the fact that we got a fully professional media operation, operating really properly, and i think for the first time in the labor party's history was a necessary part of being able to deal with a media that was extremely powerful. >> one can see then in this situation it is virtually impossible to disentangle cause from effect if you accept the premise, at least for the purpose of argument, at least in relation to the labor party, that it had a terrible time in the 1980s, certainly up to 1992, in that election. that your strategy may have been a reaction to that. but even on that analysis, that reaction created a political culture with, as i've said, a degree of cynicism. and if you don't like the term, a disposition to be malleable with the truth, we can turn it down and say put the best possible gloss on the truth that one can accidentally achieve.

>> it's almost impossible now, even now to dispute this issue to do with, let's say, spin, so-called spin from the last labor government. i cannot believe we are the first and only government that has ever wanted to put the best possible gloss on what you're doing. now, i would be surprised if governments hadn't done that throughout the ages. and that is a completely different thing from saying that you go out to say things that are deliberately untrue or you bully and harass journalists and so on. now, i read a lot of things that we were supposed to have done. i actually dispute that we did those things very, very strongly. so my view is. this i totally understand why there's a kind of symmetry and saying the government was spinning and so the media had to react to that. it's in my view, but you can take a different one, that's not what happened. i mean the truth is in 1992, alice decampbell wasn't heard

of. if you look at the way that election was covered, look, we had lost four elections in the row. we'd actually never won two consecutive elections in our history. the longest we'd ever been in power was six years at one go. so i went through that 1992 election. i remember it. it was etched on my memory. and, yes, i was absolutely determined that we should not be subject to the same onslaught. >> we'll come back to that issue. now, your speech which is the 12th of june, 2007, which i think was a few days before your departure from office, we have it in tab 49 of the bundle we've prepared, i think in the second file. >> i think i remember it pretty well actually. >> a number of points you make

here which would be as news valid now as they were five years ago. on the numbering at the top of the page, in this version it's page 2 of 5 on the internet printout. at the top you say your principle reflection is not about blaming anyone. in the third paragraph you say we paid inordinate attention in the early days of new labor to courting, assuaging and persuading the media. so you're careful to use the word "courting." and then you say in our own defense it's a point you just made to us, after 18 years of opposition and the at times ferocious parts of the media, it's hard to see any alternative but such an attitude ran the risk of fueling the trends and communications that i'm about to question. so arguably, you're accepting there without attributing cause

and effect or at least attributing to the overall culture problem, are you not? >> yes, i am. and, you know, i chose my words pretty carefully there actually, about running the risk. to be honest, i don't actually think that we created this phenomenon. i think we were trying to respond to it. what i do think, to be self critical about the government in its first stages, i mean we, as i say, had been out of power for 18 years. we got into a rhythm, which is very much the rhythm of opposition. so we were still, as it were, campaigning the first few months, possibly first year of government. but frankly after that time, you got into a proper rhythm of government. and, you know, we had a very strong leader operation, it's true. but i would argue then -- in fact i would argue now you've really got to. and i think that's -- by the

way, that's simply not a result of any of the media's doing. the fact is today you've got a 24 hour a day, seven day a week media, the conventional media as well as the social media. i remember my first campaign in 1997, you could more or less say here's the story of the day. by the time i was fighting my third election campaign, there was a different story in the morning, the noon and the evening. watching the most recent election campaign here, i'd say the pace is even faster. so there's a quite different rhythm to this today. that i think personally, my advice to any political leader, would be you've got to have a very, very solid media operation. >> one of the things mr. campbell said was that the problem may be at least in part the consequence of pursuing in government the same approach to

the media as had been necessary in opposition. and it may not be now to discuss it, but i mention it because you're just talking about that period of transition. but the question then arises whether there hasn't got to be a different approach that works not merely for government, but also for those who aspire to government, because it's very difficult to adjust -- or may be difficult to adjust the tempo of how you do the business. >> yes, i think that's a fair point. i would distinguish, however, between as it were how you do your proper media operation and relations and communication and so on and this issue to do with the importance of those key media relationships in circumstances where you are aware of the fact that, you know, support -- the difference between support and lack of support is so profound in terms

of the effect on politics. because that's -- you know, from a political leader's point of view, that's the thing that you are aware of. so if you've -- this is not true of all parts of the media, by the way. or all parts of all media groups. so there are some papers that you could fall out with the editor and the pro tore and still have bad editorials and bad comments but wouldn't have a problem with the news part of it. but those parts when you get a problem in the whole of the paper, the news as well as the comment, that's when you've -- you know, that's when, frankly, those relationships as i say move from being sensible to being crucial in a way that's probably not healthy. >> now the general point you make in this speech, mr. blair, page 3 of 5. the third and fourth paragraph.

