following our page 02550. will you explain in paragraph 30 you've known a number of the senior journalist, editors for years. we each have each other's contact numbers. the correspondents would often call for issues how forthcoming i was would depend on a number of factors. one would understand the underlying reasons for that. can i ask you please about mr. dayko who you identify. >> yes. >> you've known him since university many the late 1960s. and but since then, how frequently do you meet him? >> not that often. i mean, i -- but -- he -- as i say, it's respect acquaintanceship. it's not a friendship. it could have been a friendship, a close friendship, but it isn't. that's just how it's been. i'd have to crawl through my diaries.

i guess aside from when there was policy business to deal with as there was towards the end of my period at the ministry of justice, i'd probably see him four lunch or so maybe once a year. i might bump into him in other environments. i could, mr. jay, if you wish, go through my diaries and ask mr. beckett to do the same. but i was president of the students union lead in my last year. i think he was very -- obviously very talented young journalist when he arrived in leeds and became the editor of "the union news" very quickly. so i think he was in his first year. we rubbed along. and i say there was i think a position of kinds of mutual respect there. as i said in my evidence, my relationship with him is being made more straightforward his political views and mine and

those of his newspaper are different. so i've never ever held my breath that just because i knew mr. dayko somehow or other in the editorials on the election day saying that people insane if they voted labor there'd be a secretary in blackburn. that doesn't happen. i never expected it. so it's a clean relationship. >> your flavor of your evidence is that the exchanges between you not frequent or indeed perhaps any text messages, rarely spoke on the mobile telephone. is that it? >> with paul baker? >> yes. >> no. i don't think i've ever exchanged a text message with him. sometimes, in fact he's -- his e-mail -- famously i don't think he does, like mr. blair in this respect, i don't think he uses computers.

when i wanted to send him something by e-mail, i've sent that to a p.a. in his office. i've got his phone number on my system, but i can't remember. i think i've ever sent him a text. >> did the relationship change at all when mr. brown became prime minister? because we know mr. brown was much closer to mr. dayko than was mr. blair closer to mr mr. dayko. >> yes, mr. dayko -- i think you'd find he was skeptical about mr. blair in a way that -- well, he was less skeptical about mr. brown. it did -- partly because mr. brown before he became leader had had conversations with mr. decker about heading up an inquiry into the 30-year rule. that in a sense was a done deal as i -- mr. brown became prime minister. but i then took on the operational side of that

inquiry. and of course subsequently there were a lot of conversations with mr. decker and senior colleagues in the press about segment 55 of the protection act. >> we'll come to the detail. >> just before you go on, can i go back to a phrase i rather like, expectful acquaintanceship? was that because you or he felt that your respective paths took you into different directions and therefore that was the best way, or was it just that's -- it's just a coincidence and that's how it went and you wouldn't have minded if it had more? do you understand the question i was asking? >> yes, i do. there was never anything explicit. at university all of us you meet people. so i was never close to him. it was a respectful relationship, nothing more.

our paths could have crossed more often, but they didn't. i think there was quite a period where i was in london and indeed working briefly at the bar when i didn't have anything to do with him. so it could have developed. it's completely unsaid, but as far as i gather, he's pretty private about his family life, we are about ours. we have turned our houses into sort of salon for politicians. we liked almost all of our personal friends, our family friends are not politicians or journalists for that matter. they're friends. so i have no idea. who his circle of friends are. but i suspect they're rather similar. >> i wasn't seeking to be personal. >> no. >> i was merely seeking to

wheth examine whether you'd take an decision which in the light of what you said would be entirely understandable, that here was a guy i did get on with, oh, sure i could try and friend him, but actually because i think there is an issue about closeness. >> i see. >> then i won't. and if you didn't reach that conclusion, i'd be interested to know is it going back umpteen years because it's very relevant to the issues that we've been talking about about the extent of closeness of relationships. >> my instinct always was not to get too close. so although i think it was rather inchoate, that view of mine, that was my instinct. you shouldn't get too close. for example, if i was getting worked over many the press, which happens from time to time if you're a minister or the

