inquiry, i got a young researcher working with me as a intern in 1993 to do a lot of work in the newspaper library charting the decline of reporting, being pretty stable and then it shut down. and the effect of that, and it's led to -- contributed to ignorance by the public about what happens. just to give you an xarcexample it's subject to correction. the online editor of the times, mr. philip webster started life working in the gallery, the press gallery at the house of commons. he told me at that time there were 12 people in the gallery, not the lobby, whose sole job was to produce the 7,000 words a day, which reported what had happened in parliament. if you want to know what happened as opposed to the background stories and fights were, that would be there. that's all true when i went into

the house in the late '70s. that's gone, and it's been replaced by this sort of personality conflict-based journalism. if you're pursuing a policy, which is consensual, that ought to be a good thing and the papers in the editorial columns say why aren't you going for agreed policies with the opposition? often you are. probably half of it that goes through is aagreed. that has a knock it for not being summoned. the second point is this, thattal the radio and internet, much more powerful and to some extent balanced print media, it's still the print media that sets the news values, and i was very struck that written evidence, this is paragraph 17 of his evidence. he brings that point out, that they set the news values and set the news values for the broadcasters as much as they do for their own colleagues in the

print media. >> thank you. >> special advisers now. paragraph 27 and 28. when you were in high office over 13 years i presume you had special advisers. can you assist us? >> yes. i had any one time special advisers. i had one that was on the policy side, and the other who dealt on the media side. on the media side i had to fill that slot. one was the one with me in opposition from 1993 and stayed until the general leak of 2005 and then the second was mark davis with me from '05 to 2010. both were journalists that came to the job as journalists.

and their job is to have direct relations with the media and also to cooperate and work closely with the civil service press offices. both were completely straight, are completely straight, and i wouldn't employee them for a second if they had not been. they had good reputations for being straight and for, i think, not being manipulative and that's how i wanted it. i'm afraid my observations, i was a special adviser in the '70s is they're a mix bunch of special advisers. to some extent they reflected the kind of personality and quirks of their bosses. and some people in politics are obsessive xuls to her and think that any way you make your way is by being above above in all kinds of conspiracies and stuff. they employed sfeshl advisers who are similarly up to fancy

tactics. the share price is rising for a period more than the generality, and then invariably the share price question had the ministers themselves having to resign. this was a long learning process. >> the extent to which your media special advisers acted under your jek direction, can you help us with that? >> they acted under our complete direction. it wasn't general direction. i knew what they were doing, and i knew in real time what they were doing. first of all, they were in and out of the office. they were part of the private office. i mean, in each case they weren't exactly the same floor. so, for example, in the foreign office, i mean, there's one that's an old building, one area that was just distancing out, and the same is true is the justice. and the thing about this.

if there was a moment where they acted inappropriately, then somebody else in this very open environment, supposed to break confidentiality would have told me the private secretary, the permanent secretary, the press officer. he would have found out immediately. >> okay. aspects of your own individual practice. it's paragraph 30 of your statement and following, page 02550. will you explain in paragraph 30 you've known a number of senior jurmists for years. you have contact numbers, but the political scene has often called for issues coming that would depend on the number of factors. i understand the underlying reasons for that. can i ask you about mr. shaf

wire you i. you've known him since university in the late 1960s. since then how frequently do you meet him? >> not that often. i mean, that's -- he -- so it's a respectful acquaintanceship. it's not a friendship. it could have been a friendship, a close friendship, but it isn't. that's how it's been. i have to crawl through my diaries, but i guess aside from when there's policy business to deal with as there was towards the end of my period at the ministry of justice, i probably would see him for lunch say maybe once a year. i might bump into him in other environments. i could have went through my diaries and asked him to do the same. but i was president of the

student's league in my last year, and i think he was very -- obviously very talented young journalist who he arrived and he became the editor of the union news very quickly. so i think he was in his first year. we went aalong, and i think a position of kind of mutual respect there. as i said in my evidence, my relationship with him has been made more straightforward because his political views and mine and those of his newspaper are different. so i mean i never held my breath because i knew mr. baker somehow or rather in the editorials on the election day saying that people would be insane if they voted labor. it's okay in blackburn. i've never expected it. so a supreme relationship. >> it's that the exchanges