you deal with the sheer scale weight and constant hyperactivity of coping with the media. you say at points it literally overwhelms. talk to people in any walk of life today and you list the categories. people don't speak out about it because they're afraid to, which chimes with what lord mandelson said in july of 2011, we were cowed. is it as high as that? >> i think you certainly do fear the power being directed at you. the way i will put this, though, is as follows. i studied carefully what peter said about this. it comes to this question of priority. my view is this.

i, as i say, took a strategic decision this was not an issue that i was going to take on. now, the way priority comes into this is as follows. you know, i was trying to do all of the things i believed in for the country, for the labor party and so on, so, as i say, we had never won two full terms before. i wanted us to become a party of government able to compete on equal terms. when i came to office we had health service waiting of 18 months, only a handful of schools with decent results, we had rising crime. there were all sorts of things that we managed to do in government, bring those waiting lists down, increasing school results and so on. we had a minimum wage, civil partnerships, there was a whole set of things we wanted to do. now, my view, rightly or wrongly, was that if in those circumstances i had said i have

decided what i'm going to do is take on the media and change the law in relation to the media, my view is, and i think it's still my view actually, is that you would have had to have cleared the decks. this would have been an absolute major confrontation. you would have had virtually every part of the media against you in doing it. and i felt the price you would pay for that would actually push out a lot of the things i compared more about. and i think i say towards the end of my statement, although i think this is an immensely important question, although i don't in the end, not for me at any rate as prime minister was it more important than health service or schools or law and order. now, did i come toward the end of my time thinking it was very important, yes, i did. at that point it would have been frankly impossible for me to have taken it on.

so, you know, the way i would put this is not so much -- i did a lot of things in government that were both unpopular and where i had a certain courage and standing up to people, whether you agree with those decisions or not. it was not as it were i was afraid of taking them on in that sense, but i knew that if i did, you have to be very, very clear about this, and that was the debate i had with alistar and others in government all the way through. if you take this on, do not think for a single moment you are not in a long, protracted battle that will shove everything else to one side while it is going on. >> you make that very clear in your statement, particularly in paragraph 36. but in paragraph 11 you say we should be aware that some of the media profound ly disagree that there's a real problem. do you believe that that's still the case even now, mr. blair? >> yes. >> are you identifying a section

of the media? it may be invidious to start naming papers. but we're confined to a section, are we? >> yes, i think we're confined to a section. this is the point, why i think it's very difficult to discuss these issues without people misunderstanding what you're saying. i mean i'm not making a token statement when i say british journalism at its best is as good as it is in the world. and i see a lot more of journalism around the world today. i think at their best, the best british newspapers and journalists are as good as anything there is globally. but i think there is a genre, that's what i'm saying, of writing that has gone into parts of the media where because this line between use and comment gets blurred, it stops being journalism. it becomes -- then it's an instrument of political power or propaganda.

>> now, page 45 you make a series of points which you pick up in your witness statement in various ways. the reference to farrell beast itself is in the fourth paragraph. you say it's just like a feril beast just tearing people and reputations to bits. i wanted to ask you more specifically, mr. blair, about page 5 of 5 and the sixth paragraph down where you deal with the issue of accountability and the absence of an objective yard stick which i'll come to in a moment. you say in in every other walk of life that exercises power, there are external forms of accountable, not leased through the media itself, which comes back to a recurring theme which we've heard in this inquiry. the external form of accountability, what were you thinking of there in terms of

either its absence at this time and what would be desirable in terms of any appropriate form. >> what i mean is what most people feel is if you've got a complaint other than the laws of libel, there's not really a place you can go to in order to complain and get redress, and i think most people would say the pcc just does not or hasn't operated in a way that provides that accountability. and i -- look, of course newspapers are, to an extent, accountable through their readers choosing whether to buy the paper or not. but that's like saying politicians are accountable because every four or five years you go to the election. you know, the truth is, you need a process of accountability that is continuing and which people -- and which then influences the culture in which you behave. >> we will, of course, come to

