. the senior blair aide telephoned and asked if the prime minister would be able to meet coffin and the royal family when they arrived at westminster hall. the private secretary claire sumner was told by blackwell there was no role for mr. blair, made it clear he was not prepared to change his plan amid claims the government officials wanted buckingham to reduce the line instead from four days to three because they feared that there would be inefficient numbersty paraphrase. then towards the bottom of the page about ten lines from the bottom, the former army officer told her that are miss sumner politely but firmly that mr. blair would not grieve the coffin. of the plan already been drawn up. and then on the next page, four

lines from the top, downing street spokesman said last night we contacted blackwell to go through the logistics. we did not suggest to the prime minister's role should be changed in any way, nor did we put pressure on anyone. >> correct. >> you then complained to the editor of the mirror on sunday on the 15th of april, 2002. >> uh-huh. >> so this was the obviously the monday morning, the following day. you say in the mirror on sunday yesterday simon waters repeated the false claim. so that must be reference to the earlier claim in the spectator, is that right? >> yeah. >> that downing street saw the it out change the royal family's arrangements for the lying in state to enhance the prime minister's role. prime minister's asked me to tell you that unless you print a correction and an apology which makes clear unequivocally that this story is untrue and you

accept it to be untrue, we'll be making a complaints to the pcc under clause one of the code. >> uh-huh. >> i think you made the complaint on the 24th of april, twus, to the pcc. but there was an intervening letter from mr. wright on the 16th of april where he came out fighting as it were. the third paragraph, i do not believe it's in dispute. telephone of michael wilcox to discuss the arrangems. it's our information that mr. summer indicated surprise that mr. blair would not be meeting the coffin and the royal family when they arrived at westminster hall. michael told miss sumner he was not prepared to change it. in fact, he did make one change. and then mr. wright asked for fleept questions to be answered. and finally, there was a letter

by black rod to the pcc which we see at the back of this file. it's dated the 8th of may, 2002. it came after a request by the pcc made the previous day to respond to your complaint. and black rod in this letter evetively said that there there were conversations with miss sumner and the efforts were made to of change the plans. would you agree with that? >> well, if you look at page 3 of his statement -- >> you lull. >> the indented top paragraph, he writes the statement that he gave to us that we were then able to use to rebut these totally untrue stories. he says in the immediate the aftermath of the death of the

queen mother, they were contacted by the staff to brief them on the pm's role. i did so and explained the ceremonial. at no stage was i ever asked these arrangements. why on earth he told us one thing which as his letter subsequently shows he clearly -- but the point is that it the became impossible because the pcc said that they would -- they were not in a position where they could adjudicate. so the we just weep had other things going on and said this was a complete waste of time and dropped it, which then the press took to saying the story was true. the story was untrue then and is untrue now. this was sent to me yesterday. i asked the cabinet office to dig out the file on it. i've sent to your team the copies of the correspondent on it from our perspective so that that you do actually have the broader story on how we handled it. >> what blackwell says towards the end of page 3, finally we

will come to the mail articles. he came to see me on 11th april to research a story on the costs of the lying in state operation. the at the end of the interview made it clear he had sources which in effect substantiated the underlying thrust of the spectator's original article. though i repeated my on the record statement, i was surprised by the quality of his information because i could not in truth deny the pain force of his contentions. >> in which case it's very odd that he denied them on the record prior to that. so if you're interested in this you'd have to talk to black rod because he does appear to be saying different things on the same piece of paper. all i know is a very damaging story was run and the story was completely and totally untrue. claire sumner whose job in downing street was parliament tritt lee and son had to

establish what the prime minister was meant to do on an event as important as the death of the queen mother. then he goes on in his letters to talks about there were these visits from downing street. they happened to be the prime minister's protection team who advance everywhere he goes. offensive me if i don't take it as seriously as the people who wrote it at the time. but the story was total nonsense. >> black rod on the last page says i find it very difficult to quote the mail on sunday and surprised the article dealt with my experiences. >> he's obviously somebody very familiar with the mail on sundays and probably didn't want to say anything untoward about them. the story is untrue. >> finally, you didn't reply to mr. wright's letters on the 12th and 17th of june. >>ity have no idea if i did or i didn't. s. >> likely would have included had you done so. i think that's as far as i can take it. >> i think black rod ended up taking a position on the pcc,

but i could be wrong about that. i think black rod ends up taking a position at the pcc. >> you may be right about that. we can look into that. >> good to have friends in the press. >> come on, mr. campbell. don't overdo it. >> okay. another question i've been asked. >> this was in one of the half dozen that i mentioned earlier that always gets raised. >> the other question i've put to you, i'm asked to put you to is paragraph 7 of your statement. . >> yeah. >> you say nobody with the prime minister's or my authority briefed the sun on the election date in 2001. if you look at the third volume of your diaries, page 567 entry

for saturday the 31st of march, 2001. >> uh-huh. >> you do refer to a conversationings with trevor in these terms. my chat with caverner had been written up hard as a june election >> yeah. >> and you move on to a different topic. the first call of the day was db saying pissed off it came out in the newspaper like that or maybe he was still on the same topic, flamely the timing of the election. >> i'd have to check against the -- but i think that refers to a story about david blunkette's position in the government. i could be wrong because i think he was move after the election. but the point i make in my witness statement is valid. the sun ran a story -- look, it's obvious. now we have face term parliament