between you not frequent or any text messages rarely spoke to the mobile telephone. is that it? that's in my life. famously i don't think he does much for mr. blair in this respect. i don't think he uses computers. and so as if to -- what i wanted to say by e-mail, i've sent him that to a p.a. in his office. so i have his phone number on my system, but i can't remember it. i don't think i've ever sent him a text. >> did the relationship change at all when mr. brown became prime minister? mr. brown was much closer to him than was mr. blair. >> yes, mr. daker was there to his, but you find that he was

skeptical about mr. blair in a way that he was less skeptical about mr. brown. he did partly because mr. brown before he became leader with a view to becoming leader had had conversations with mr. daker about mr. daker heading up an inquiry into the third year rule. so i mean that in a sense was a done deal. as mr. brown became prime minister. i then took on the operational side of that inquiry. and, of course, subsequently there were conversations where mr. daker and other colleagues from the press about the data protection act increasing in sentences. >> we'll come to the details of that. before we go on, can i go back to a phrase i rather like, respectful acquaintanceship. was that because you or he felt

that your respective paths took you in different directions and tlafr that was the best way, or was it it just that jurs a coincidence and you wouldn't have minded if it was more? do you understand what i'm asking? >> yes, i do. there was nothing explicit. at university all of us -- you meet people, and i was never close to it. it was a respectful realitilatip and nothing more. our paths could have crossed more but didn't. there was quite a period where i was in london and in deed working briefly when i didn't have anything to do with him. it could have developed. i think that it's completely unsaid, but, i mean, as far as i gather, he's pretty private about his family life. we are about ours.

we have never turned our housing into sort of salon for politicians. we like 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 friends are, but i suspect they're really similar. >> i wasn't seeking to be personal. i was really seeking to examine whether you had taken a decision which in the a lot of what you said would be entirely understandable that it was a gal i got on w. sure, i could try and get them, but actually because i think there is an issue about closeness, then i want -- if you did reach that conclusion, we know that this is going back home for years, because it's very relevant to the issues that we've been talking about about the extent

of closeness of relationships. >> my mindset always was not to get too close, although i think it was rather incoherent view of mine at the time. that was my instinct, that you shouldn't get too close. i was so -- for example, if i was getting worked over in the press, which happens from time to time, if you're a minister or senior opposition person, sometimes fairly or unfairly. my view always was really to not try to phone up an editor and complain about it. i thought it would make it worse and it would look pretty weak and with a bit of luck they'd think of something else to write about. you might be lucky. normally i was. there was nothing much to do about it. i might get special adviser or the press officer to talk to the journalists concerned but not to be bleating to the editor. what's the point?

does that answer your question, sir? >> yes. it's really the way of thinking, because you're talking now about over 30 years and one of the interesting issues for me is whether what everybody now concedes has been -- has become an overcoated relationship is recent or really indemmink in the system. from what you're saying, i'm getting at least from my perspective it was never indemmink because i perhaps incoherently subconsciously always decided that wasn't a sensible line. >> yes, i think that -- so that is true. is it recent? no, it's not recent. and i mean this is as old as the popular papers. you think about the relationship

between hugh and the labor governments. and when i worked for barbara castle who had been a journalist. and i think the best way of describing mrs. castle that we didn't know, she was very much the labor equivalent of margaret thatcher. she had very strong opinions about people. 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 nora bellof on the observer. she used to spit about her quite literally. and the lobby, of course, in those days was very -- the press lobby with a capital l was very tight, 60 journalists, sort of free masonry. so they -- it was even more

incestuo incestuous. i'm not saying how i would have operated in that system, except i think it's a wise politician that keeps a bit of distance. >> back on 34, mr. straw, you look at the sun and the it's importance to the labor party. we ask you to elaborate on what you mean halfway down where you see pl muir day has played a power game with political leaders. >> yes. the political leanings of most newspapers in britain are predictable. so the daily telegraph is going to be supporting the conservative party at the daily mirror they're supporting the labor party. from back then, there were only two newspapers that are