senior opposition person, sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly, my view always was really to not to try and phone up an editor and complain about it. i just thought it would make it worse and look pretty weak. and that would have been -- they'd think of something else to write about. you might be lucky. normally, i was. but there was nothing much to do about it. and i might get special advisor or the press officer to talk to the journalists concerned but not to go balance sheeting to the editor, because what's the point? does that answer your question, sir? >> yes. it's really the inchoate thinking because you're talking now about over 30 years. and one of the interesting issues for me is what everybody now concedes has been -- has become an overcozy relationship

is recent or really endemic in the system. from what you're saying from my perspective it was never endemic because i always decided that wasn't a sensible line. >> yes, i think -- that is true. is it recent? no, it's not recent. it's as old as the popular papers. >> one couldn't go to north cliff. >> you think about the relationship between hugh and the labor governments the -- and when i worked for barbara castle, who -- she had been a journalist. the best way of describing mrs. castle, she was very much the labor equivalent of margaret thatcher. so she had very strong opinions about people. and she kept a list in her head

of journalists she liked and was willing to talk to and journalists she detested. i remember there was one called norah belloff on "the observer." she used spit about her. the lobby was very -- the press lobby was very tight 60 journalists worked sort of free masonry. so they -- it was even more incestuous than it is today. i'm not saying how i would have operated in that system except i think a wise politician would just keep a bit of distance. >> in paragraph 34, mr. straw, will you look at "the sun" and its particularly important role in the fortunes of the labor party. i ask you to please elaborate on

what you mean halfway down where you say mr. murdoch has played a power game with political leaders. >> yes. the political leanings of most newspapers in britain are predictable. so the paragraph is going to supporting the conservative party, "the daily mirror" is going to be supporting the labor party. from recollection i think there's only two newspapers that are predictable. one is "the guardian," and the other is three of the four "news international" papers. "the guardian" normally supports the labor party but in any election, they support the liberal democrats. it did that in 1983 and again in 2010. so it's sort of fair-weather friend. it won't support the conservatives. certainly -- it's unpredictable

about whether it would support the labor party. for the murdoch papers, since mr. murdoch purchased those papers, "the daily times" has always supported conservatives and did so in 19 7. the other bit what i perceive of mr. murdoch's approach particularly with "the sun" and "the news of the world" was that he reckoned that his political influence would be greater if as it were his support was available in return for what he thought he could get out of it. and i don't mean some deal. i see no evidence of a deal. but he thought there was something in it. now they might -- the benign view of this is that the people at news international took a very -- people at news

international, like other newspaper executives, were very concerned about where there readers were and that they supported between 1992 and 1997 their readers were going to support labor so they followed them. it's a more complicated set of relationships than this. i think that -- the perception i found was mr. murdoch was enjoying the fact that he's been willing to play with political leaders in a way that the senior executives of the other papers, who have not been -- you know, have not because their loyally ultimately is predictable. i hope that explains what i meant there. >> there are three ways perhaps one could analyze the power game. one is just a piece of enjoyment that doesn't lead anywhere. the third -- and it's the most extreme -- is a game which is deadly serious because underneath it there is an expressed deal. and then there's something in

between. just understand this. you said in return for what he thought he would or could get out of it. >> yes. >> can i ask you to explain that? >> i've never had this conversation with him in my life. i've obviously met him. but scarcely we've had more than a paragraph of conversation with him ever. this is just my sense. well, he's very interested in power. you don't get to that position running a huge international media empire without being interested in power. and i think to help him consolidate his non-newspaper interests in this country. i was struck when he was explaining that the print media titles contributed 2% or small percentage of the total revenues

of the news corp., that there was a degree of discontinuity about the point he was making, because the pow they're those print titles provide is much greater than 2% of the total in the united kingdom. it goes back to the point that mr. adam bolton made, which is that the print media can have the greatest influence of all over the news values and the headlines on all the other media. and i -- i mean, i've assumed that mr. murdoch reckoned that if his support for the winning party, which is basically what he sought to do each time, was available, that would open more doors in government when it came to things like media regulation, licenses, regulation of football and so on.

