>> he was basically a deregulator rather than regulator. in general terms i can't recall conversations about media regulation per se. he didn't lobby me on media stuff. that's not to say we weren't aware of the positions that companies had because we were. we decided more often against than in favor. but the bulk of the conversation is about politics and europe was a very large part of that we had a serious problem because he had very, very strong views on europe and so did i. that was -- the conversations were really basically it was in battle politics, too. where i always used to find those interesting. because for example, in issues relation to united states he is good a as insight as anyone else

i was talking to at the time. >> at what point it may be difficult to define a moment did a close friendship develop between the two of you? >> this would be -- i would describe my relationship with him as a working relationship until after i left office. there's all this stuff about me being a god father to one of his children. i would never have become a god father to his child while i was in office. after office i got to know him better and his family. so now it's different. i don't feel the same pressures. you're able to have it the relationship in a way that also -- because there are lots of other things that he's involved in and does that are of that are interesting and don't involve issues to deal with

british politics when i was the prime minister and you were in a relationship that was a working relationship but it also had this, you know, fairly acute tension at the heart of it. >> is it because the elimination of the powerful undercurrents which you referred to stopped in june in 2007 made it possible to have a different sort of relationship? >> absolutely. over a course of time you got to know him better and by then you were friendly. >> all the way through -- this is when you're prime minister and you're dealing with people, you've got power obviously as the prime minister. they've got power of the leader of the major media group. so it's a relationship that's about power. i find those relationships are not personal.

they're working to me. that doesn't mean to say you don't, you're not as charming with people and get on with them bz as best buck. i would never have become god father to one of the children on that basis. what people see here as a result of what has happened in the polling things that happened is one aspect. so once you leave office, that's not the issue anymore. so it can become different and frankly healthier. >> mr. brooks, if i can move to her. was she someone who exercised power in your view in a very different way? >> rebekah brooks is important because she was editor of the

sun. it would be interacting often with them. but as i said to you earlier there was no doubt who was the key decision maker. at that point at any rate. it may have changed when she became -- when she took over. >> did she not exercise power in the sense as she were the center of a network and also on occasion capable of administering personal attacks? >> so far as i was concerned, the central network, i mean i think, for example, going to social occasions at which she would be part of it. i don't think there were very many of those when i was there and probably got to know her better after i left office.

of the attack side, let me make one thing absolutely clear. i did never and would never have her or anybody else to conduct a tax on individuals. despite what people may think and some of the stuff that's written, i absolutely hate that type of politics and did not engage in it. >> her statement makes it clear paragraphs 53 and 54, under tab 17 in our bundle. she says a number of thins. i've had a number of formal and informal meetings with him. some i've been able to detail. we spoke on the telephone on a variety of issues. tony blair his senior cabinet advisors and press secretaries were a constant present in my life for many years. is that a fair encapsulation of the position, mr. blair? >> if you take the whole of the relationships within government,

but then you can say that about most of the senior media political people. >> did she have ready access to you and your senior cabinet effectively whenever she wanted it. >> not whenever she wanted it. but if there was an issue that concerned her, i don't know whether she would necessarily come on to me about it. but most cabinet ministers will take the call of an editor of a major newspaper. i'd be surprised if they didn't. and i don't think per se there's anything wrong in that. on certain occasions i would have. i would say back in the '60s that would have been the case or even the 50s. i don't know.

i would have been surprise first-degree the editor of a major newspaper wanted to speak to a cabinet minister. >> i'm not sure it's right or wrong or another issue. something you said a few minutes ago, which chimes with this question is this, managing these forces, that's of the press, was a major part of what you had to do and was difficult. and one of the questions which i would like to know the answer to is whether at the beginning, the middle, the end of your period, managing the press was actually interfering with the time that you have available to solve the most important questions that you had to solve. and if so, what could be done about that? now i appreciate the second half is a much more difficult question. >> no, i wouldn't say most of

these calls were pretty short. i would say that sort of managing the media inevitably is a part of -- if you're trying to put through for example that's tuition fees which was is single thing that was probably most difficult in terms of votes in the house of commons for me as prime minister and the thing where i nearly lost the vote and then would have had to resign. >> interacting with them would have been important on these issues. i'm trying to use my words very carefully here. where i think i would agree with you, though, where it sort of step over the line in a sense would be the -- it became incredibly important to have this support because otherwise you literally couldn't get your message across at all. so that's -- and that comes back to what i'm trying to identify as the central issue for the politicians. >> i quite understand.