unpredictable. one is a guardian and the other is the three of the four at news international papers. the guardian normally supports the labor party, but selects elections where we need them. it supports the liberal democrats, so it did in 1983 and did again in 2010. so sort of fair weather friend. it won't support the conservatives, but it certainly sun predictable about whether it will support the labor party. and for the muir dorsch paper, he purchased those papers. it's always supportive for the conservatives and perhaps it did in '97. what i perceive of mr. murdoch's approach with the sun and "news of the world" was that he rec n 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. i don't mean some daily, because i've seen no evidence of a deal. he thought there was something in it. now, they might -- a benign view of this is that the people at news international took a ve very -- people at news international like other newspaper executives were very concerned about whether their readers and that they spotted between '92 and '97, their readers would support lake so she followed them. it's a more complicated set of relationships than that. i think that the per semgs i've had is mr. murdoch has enjoyed the fact he's been willing to play with political leaders in the way that the senior

executives in the other papers that have not because their loyalty ultimately is predictable. i hope that explains what i meant there. >> there are three ways perhaps one can analyze the power game. one is just a piece of enjoyment that doesn't lead anywhere. the third is it's the most extreme is the game which is deadly serious because underneath it there's an express deal. there was something in between. i understand this. you said in return for what he thought he would or could get out of it, can i ask you to explain that. >> look, i've never had this conversation with him in my life, and i've obviously met him. he's had more than a paragraph of conversation with them. this is just my sense. well, he's very interested in power. he for his own sake because you

don't get to that position running huge international empires 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 kribtd to 2% or some small percentage of the total revenues of the news corps. that there was a degree of din ingeneral knit about the point being made, because the -- the power that those print titles provide is much greater than 2% of the total certainly in the united kingdom, and it goes back to the point that he made, which is that the print media have the greatest influence of all over the news values and the

headlines on all the other medium. and i assume that mr. murdoch reckoned that if his support for the winning party, which is basically what he sought 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, i've never had a bit more of paragraph of conversation with mr. murdoch in my life. i have no direct evidence. this is my surmise. new before -- mr. murdoch is 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. that's the conclusion i've drawn. >> okay. 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, from the point of view of the -- on the receiving end it felt like power. it may be helpful to provide a bit of explanation as to why people who were on the front bench in the labor party in the 1990s -- in particular 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 dug 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 i'll put this in as evidence, i'm all right jack. i was saying education minister lectures us on the scandal of private education for the luxury of his 200,000 pound cottage, his town house and 400,000 pound flat. and i was branded a hypocrite for preaching from the luxury of three homes. 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. you could feel support pulling away pulling away. my majority scarcely moved, although 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 was the election night. we got burgled. 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 it 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 humanely possible, without completely compromising ourselves, we should do our best to get the papers on side. 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 yourself? >> 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. let me say so was i in the terms of 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 to do whatever to do with "the sun" or anything else. in fact i think they all regarded the pamphlet as rather boring. i don't think there was -- there

was any compromise of our integrity. i mean some -- if you take the area that mr. blair had been involved with between '92 and '94, and i took over between '94 to '9, 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 were only doing this because we wanted papers like "the sun" and the news of the world on the site. that wasn't true. i was doing it because we believed in it and we hadn't been satisfied 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. >> per the social contacts, 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.

this is the record books 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 some time in 2009 when she became chief executive. i think it was formally 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. they were private in the sense of neither of us were writing it 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 get on with our work. she had work to do, i had work to do. so we weren't nattering 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 of 1995? >> i don't know the answer to that because i didn't have any direct involvement in media policy.

so -- i wish i had, but i hadn't. i have no information on why it was dropped at all. >> now, mr. dakos claimed labor could not have committed british troops to war in iraq without the implacable support of these 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. dakers where 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 the side. 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 free telephone calls mr. blair and mr. murdoch in march of 2003. are you able to shed any light on those? >> i'm not. i think i was vaguely aware that they had taken place. it's quite i think harder to get across to those that weren't involved the pace of events at 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 satu