>> is this -- what you're giving us here is an analysis of what you believe his motivations to be rather than perhaps direct evidence of anything he has told you or others may have -- >> sorry. like i say, i've never had more than a paragraph of conversation with mr. murdoch in my life. this is what i surmise. i have no direct evidence. he's a busy man. he's a very successful man. like anybody else in a senior position he thinks about what he's doing and why he's doing it, and that's the conclusion i've drawn. >> in paragraph 35 you refer to the power of mr. murdoch's papers. one might note that you prefer to use that word rather than mr. campbell's influence. >> well, it was -- i mean, from the point of view of the -- here.

certainly for those on the receiving end it felt like power. mr. jay, it may be helpful to provide just a bit of explanation as to why people who were on the front bench in the labor party in the 1990s -- and particularly you've been through the experience of the '92 election -- believe that we have to get the papers on side. if i may, i'll dig out of my files one example of this which was the main story in "the sun" newspaper on the first of april just eight days -- eight days before the 1992 election. and the main story was this, and i'll put this in as evidence, "i'm all right, jack." i was saying education minister lectures us on the scandal of his cottage, his townhouse, and

his 40,000. pound flat. he was branded a hypocrite for preach i preaching and for the luxury of three homes. well, it's true my wife and i between us own three houses and that was perfectly public. what "the sun" was doing in the '92 election was working over each senior member of the labor front bench and this had an effect. if you want -- on the receiving end of it it felt like power. it had an effect on my constituency. i remember doing an open-air meeting that wednesday. and you could feel support pulling away many any majority scarcely moved, but it did not reflect on the national swing. this was minor. it had one consequence talking about power. every burglar in west oxfordshire knew that the one

day of the year we were not going to be in the house there was the election night. we got burglared a lot of property was stolen. i raised that subsequently with the sun and got the glazed eye look. that's one of the things. tough. but the more important point was that he was mercilessly treated by "the sun" over quite a period he did contribute to our defeat. i took that as power. and we were there for once mr. blair came into office in '94. we all shared the same view that if humanly possible without completely compromising ourselves, we should do our best to get the papers onside. it was better than the alternative. i've been through 18 years of opposition. >> i'm sure there was no question, mr. straw, of completely compromising yourselves. some might ask well what about partially compromising yourselves? >> i thought you were going to ask that as the word came out of my mouth.

there wasn't -- it's more complicated than that. i mean mr. blair was very much in favor of the new labor agenda. so was i in terms of, say, in terms of the crucial decision on that, which was to change clause 4. i mean, i published a pamphlet about that in '93 and nothing whatever to do with "the sun" or anything else. they regarded the pamphlet as rather boring. i don't think there was -- there was any compromise of our integrity. if you take the area that mr. blair had been involved with between '92 and '94, and i took over from '94 to '97, which was law and order and crime, there were people who were saying, our critics sort of on the liberal left, they were saying we're only doing this because we wanted papers like "the sun" and the "news of the world" on site. that wasn't true. i was doing it because we

believed in it and we had been profoundly dissatisfied with the very soft approach which the labor party had taken on crime before that, which had lost support of an awful lot of our working-class supporters. >> paragraph 38, mr. straw, you say, during my period as justice secretary i would often travel to london on a monday morning from the west oxfordshire station. he used to use the same train. after a while we made arrangements to meet up and sit together for the journey, but then you say, i paraphrase, this stopped in 2009 when you became chief executive. that was formed i think in september, 2009. in general terms, were the discussions which you had with her on the train other than social or private? >> no, they were -- not much of them was social.

i mean, they were private in the sense that neither of us were writing it out on a blog. they weren't social. they were political. they were sort of -- we'd talk about what was in the papers, what was -- we'd gossip about personalities, that sort of thing. and a lot of the time we can't -- we'd get on with our work. obviously, she had work to do. i had work to do. so we weren't mattering the whole journey. i never put a figure to it. but in any case, these are crowded trains, so there are all sorts of people around earwigging. so there was a limit to what one was going to say either way. otherwise it would have appeared in somebody else's newspaper. >> fair enough. and then you say you attended her wedding in june 2009. >> yes, i did. yeah. >> a number of specific points

which might arise out of relationships with news international. what was, as mr. lance price has said was the case, the labor party's policy on cross media ownership quietly dropped within six months of the cayman island trip, which was in june or july 1995? >> i don't know is the answer to that because i didn't have any direct involvement in media policy. so -- i wish i had, but i hadn't. so i have no information on why it was dropped at all. >> new, mr. decker's claimed that labor could not have committed british troops to iraq without the support of the international newspapers. do you agree with that view? >> no, i don't.

