13 MR JAY: Sir, the first witness today is 14 Mr Alastair Campbell. 15 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you very much. 16 MR ALASTAIR CAMPBELL (affirmed) 17 Questions from MR JAY 18 MR JAY: Mr Campbell, please sit down and make yourself 19 comfortable. First of all, your full name. 20 A. Alastair John Campbell. 21 Q. You have provided a witness statement to the Inquiry, 22 a more or less final draft of which was provided to the 23 core participants I believe last week, but since then 24 four things have happened. First of all, I believe 25 you've signed the statement? 5 1 A. I have, yes. 2 Q. Therefore it is your evidence. You've made three minor 3 changes on the version which was provided to the core 4 participants. May I just identify for their benefit 5 what they are. 6 A. Yes. 7 Q. I'm working from the pagination at the bottom right and 8 giving the last five numbers. Page 21094, slap in the 9 middle of the page after "the News of the World" in 10 italics, a name has been redacted? 11 A. Yes. 12 Q. That's in line with Mr Hurst's evidence. 13 21103, final paragraph, I think it's been added in 14 manuscript on the version which is going to be placed on 15 the screen. It opens now with the words "On virtually 16 all the occasions" in substitution for "On the few 17 occasions"? 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. And then page 21109, Mr Campbell, it's the final 20 sentence running onto the start of the next page. That 21 has now been deleted; is that correct? 22 A. That's correct. 23 Q. Mr Campbell, it is public knowledge that your statement 24 was leaked, or rather Mr Staines obtained it in some 25 form. It was placed on his website on Sunday. Do you 6 1 have any comment to make about that to assist the 2 Inquiry, please? 3 A. Well, when you and I spoke about this on Sunday, your 4 concern and my concern was that my final statement had 5 been leaked. I've now checked against the website all 6 the different drafts that I've done. It's clear that 7 Mr Staines got hold of a draft, not the document that 8 I ever sent to you. 9 I would just like to say that the process -- this is 10 all my own work and this is -- I stand by every word in 11 this document, the one that you have, which is the only 12 one that was ever sent to the Inquiry, by the way. 13 The process that I went through was that I sent 14 various drafts at various stages to different people who 15 were helping me, lawyers, three people in the media and 16 some people in -- my former colleagues in politics, so 17 at various stages the draft went to different people. 18 I've not yet been able to check which -- against -- it's 19 now off Mr Staines' website, but I've not yet been able 20 to check to whom I sent the draft that has appeared. 21 I'm confident that none of the people that I sent it to 22 would ever have given it to Mr Staines or indeed to 23 anybody else, but he got hold of an earlier draft, which 24 is why I'm pleased now to be able to publish the final 25 version. 7 1 Q. Thank you, Mr Campbell. May I go, please, to your 2 statement -- 3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Just before we start. Mr Campbell, 4 this is, and people will see if they haven't already 5 seen, a formidable piece of work. Without going to it 6 at all, I wanted to acknowledge my gratitude to you for 7 the immense effort that you have put in to preparing 8 this for the assistance of the Inquiry. Thank you. 9 MR JAY: Mr Campbell, if you'd kindly look at the first page 10 of your statement, again on the pagination at the bottom 11 right it's 21059, so as to make it clear why you're here 12 at this stage, because your evidence is obviously 13 relevant to our third module, the relationship between 14 press and politicians, the Inquiry drew attention to 15 a statement you wrote in 2004: 16 "If the public knew the truth about the way certain 17 sections of the media operate, it would be absolutely 18 horrified." 19 And the Inquiry asked you to elaborate on that. 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. And indeed that's what you've done very fully over 55 22 pages. 23 A. Mm-hm. 24 Q. The scope of your evidence is really directed today to 25 that issue rather than other wider issues. 8 1 A. Yes. 2 Q. Of course, we all know about your career at 10 Downing 3 Street but could you fill us in a little bit, please, 4 with your earlier career as a journalist? 5 A. I trained as a journalist on the Mirror Group, the same 6 training scheme as Nick Davies that you heard from 7 yesterday. That involved training in shorthand, law, 8 the basics of journalism, getting qualifications and 9 then on-the-job training on local and regional papers. 10 I then started work as a freelance for the Daily Mirror. 11 I worked for other newspaper titles as a freelance. 12 I became a staff reporter in the early 1980s on the 13 Mirror. I left there briefly to work for Today, the 14 launch, that didn't go terribly well, and I went back to 15 the Mirror. I was then at the Mirror then mainly as 16 a political journalist, Mirror and the Sunday Mirror, 17 and then I was at Today again for the latter stages of 18 my journalistic career before I went to work for 19 Tony Blair. 20 Q. Yes, okay. You make it clear in your statement that 21 there are many aspects of the press and journalism of 22 which you are proud either personally or vicariously; is 23 that correct? 24 A. I am. I think that -- I quote there one of 25 Rupert Murdoch's Australian executives who once said to 9 1 me that British journalism is the best in the world and 2 the worst in the world and it's sometimes in the same 3 edition. I think it's important to remember that some 4 of British journalism is the best in the world. I think 5 you saw -- I watched the evidence to the Inquiry 6 yesterday and I think you saw some very different 7 aspects of British journalism, which included the best 8 and the worst. But the best I would defend, and I do 9 defend a free press. 