i'm sure don't do this. but most people in the public life, if you get into, the information probably think the information will come out fairly quickly. that should not be taken. that's just a reflection and certainly should not be taken as indication for disrespect to people i work with. i find them of the highest integrity and quality. >> i return to the issue of -- and i think we agreed that it was par of the unfair treatment. it required a disciplined and possibly a ruthless handling of the press. is that right? >> yeah, but i draw a clear distinction between what i see as a tough professional

immedia -- and ruthlessness in the press when i hear people felt bullied and intimidated and so on. we actually did -- we tried to deal with this issue all the way through. and i remember we decided to put the official spokesman of the prime minister on the record. i think that was the first time. we published them. that was the first time. i gave monthly press conferences. that was the only time that had happened after then. i went to the liasion committee. the committee that brings all the chairs together and would be cross examined for the morning. we tried to deal with it. if you read the lobby notes, by the way, they're all there, i think it's very hard to argue when you read the lobby notes that you have a situation where

the media are coward and bullied. and my last few years in office, and that's why this issue of how we run the media operation is not really to do with how this issue that i've identified came up in the prez. i also think it's a separate question. i would have to describe him as the competent figure that he is. # but he was in many ways the antithesis of that. life didn't get any easier. and so that's why i understand there's an easy seymmetry. you have media on the other hand, but you're asking me my opinion, i don't really buy

that. the issue is to do with the way we ran our media operation. i was open to comment further. i don't think that was the reason we were in this problem. >> there's a lot of evidence tout there. some of it received by the inquiry. putting a journalist, favoritism or being malleable with the true stories, being brief with colleagues. either all this evidence is untrue, completely overblown, or there is some truth in it. >> i mean, i would be astonished if he felt intimidated. if he did feel that, then i'm sorry. and i soernly would have known about it.

if you're going to launch a major campaign, and let's say the particular newspaper has been interested in this campaign, let's say you're going to do a big things on anti-social behavior. it would make sense to talk to the them about that. in the later part we would have hesitate hesitated i couldn't abide by that. if i ever thought anyone was doing it i would be absolutely down them like a ton of bricks. i remember, for example, a lot of prominent stories at a

certain point of time. i was very angry because she got a standing ovation. we were briefing against her. all i'm saying, these things, what i wonder about with someone like andrew is this personal experience? or is this just, as i said earlier, when jeremy paxton made his speech, he felt he had to. of course we accept that the government is doing these terrible things, but we weren't. i would be astonished with the way the media is and world of politics, if you don't get attention back and forth, and i have no doubt if it was untrue we would be on the phone saying you shouldn't be writing it. but i think that's a very different thing from saying

don't bully journalists. the best evidence is reading the lobby note. see who was under pressure and who wasn't. >> i think the masters of the arts. they tended to pick on junior reporters or producers. >> no. but that's my poin really. # that in the end they received this. i have no doubt we used to complain strongly. we thought the stories were wrong. but i always felt that their actual pushback against us is for the first time the

neighborhood ran an effective operation where we were able, and also, we were in circumstances where for the first time politically the labor party was able to go on a win with successions. i felt you had to have a strong media operation. but these appear the whole time. this is an inevitable part of politics. one minister came to me to resign because he written the president. i literally tried to spend half an hour saying i wasn't going to back him. on topic of briefing he was saying he was a specialist in character assassination.

>> what i used to say to jonathan was, look, it's not correct about us. you don't actually know it's correct about them. towards the end of my time in the government morning meetings i used to have. someone began with the words there's been a briefing in the press and we have to find out who it is. i used to say end the conversation here. i do not want to hear more about this. trying to work out who has briefed who. so i don't -- you know, people have suspicions all over the place. but even the respect of those people and from time to time certainly with two of them i

have serious issues. i don't. and therefore the allegation against my people is being made that i think it's unfair. >> you're not expecting even a kernel of truth in the pieces which may be exaggerated. how is it this mythology has built up around you? >> yeah. it's got to the point where i almost hesitate to dispute this with you. because i know people just go, oh, how dare he dispute the fact that they were using black hearts and briefing against them. the fact is, you know, i never

authorized or said to them go out. it is the lowest form of politics. what i think a part of the media felt, and this is the odd thing, and i used to comment on this sometimes is that to the outside world, when you're a prime minister, you seem as if you're all powerful. and for that first period of our time in government, it looked as if we were carrying everything, you know, the opposition, we're very poor. you know, we didn't just win one landslide, we went onto win two. part of the media felt we were far too powerful.