let me say that since i was completely inserted and involved in the decision to commit troops in iraq, i can't ever remember a conversation along the lines of mr. decker's where, you know, we were discussing whether we went to war or not and said we can or we will because "the sun" newspaper or the press is going to be on site. i mean, it would have been disgusting if that had been part of the conversation. this is about putting british troops in harm's way. and bluntly, it was much, much more serious than that. so, "no" is the answer. >> of course you were foreign secretary at this time. we've heard evidence, somewhat unclear evidence, about three telephone calls mr. blair and mr. murdoch in march of 2003. are you able to throw any light on those?

>> i'm sorry, i'm not. i was vaguely aware that they had taken place, but it's quite hard to get across to those who weren't involved the pace of events of this time. i mean, i -- at the beginning of march, on the 5th or 6th of march, i went off to new york for what turned out to be the last of the series of security council meetings. and then after that -- i must have got back on a saturday, i guess -- between then, which would have been the 8th of march and the 17th when the cabinet made its decision to go to war, my whole time was spent trying to get support of the security council for a second resolution. and, frankly, who mr. blair was talking to on the telephone was neither here nor there, unless it was about getting support for the second resolution.

>> but how important was it politically to get a newspaper on side, because the people would have to be convinced? >> well, it was certainly important, sir, to have the newspapers on side. and my recollection is that the news international papers were not the only papers who were on side. and it is by any means -- yes, of course it's far better to have them on side than not have them on side, so i'm not trivializing it, but i'm saying it wasn't ever part of the discussions that i was ever involved in. it's worth bearing in mind that there was widespread support for military action. i know there was also widespread opposition for military action and the opinion was polarized. but what people are -- many people are now doing is looking at those events with the benefit of hindsight, including the failure to find any weapons of

mass destruction. and the awful aftermath, the chaos of the aftermath, after the fall of saddam. but if you're looking forward, it was actually very different circumstances. and bear in mind that the whole of the international community had said in resolution 1441 that saddam posed a threat to international peace and security. that 1441, as far as i was concerned and the british government was concerned, that had authorized military action if there were a further material breach by saddam, which we believed and still believe there was. so there was a huge weight of international opinion as well as opinion here in favor of it. in europe, half the member states of the european union were in favor in military action. a number of those put troops in. so this wasn't what is now presented as sort of an evil

minority activity at all. there was a very large consensus behind it. and it's also just -- sir, if i can just mention this. bearing in mind that the conservative party, not all of them, but the conservative party was strongly in support of military action as well, and that was bound to affect the character of support from the newspapers in practice. >> mr. straw, move on to the topic of influence on public policy. first of all, section 12 of the human rights act. now, we have the text of section 12, which is really the end point in the process under tab 6. >> do you want me to look at it? >> please. i know you'll know it. >> i do it but i'll try not to --

>> maybe someone following this will understand the significance of section 12. it is a procedural provision dealing only with the stepping stones as where the high court is considering whether to grant any relief which might bear on the article 10 rights of freedom of expression. >> yeah. yep. >> and there are two key points. the first key point is the high court won't granting relief unless satisfied more likely than not that publication should not be allowed, which to be clear, that sets a higher bar than the general law in relation to getting these injunctions. >> yes. >> and then the second point is under subsection 4, the court must have particular regard to the importance of the convention right to freedom of expression,

particularly in journalistic cases, and also will have regard to matters such as public interest to the extent that it may be available to the public and any relevant privacy code. the privacy code would be capable of accommodating the pcc. >> yeah. >> so that's what section 12 is about. you deal with this in your witness statement, paragraphs 100 to 111, mr. straw. >> yep. >> see if we can summarize it in this way. there were two concerns which came from the press, but who was leading the press cause, as it were, was the then chair of the pcc. >> yes. >> first of all, though, was a concern about a burgeoning or clandestine privacy law which the human rights i