it was because of your phrase, a major part of what you had to do and was difficult. i wondered whether that increased or diminished in your period in office. >> funny enough in one sense in my last three or four years is what i always say to people about the problem in you have as a political leader that you begin at your least capable and most popular and you end at your least popular and most capable. and frankly towards the end in a way i just decided i was going to do what i thought was right. i would say media managing probably i did more in my first bit than my last bit. but having said that, i would describe having record to the media was a major factor. maybe it's always going to be that. that's why if you were looking back in time, i can't believe

there's been prime ministers who didn't take that as a major part of what you do. >> except that you took the decision that you needed somebody to direct your communications who had a real background in tabloid journalism and took the responsibility very seriously and very effectively. and now we see that political leaders generally appear to have followed the same sort of pattern. >> yes. now that's an absolutely correct point. look, what i could see developing and by the way, this is even more certain today. you've got 24 hour a day, seven day a week media. you've got stories. the thing that's changed and i noticed this around the world, this is not a specific british problem, is the interaction between social media and conventional media today means that you get what used to be a building wave of opinion, which

if you intervened in the right way, you could make then ebb again. it now reaches tsunami force within hours sometimes. days certainly. you see this around the world. so for example, i think when you're analyzing these arab revolutions which in the way i do now see quite closely, i would say the social media is absolutely integral part of what has happened there. today this whole issue, absolutely you're right. today this whole issue of managing the media is far more difficult and far more important because i mean this is not a criticism. it's just a fact. the fact is it's -- it occurs in the way with an intensity that in the old days wouldn't have happened. so this is why i used to say to people that used to say your cabinet meetings don't last long

enough. i used give the example that roy jenkins used to give me. back in the 60s were a cabinet meeting on a big decision would go on for two days at the end of it they'd have a show of hands around the table. by the time i became prime minister a cabinet meeting went on for two days forget it. that would have been total crisis mode. if i said we're going have a show of hands would have been out within 30 seconds. the business of politics part of the problem here which ask why this is the right moment to assess what can be done is the business of politics has become acutely more difficult not for the fault of either politicians or media, but because the system within which you operate, the technology that's available, the way it works today is just fundamentally different. and this is a problem by the way, you know, this is a problem

that has arisen here in a particular way. you can go to any leader in the democratic world today and they would say to you 4 is a major question for them is to how they have the right interaction with the media in a world that is just light years away from what we grew up with. >> your informal contacts with mrs. brooks, what she refers to. did many of those have to do with her personal support for you in the context of what she describes as deepening hostility between you and mr. brown. >> i've read that. she was pretty cautious in what she said of gordon brown and support of them taking over. no, there were about politics in

a pretty general way. so far as at that point at any rate for the murdoch press, i have my own relationship with rue merit murdoch and he was the key decision maker. >> what did you feel about some of her campaigns in particular sarah's law. did that appeal to you or not? >> no. i was pretty am bif leapt about that. as i think i said to her at the time. i understood why she thought it was a big problem. i thought particularly the way -- the trouble with any of these campaigns if you're not careful the way they're conducted ends up getting out of hand. >> just like this one did. >> yeah. what about some of the personal attacks in the sun on some of your colleagues. >> my personal thought on that to anybody else was i don't like it. i think it's, not the right way to conduct politics. but, again, to be frank this was

not a matter of simply for the sun. you could spread that across the media. >> and did their come a point as with mr. murdoch i suppose that you developed a friendship with her? >> yes. for rebekah brooks as she became. again, probably. closer once i left office when again you were free from the constraints and when you know, it wasn't a relationship as it were that was about the power relationship. >> did you offer her any messages of support in july of last year? >> you know, i'm somebody who doesn't believe in being a fair weather friend. and certainly i was very sorry for what had happened to her. and i don't know, i remain -- obviously whatever has happened, i don't know anything about the facts of the particular case.

