straw and with lord mandellson. the position from their evidence is that really that had nothing to do with the position of the murdoch press. is that right or not? >> yeah. and it wasn't the murdoch press's position, it was the majority of the media would have been in favor of a referendum on the constitution. i didn't want to do it, by the way. but as i think i say in my statement, jack straw then wrote me a memo saying it's going to happen, so do you want it to happen to you or do you want to take the initiative. an his advice very strongly, and i thought rightly in the end, was to take the initiative. >> i'm sure you'd want to draw express attention, mr. blair, to 05575 under particular questions where you collect together six examples where the government turned down the positions, as you said, of the murdoch media and you start off with a man you bid, then bbc, new channels, the increase in the license fee, greater powers to offcom, high tv and listed events of sports. you said that's clear evidence of the abs

. >> do you share lord mandellson's view that there is evidence of a deal being done between the conservative party and mr. murdoch? >> i've seen no knowledge of anything like that so i can't really comment on it. and also, by the way, in the year since i left office, obviously i have a lot of responsibilities, i've got a lot of work that i do in africa and different parts of the world, so i really wouldn't be in a position to know. >> if it's clear from what you're saying about mr. murdoch that he didn't do deals with you, you might say it would flow from that that he's unlikely to do deals with anybody else or would you not go that far? >> i have absolutely nothing to support that, but i don't -- i'm simply saying there's things i can comment on and things i can't from knowledge. all i can say is that he never made such an approach to me. >> do you feel that "the sun" overstepped the mark with its personal attacks on mr. brown, particularly in relation to the letter he wrote to the mothers of soldiers killed in afghanistan? >> yes, i do. i think that was out of order actually. and i said th