we had to be taken on. but in relation to this stuff, i don't know whether they were doing it. but all i know is that my interactions with them, we were aware that you start doing all that stuff, all it does is blow back on you, an i'm a real believer in what goes around comes around. so to me the important thing was to have a strong, effective media operation. i think that what they produced for us was that. but i think it was a perfectly proper media operation. zm i'm going to be coming back to the point of the draining of the poison is who is responsible for the implantation of the poison. one focuses too much on the press, it might be one missing the wrong target.

how about this as a possibility? this is a contribution really of both sides to this equation. and perhaps accidentally they created something which has grown beyond either of their individual contributions. is that the possible analysis? >> certainly a possible analysis. and i'm not saying we don't bear any responsibility in the situation. don't misunderstand me. if i'm frank about it, the primary responsibility is not having confront it, and dealt with it. and what i don't accept frankly is this notion that along in

1997 it was all operating fine. then it got bad. in 1992 we weren't around. i mean i think -- the other thing i think -- i think this is very important. and i tried to say this in my speech in 2007. think a large part is due to the world in which we operate and the technology that has changed. this is a huge different r shl. you have 24-hour news channels. these guys have to say something. they have to say the exact same thing they were saying a few moments ago. so you have the environment in which we work, both of us, is far more raw and brutal, and in a sense, crude in terms of the interaction. so i think one of the things that -- this isn't because you got ahold of back people.

but the world has changed. and the question is, and by the way, i know this is a question being raised in many different countries, is how do you create in this new environment a culture of political dialogue debate and exchange that informs the public, that allows strong political views to be heard, and doesn't end up as a race to the bottom of aggression. that's the proper question to ask. it has nothing to do with who is to blame. i'm just telling you how i see it. >> i'm going to look at the future in a moment. the first is the issues about the comments, in which you've articulated clearly.

but the question is how would you achieve the disconnect between the two, without interfering in the essential freedom of the agenda? >> it's difficult. it's a very good question. it's difficult. that's why in this area i think you've got to be very careful of trying to do this by regulation as opposed to a shift in culture. and although i do notice that i think it's actually in the code, i didn't read this until i reard the papers. there is a distinction. they must distinguish clearly between comments conjecture and fact. >> we thought it might be

possible to distinguish between them. i can't say that anyone would recognize that distinction as being made. how would that be attained without destroying the personality of a newspaper? and one has a certain idea. why would one want to change that? >> i don't think he would want to change it. i don't think this is as difficult as people are making it out to be. the fact is that you can have a

style of news. and b comment and the editorial line that create the personality for the newspaper. they're proper to say we're going to run x story rather than y story. i see the essential freedom to say the facts should be accurate. i find it hard to understand what's being said here, in which case you say, okay. or it's not our job. we're not about this. if you take the situation of the united states of america, which is a newspaper market that's a little bit better now, you've got what is the national inquir inquirer. which is not. that's a sort of lively paper, but no one takes it as the paper of record, particularly.

but i mean, it's not, you know, it wouldn't kb regarded as where you would go first. and then you've got your papers like, you know, usa today, wall street journal, new york times, "washington post," los angeles times. and in those papers, of them has a pretty defined personal in terms of the basic political outlook and so on. usa today, maybe a little less. but you still would expect the stories in there to be basically accurately written, even if they were chosen for a particular purpose. that is the distinction. i really find it hard to see how making that distinction is

somehow a breach. and this is what is important. if you don't hold out your news organ to be a news organ. dp you say, look, we're not interested in what the facts are. once we take a view on something, you're not getting the facts. you're getting our view. fair enough that's not what happened. and, you know, what becomes the case is you get the blurring of views and comment. i don't want to use necessary for the paper to have a personal opinion. but newspaper people disagree with that. >> why is it our papers are different than the american papers? particularly given the first