that. you were criticized in relation to this speech in a number of ways, but one of them was picking on the independent newspaper. i think mr. paxman said you attacked the poodle and not the -- you remember that. >> i do. >> that was a bit harsh, wasn't it? not of mr. paxman but your criticism here? >> well, i know what he means, by the way. just to explain, the reason i used the independent as the example was because the independent was begun as a newspaper that was supposed to be absolutely against this blurring of news and views, and the reason i use that is i think the editor of the independent had just given an interview in which he said we are a views paper not a newspaper so i was demonstrating that is indicative of how this culture has changed. but the point that i could have talked about, the mail, the sun,

et cetera, is perfectly reasonable. i thought it was interesting about jeremy paxman. i hadn't read the speech until you kindly sent it to me as part of the bundle. is that even jeremy who i think on this issue is one of those people who is really prepared to think these issues through had to make in the course of his speech a reference to the inequities of the government and indeed myself. and it's just interesting that two of the examples he gives are just wrong, but it's how these things become absolutely fixated. so one was that i didn't bother with parliament. the truth is as an ordinary member of parliament i didn't vote a great deal because we had a huge majority. but in terms of my accountability as prime minister which is merkd by the time you go to parliament and answer questions. i went and answered more than my two predecessors and i was the first prime minister to go to select committees.

so it's just an example of where something that actually is wrong becomes a factor and even someone like him feels obliged to repeat it even though actually on analysis it's wrong. that's probably more information than you need. >> some of the reaction to your speech was predictable, not exactly muted. we just turned a light on some of them. the "daily telegraph" wrote on the 13th of june, 2007, under tab 50, mr. blair, you are described as a religiose figure. in reference to the point that the news and comment has become blurred, they say. as a result dealing with the press, dispensing, they say, with a gentleman's agreements of the press complaints commission. well, it's interesting that they use the term gentleman's agreements, but are you envisioning a statutory body such as offcom?

>> i think offcom probably is the right body to decide issues of policy. i don't envision it replacing the pcc. i don't think i said that in my speech, by the way. >> i think it's an inference they're drawing rather than something you stated expressly, you're right about that. then subsequently they say that your statutory control, they say this is specious in the eyes of the public, the two are quite distinct. ignores the point if people don't like a newspaper you cannot buy them. he cannot be so naive putting them under statutory regulation can make them do anything other than obedient to the government of the day. do you accept that charge of naivete or not? >> i think in the speech i never went so far as to propose that. but, no, i think, look, the notion that it is impossible to

find a space between no proper system of accountability and the press becoming a wholly owned subsidiary of the government of the day, i think that is an assertion that is frankly ludicrous. >> the "daily mail" or it may not have been the "daily mail" the 13th of june, 2007, the headline is the magnificent self delusion of mr. blair. to cut a long story short, they characterized the media as behaving like a great, sloppy labrador, which repeatedly bestowed its affections on you rather than a feril beast. >> that's the description of the daily mail that i don't totally recognize, i have to say. yeah. interesting that one. i've come across that before. but i'm the one with self-delusion, am i? >> arguably there's a more cerebral contribution from the guardian. may be look at this one. it's the leader of the 13th of

june, 2007, which is still under tab 50 in this bundle. they say there's an easy response, i'm paraphrasing. it is to accuse the prime minister, the master some will say of half truth, the spin -- >> it's actually the financial times, i think. tab 50. >> that's the last page. before that, sir, there's "the guardian," the leader of the 13th of june. do you have that one? >> i've got it. right sermon, wrong preacher, is that the one? >> that's it. i'm only reading the headline. >> again, they're picking up the religiose bit when they prefer to a homily, but we'll pass over that. >> when did i even mention religion during the course of my speech on the media? >> they do say on the second

paragraph, five lines down, they say he, that's you, is right to highlight some of the worst qualities of some british journalism. a seam of sourness and aggression, a bullying puffed up self regard, a casualness about the borders between public and private and obsession with impact over proportionality. all those are there on a daily basis for anyone to see. that's not exactly how you put it in the speech. would you associate yourself with those observations or not? >> pretty much, yeah. >> and then they say in the next paragraph, the bbc is still the best -- >> so you're on "the guardian," are you? >> i'm still on "the guardian." >> they say the bbc is still the best journalistic organization in the world. and then a little bit later on, there's something about the argumentative aub stin at traditions of the british national press which grinds out a form of truth every bit as

effectively as supposedly the more objective newspapers found in mainland europe and north america. again, i suppose, that sentiment you would agree with as well, would you? >> yes, absolutely. in fact better than most of the papers in mainland europe. >> their real point is about the messenger, which, again, we all come to later. we've already touched on it. the financial times speech, piece, on the 13th of june, again, it's the point it's the wrong messenger. i'd just like you to comment on that. >> except that it would underline my point that for me to have taken this issue on would have been extremely difficult. i mean you can see -- this was a speech made shortly before i left office. you can imagine the reaction if i made the speech two years into being prime minister.