but i have been or seen people go through these situations and i know what it's like. >> look at some specific case studies, i suppose now. the first one is paragraph 16 of your statement. i think you agree that there was a change of policy. had you kept to the original policy it would have been a problem for the murdoch press. then you say there were sound reasons for changing it. is that a fair summary of your evidence? >> absolutely. can i ask you what were the sound objectives to changing the policy? >> they were twofold. i didn't and don't believe the

issue of the ownership is what is important. in other words, i think that -- and i thought this particularly as we get later to the 2003 communications act. i think prejudices against foreign owners or saying this particular onner we like or we don't like, it is better to deal with these issues on the basis of concentration for media ownership. if you don't change the culture or the rules, then you won't -- you won't actually improve the situation. and also as i said to you earlier, i've taken the view i was not going to have the labor party coming back into power after 18 years with a program of change for the country in having the center piece of the program being, you know, issues to deal with media ownership. i thought that would have been a distraction and wrong. >> i think mr. lance price is

best to view that the cross media ownership policy was quietly dropped within six months of the ireland trip which we know was in july of 1995. is that a fair assessment or not? >> no. it's not a fair assessment. i was absolutely clear we weren't going to put this in the labor party program. if you had done that, you would have started off your time in government consent traying in the media. i don't recall many people arguing fiercely to keep it there. >> do you know approximately when this change of policy arose? >> i don't. i can try and find out from the labor party policy people at the time. >> mr. price is right. he may be wrong about cause and effect, but sort of the back end of 1995 early 1996 could that be right? >> i don't know i have to go and check it. don't let me on the other hand

as i say in my statement, had we kept that, that would have definitely been a problem with the murdoch media group in particular, that's for sure. but i didn't think it was the right policy anyway. so you know, i think really throughout my -- and also the beginning part of my time in office, i was pretty much on the self-regulation side of the market. i came to a different view at a later stage. so in a way, the policy that we pursued them was consistent with the policy we first pursued in government. had you decided to take on that on, that comes back to my strategic dis, but that's not topic. >> policy in the run up to the 1997 election, first of all, mr. campbell's diaries. page ten of our bundle with the entry of the 11th of march,

1997, where mr. hall then the editor of the news of of the world" called to say there had been a change in les hinton's view, there was definitely movement to us and their big fear is more unions than europe but murdoch was definitely going to back us. do you remember that message being communicated to you? >> i do actually remember alistar telling me about his conversation with phil hall, yeah. which is not to say he knew, by the way, i don't think -- by then, this is mid-march, 1997, i think. >> it is. >> so by then, i think, would have been surprised actually if they hadn't come up and backed us. >> as a general point being made an accurate one, the big fear

was more unions in europe? >> i think probably that was true, actually. i mean, look, they had been through all this business so the unions weren't a theoretical issue, it was a major practical issue. i mean he felt to some extent rightly that if he hadn't been able to overcome that union opposition, he would never have been able to save the "times" and operate in the country. so it was obviously going to be a big issue for them. but my position on the unions, let me make it absolutely clear, is because we believed knit. so we introduced a minimum wage, part-time workers, we introduced recognition. we were going to introduce individual rights, and i was determined -- and this is a matter of conviction not because rupert murdoch or anyone else

believed in this, we were not going to reverse the key principles of the thatcher legislation. i did that for reasons, because i thought it was right. >> there's a later diary entry, this is page 11 of this bundle, we're a few days later so i don't know the exact date, although we know the piece in "the sun" was on the 17th -- the first piece in "the sun" was the 17th of march, 1997. the second was the 17th of april, 1997. the top of our page 11, mr. campbell notes that meanwhile i called stewart higgins, as agreed, and he said that clearly had we had gave them a piece of europe. they put it on the front. i spoke to t.b. and we agreed to go for it. t.b. felt it could be the last thing needed to swing the "sun" round.