but the time of the election is a story that every single political journalist is looking for the whole time and they speculated about it all the time. the truth is we had been planning to have the election on may 3rd and it was postponed because of foot and mouth. now trevor caverner had run a story earlier saying may the 3rd, election day official. now that didn't come from us, nor did the subsequent story saying it was going to be on whatever date in june it turned out to be. and i think i was probably speaking to trevor every day at this point. we were in the middle of the run up to the election campaign. but at no pointdy tell anybody until the prime minister announced the-election date. by then, we were frankly running out of dates. >> some would say it's fairly clear from that first sentence of the diary entry that you had april conversation with mr. caverner and he certainly gained the impression from it that the election was being put

back to june. >> he may well have done, but what i didn't do was brief him on the election date. >> so what's the difference, mr. cameron? >> the difference is he phones me makeup and says alastair, can you tell me when the election is and i tell him what the date is. ask you to imagine what it's like being in my position where i know the information. he thinks that he knows the information. he's trying to tease it out of me and he reads body language and the way that i say things. i don't want to mislead him. contrary to the oh born thesis, i never told them lies but i sometimes didn't tell them everything that i knew. he reads the language. by then, it was blindingly obvious when the election was going to be, frankly. you say if it wasn't going to be may, it wasn't going to be july because they never are in july, it's going to be june? >> well, i think they'd kind of

all probably worked that out by then. but it became a source of huge contention because the mirror became convinced we had given them the election date and no such thing, didn't. >> can we look to the future, mr. campbell? it's 25 to 5:00. you pick it up at paragraph 32 of your statement. 00813. just some ideas which you though out. we're not going to cover all of them because we've read your statement. you say in paragraph 34, this is a very -- in which to regulate. beat understand that. you mentioned in paragraph 36. >> uh-huh. >> the you're suggesting that there should be greater transparency, and the new regulators should be able to investigate the extent to which

really opinion is being presented as fact. extent to wit they're fair and reasonable in their reporting and the extent to which they're being sufficient lit transparent in the interests which are driving their content. >> uh-huh. >> how would one go about properly exploring these motivations without seriously impeding the preeminent concern the freedom of the press? >> i think by being aware of that as a possible concern. but if you look at -- we talked earlier about the fact that every other walk of life has some sort of oversight and scrutiny and regulation. the some of the reports that the broadcasting regulator publishes from time to time i would be similar to this. i'm simply suggesting that whichever body replaces the pcc

as well as investigating individual complaints against a code and as i said in my first statement, i think the pcc code itself is a very, very good basis, but also to look at trends. you took evidence from the mccanns. i mean it, had there been a regulator who as that is story was developing could actually have said we are going to having an investigation into the way this is being covered, that might have had an effect. i think it would have been an effect for the good. i mentioned some of the specific issues there. news international's reporting of editorial line about the bbc. i'm not suggesting you should say you can't have a bias. but i think if an outside body were able at least to analyze whether they felt that there were one, and this has got to be inevitably there's going to be some subjectivity attached to this but when this inquiry finally writes its report, judgments are made. that's what people are put in these positions to do. so i'm suggesting somebody, some

body's put in that position to make judgments so the public can be better informed. and i think actually as i say later, that the -- as a result of this inquiry, the public have learned and seen things they didn't know about. i think that's been to the public good already. but if this body were able to say i'm concerned about this issue, i want to -- i'd like to interview an editor or an owner about that, what on earth is wrong with thatting? i don't see anything wrong with that at all. it would be a good point for the press. you will probably know more about this than i do, but some of the regulation of the legal profession i think has probably strengthened the legal pro fegz and it's a mixture of statutory and nonstatutory.

>> if you compare the last sentence of paragraph 37 with the last sentence of paragraph 39, start with the last sentence of 39, you say if for example a paper repeatedly disports the facts in support of a political goal are, should be no means of stopping the paper from reporting that way value in some respected body pointing out that's what's happening. well, if the facts are being distorted that would be a breach of clause 1. >> what i mean by that is for example, i talked earlier about the sun has a particular view on europe. or at the moment they have a particular view on kent clark and his fitness to be secretary of state. so you can take a fact for example, the euro zone's in crisis. you can take that -- we accept that as a fact but then you can

take that fact and you can turn it in p into a comment that justifies your position on europe, likewise kent clark, if a select committee report is published critical of the justice department, you can take that and you can splash it all over your front page why clark has to go. i'm making the point that the facts will be there in the story somewhere. the distortion is in the way they take them then to build a comment which relates to a campaign that they're running. now, i don't think you should stop newspapers from doing that. it's perfectly -- legitimate of the newspapers to have strong positions. the fact is a fact. but i'm simply saying if you have an outside body that says actually this paper has a position on europe, has a position on a particular politician, has a position on a particular political party because i saw a bit of gus this morning and he was making the point about the bbc and the

times and this is particularly relevant about this debate online. the public are absorbing all this stuff and not necessarily knowing what the motivation of an owner is and what the motivation of an editor may be. i think actually an outside body can help to bring the sort of transparent silt which the media are never going to shine upon themselves. history would suggest. >> is this what some of the of ngos do, is it full fact and media standards trusted, those sort of bodies get involved in that sort of thing? >> they do, and but it's interesting. i mentioned the peter oborn piece in the british journalism review. there are some journalists who do this as well but they tend as in that article to be treated as outsiders, otd balls. i thid that what will hacked off and full fact and the media standards trust and these bodies

are representing is a genuine public concern about what the media has become and this loss of faith and loss of trust and where fact ends and where comment begins. and i think i agree with what gus said this morning. but i think it's naive of either of us to think you're ever going to change that and a part of me says that you shouldn't want to change that. newspapers particularly in the internet age have to be able to take strong positions but there should be a greater ability for people or organizations to have a comeback against them when they are distorting not just confusing facts and comment but the actually are inventing to suit a particular agenda. beat had that the whole time and so did a lot of people in public life. >> just trying to think through this,