>> move on to a slightly different topic. that probably is still related. paragraph 14 of your statement, mr. blair, 05576. >> yeah. >> you make the point and others have made the same pointing, it can be very hard to adopt a policy when it is likely to be the subject of an intense media campaign about it. can we explore the issue of democratic accountability? if the media writes and they do represent at least a majority of their readers' voices or views, why is there a problem here at all? >> there is absolutely no problem in the press being partisan for particular parties or particular political viewpoints. that's been part of our journalism for years and years and years and that's perfectly acceptable. and so there's absolutely no reason why they shouldn't, for example, choose to run certain

stories because it acords with their political position. my distinction is between that and how you actually report the story as a piece of journalism. so if you take the issue to do with europe, what i would say is that those papers who are euro skeptic are perfectly entitled to be euro skeptic. what they shouldn't do is, frankly, make up a whole lot of nonsense about europe and fish that up to the readers, because that's -- how does the reader know that's not correct? so, you know, now towards the end particularly, frankly, i remember when i had a huge battle of the european union or the british rebate, which was sort of a hallowed thing, and, you know, when i had the presidency of the european union in 2005 and we had to do the new budget deal and so on, i mean the misdescriptions of what i was proposing and what, you know, europe was proposing,

because actually for the first time under these proposals britain is going to be paying the same as france when for decades we haven't. >> they're perfectly entitled to run anti-european stories as well as pro european. i'm not suggesting they shouldn't be partisan and not suggesting that they shouldn't even within that be perfectly entitled to choose that i'm going to highlight this aspect of europe because it supports my case, even though there's a certain imbalance in, say, not choosing one thing and another thing and so on. that's fine. in my view where this becomes very difficult on policy issues is where you know that the actual facts within the story will get slanted in a particular way.

then it becomes tougher to deal with because you're having to -- you can go out there and say it's not correct. >> is this right, mr. blair, you're not arguing necessarily for balance as such, but you're arguing for two things. firstly that fact and opinion are segregated and secondly, at least, the facts are accurately objectively stated, that is a correct analysis? >> absolutely. and i would say that's just a matter of good journalism. that's what good journalism is as opposed to the person who writes the column who says this is a terrible plot against the british state. the news piece should at least be within itself accurate, even if you've chosen to do that news piece, because it supports that point of view. there is a clear distinction between those two things. >> the examples you give in the last sentence of paragraph 14, if i can put it in these terms,

visceral issues, just take one of them. take gay rights as an example. how do you separate out fact from opinion on that issue? >> well, i think it's -- it can be difficult to do that in that issue. i agree. on the other hand, i think there is a tone in which you can write and have that debate. now, frankly, on this issue, things have changed a huge amount in the 20 or 30 years i was in politics. so in the '80s, you've got a pretty prejudice way of writing about gay issues and gay rights and so on, later less so. but all i'm saying is that an issue like that, you know, in the tone of your coverage, i think that is also an issue and i would say certainly the '80s when that was being debated, it was -- you know, you were basically sort of -- if you supported gay rights, you

weren't so much supporting gay rights, you were proselytizing for people being gay. >> but on that issue, some would say the tone as shifted buys the zeitgeist has shifted. in relation to europe, it may not be possible to make that observation, might it? >> well, not as -- not as yet. but, you know, let me be absolutely clear about this. i'm pro european, but i totally understand the you aeuro skeptie and papers are entitled to put that case to their readers. i think someone did this in the koes of his evidence and i haven't done this myself, when you tabulate all the various things being said about europe that aren't correct, you know, that bit of it should be correct. if you disagree with europe, you disagree with it but on the facts. i think that is a distinction that i think it's pretty obvious to most people. by the way, that's where i think if you put that to the readers, they'd say, well, of course.

you know, they wouldn't say it's impossible, i think it's right that they tell me something that isn't correct. >> is there any newspaper which meets your blueprint for appropriate behavior on the european issue? >> well, i think if you took, for example, the "times" newspaper which is basically euro skeptic, but i think it reports europe fairly, that's not to say if they come across a story that fuels it they won't publish it, they're entitled to. but i think they're a paper that basically would report it fairly. >> can i come back to a point which you open with. paragraph 4 little d of your statement at page 05573, you say most important of all, certain of the