amendmen amendment. >> different feel in politics. from california is very different than texas, for example. you have a far more diverse media outlet. >> but is there the same sort of aggression that you've described in the uk papers? >> i don't know. i don't want to go outside my expertise. but i think certainly in those main titles i've described. you have fact checkers and journalists. on the paper f you write a story, is this really correct? have you got proper sources and so on? but we're a smaller country with an almost unique penetration of the circulation of papers. that's great. more people read newspapers and so on.

the question is, can you get all that, and in a world of social media, and still have a lively but fair exchange? that's the issue. i think it is possible to do that. to answer your question, i don't think this is probably an area in which you are able to regulate an answer. and this is something to think more about. you do have journalists who resent this an think the situation should change as it is at the moment. it's the best in the world. i think it's possible for the media themselves to take this on, and i think if they did so, by the way, they would also find that they competed on better terms tw the social media, a lot

of which is deeply opinionated and factually inaccurate. >> do you feel there's a sense among newspapers if the world were greetpainted in gray, whic unfortunatelily reality in many cases -- >> i'm not sure about this really. i think one of the reasons why the papers that actually do try to present this thing, and look, i suppose it's been more the papers that do that, trying to present it in a straight way. but, look, you can still be lively and interesting. and i think it's really a pessimistic view of the world.

i think that's the view. and i don't think that's necessary at all. >> your ideas for the future now. the first that relates to the press, which you identify quite distinctly in paragraph 11a, the only identifying summit of the practices tla you're looking at a combination of law enforcement in a proper independent system of complaints. in terms of independence, are you ruling in or out? >> i'm certainly not ruling it out. i think that's one issue. i think the most important thing, because there are all sorts of different ways you do

this in the relationship between statutory and not. but it's independent of government and media. that it is capable of investigating, adjudicating and taking action. and that it is -- it seemed genuinely to be a place where people can go if they've got a legitimate complaint. so how that is defined? i'm not sure about. i can see all sorts of half ways on this that might work. the absolutely key thing is that it's seen as and is genuinely independent of the media or the government.

>> is it possible that it would work? it's up to a particular newspaper whether it's in or ou out. >> i think it's important to say that you were able to exclude yourself from it. i think in other works likely wouldn't have it. but the question is whether the significance that we're all right to the freedom of refresh means a totally different approach is necessary in the case of the press. and is necessary for others who are also independent for

lawyers. and on what you're saying for the behaviors that are acceptable or unacceptable. for example, i don't think you can say, whatever people like me might want that you should say the press can't be partners in their support of particular people or causes or political parties. in that sense they're difference from broadcasters. i think the rules have to be drawn out carefully. >> yes, well, i mean, you solve that by saying that nothing is attempting to regulate content itself. you may seek to regulate comment. invasion of prif ss ssy privacy

other behavior. or perhaps criminal behavior the police haven't investigated for whatever reasons. you've got things very specific to do with allegations for privacy or whatever. the first category that is the most difficult is when you're talking about what i've been talking about as what i see as the political problem. and that is harder in the context of regulation. and there you have to see if it's possible. or where you actually have a situation where people say, look, this is actually about

good journalism. weather the politicians, lawyers, whoever else, this is a profession. it has certain standards. how do we make sure the standards are upheld? >> but it may be what is done in paragraph 1-3 of the code. the fact that it's not enforced, which is essentially your pieces this is the fundamental principle of which he is to operate. where i would say this one is in one sense different is that where i can see this as an easy

decision to make. on the other hand, i think it is possible to do so. but i would in that instant expect the way that that was enforce would be as much through a change in culture as a specific attempt you can get into all sorts of issues. i understand entirely. somebody who would be the subject of unfair treatment should be allowed to complain and get some sort of redress in some way, whatever it is. that's what they should be doing at the moment. >> absolutely. in a sense, in a sense the question really is, you know, the standards that