pausing there, is that -- pardon me, is that accurate or not? >> yeah, that's accurate. >> we agreed it was important not to change in any sense the policy, but in turn to allow them to put over the message that the t.b. was not some kind of caricature fanatic. do you feel that the distinction between those two is a little different to see? >> no, i think in this instance it was very much on that basis. and that's why i talk about the difference between managing and conceding on policy. i didn't concede on policy at all. as i remained throughout my prime minister pro european. and, you know, the fact is we had a commitment for a referendum if we went -- i think it was for the single currency, a referendum on the single currency was part of our five pledges. and it was important, also, by

the way, to counter the fact that people thought you might be some sort of european superstate and so on, which isn't my position. so this allowed us -- we were choosing the rhetoric carefully, but the substance, no, we didn't change the substance of the policy. i think in this instance, by the way, i think the distinction between the two is pretty clear. >> i think mr. campbell told us that the commitment to re referendum on the euro was not part of the five pledges but it was labor party policy but we can check that. >> i thought it was part of the five but anyway, yes, we should check it. >> this man should be arrested for war crimes. j.p. morgan paid him off for the iraq war three months after they invaded iraq. they held up the iraq bank for $20 billion. he was then paid $6 million every year and still is from j.p. morgan, six months after he left office. the man is a war criminal!

>> i'm sorry for that, mr. blair. i'd like to find out how this gentleman managed to access the court through what is supposed to be a secure corridor. and i'll have an investigation undertaken about that immediately. i apologize. >> that's fine. can i just say actually on the record what he said about iraq and j.p. morgan is completely and totally untrue. i've never had a discussion with them about that or any

relationship between them and iraq. >> you should not -- you're entitled to say what you want, but you should not feel it necessary to answer somebody else's points. >> no, i appreciate that. but part of the difficulty actually with modern politics, and i say this not as a criticism of the media, is that my experience of the reporting of these events is that you can have a thousand people in a room and someone gets up and shouts or throws something, that's the news. the other 999 might as well not bother turning up. but anyway, we were back in 19 -- >> 1997. >> right. >> the line in the diary there, mr. blair, it was fantastically irritating on one level that we had to go through these kinds of routines, with an election looming we'd be deft not to try it. was part of the irritation the sense that you were having to

attack a little bit too close in the wind in a way in which you would otherwise have not been minded to do? >> throughout you will find references to a level of comfort or feeling uncomfortable about the fact that you had to make this persuasion a big part of what you were doing. but no, i think we were on the right side of the line. you know, we -- this was something where on many areas of policy you might have an issue with particular papers and particular ways. what i was always anxious to do, and by the way towards the end even more so than at the beginning, was to make sure that what we did was steer the right side of that line and never yield on the policy. so, you know, my -- obviously

others judge on this, but i was very careful all the way through. i was not going to change policy because of this media power, but i did have to manage them. >> there's some evidence that after the election you wrote a personal note to mr. higgins, who of course was then editor "the sun" saying you really did make a difference. do you remember doing that, mr. blair? >> i don't specifically, but it's perfectly possible i did. and frankly, it did make a difference. >> you feel it impacted on the scale of your majority or what? >> look, it's -- again, i don't think there's anything particularly wrong with this. i thought it made a difference that the "financial times" supported us. what was one of my things that i was trying to do? i was trying to move labor to a position where it said we are not going to give any special favors to trade unions. we're a pro business party as

well as supporting individual rights for workers. when the "financial times," i think in '92 they didn't support the labor party or maybe they did, i can't remember. anyway, for me it was important to get them on board. so again, in that way i don't think there's anything wrong in that or surprising. if a major newspaper comes on side with you, particularly one that's been very hostile, it's going to make a difference. i don't think there's anything wrong in that, per se. >> well, the support of the "financial times," although no doubt important as a matter of set, is unlikely to impact at all on anybody's voting habits, to put it bluntly. but weren't you saying in relation to "the sun" because it might have impacted on -- >> of course. i think it -- you can't quantify this, but of course their support would make a difference. actually one of my const