10 My argument that runs through this document that 11 I have given to you is that the freedom of the press 12 that is being defended most loudly by those who describe 13 anybody who dares criticise them as an attack upon the 14 freedom of the press, that actually that has become 15 a press that is barely worth defending. What I think we 16 should defend is a genuinely free press and at the 17 moment I think we have a press that has just become 18 frankly putrid in many of its elements. 19 Let me emphasise, not all journalists and not all 20 titles, and the terrible thing that has happened since 21 I -- I suppose I was at the point at which the culture 22 was changing, without a doubt, but what's happened is 23 a very, very small number of people have actually 24 completely changed the newspaper industry so frankly 25 they've now besmirched the name of virtually every 10 1 journalist in the country. 2 Q. Your credo or core of what you were saying, but then you 3 elaborate it fully, 21060, three lines down, please, 4 Mr Campbell. You say this: 5 "The centre of gravity in our press has moved to 6 a bad place. The combined forces of technological 7 change, intense competition, an obsession with 8 celebrity, a culture of negativity and amorality among 9 some of the industry's leaders and practitioners have 10 accelerated a down-market trend and accelerated too the 11 sense of desperation in the pursuit of stories." 12 That's the essence of what you're saying and then 13 you begin to develop it: 14 "Speed now comes ahead of accuracy, impact comes 15 ahead of fairness, and in parts of the press anything 16 goes to get the story first." 17 Can I ask you in your own words, turning over to the 18 next page, to give us the five bullet points, the 19 summary of the debit side? 20 A. I think the first point is that whether a story is true 21 I think in some of our media organisations now counts 22 for less than whether it makes a good story. I thought 23 Mr Peppiatt's evidence on that yesterday was pretty 24 compelling. 25 The second point is what I define as a culture of 11 1 negativity, in which the prominence and weight given to 2 coverage is not proportionate to the significance or 3 newsworthiness of the matter being reported but whether 4 it fits the agenda of the newspaper group that is 5 pursuing that story. 6 The third point is a lack of anything approaching 7 the transparency or accountability that newspaper 8 organisations regularly demand of every other walk of 9 our national life. 10 A system of regulation of the media which is run by 11 the press for the press and has been exposed as utterly 12 ineffectual, which means that inaccuracies and 13 distortion and unfairness and invasion of privacy goes 14 on and continues with impunity. 15 And finally, a point I alluded to earlier, a culture 16 in which anyone who dares to question the media at any 17 level is accused of trying to take the country into some 18 sort of descent into totalitarianism and an assault upon 19 the free press. 20 So I think they -- beyond the specific issue which 21 led to this Inquiry of the criminal activity of phone 22 hacking, I think these are, if you like, bigger themes 23 that I hope the Inquiry and in due course Parliament 24 will also look at. 25 Q. The descent down-market is one of your themes. Do you 12 1 have a view as to the possible reasons for that? 2 A. I think it is, as I say on the page before, the 3 newspaper groups are operating in a ferociously 4 competitive marketplace. The advent of 24/7 news and 5 the Internet have forced them to adapt from what they 6 were. 7 If you even take these proceedings, people are able 8 to watch it live on your own website, there are hundreds 9 of thousands of tweets being put out about people's 10 evidence as it is given. That means that when you come 11 to tomorrow and the newspapers, they're kind of -- 12 they're behind the curve. 13 So what they've had to do is adapt and rely ever 14 more upon impact, which, as I say, has come ahead of 15 standards and fairness, and also rely upon becoming 16 campaigning organs and political players, so they've 17 actually become -- the newspapers have become part of 18 the political process now, yet without any of the 19 accountability that other parts of the political process 20 are subject to. 21 Q. Thank you. You also make it clear, and I'm moving on 22 now to 21063, that newspapers are competing in the same 23 space as a slew of celebrity magazines. Perhaps the 24 ramifications of that are fairly obvious, but in your 25 own words, Mr Campbell, what is the result of that? 13 1 A. Well, the celebrity culture has taken a pretty fierce 2 grip on virtually all of the media, not just the 3 newspapers, but television as well, and they're in this 4 kind of bizarre symbiotic relationship where the reality 5 TV programmes and the soaps and the Pop Idols and the 6 X Factors create the celebrities which then become the 7 sort of staple diet for the newspapers and the magazines 8 and these magazines have been incredibly successful. As 9 Mr McMullan said yesterday, they're feeding a public 10 desire and demand for this obsession with celebrity and 11 that's forced the newspapers, I think, to set themselves 12 in direct competition with them. I don't blame them for 13 that. I mean the newspapers, they're businesses, 14 they're trying to stay alive in very difficult 15 competitive circumstances, but it does mean that the 16 whole of the media, I think, has moved substantially 17 downmarket. 18 Q. Apart from the pressures exerted by 24/7 news and the 19 Internet, another of the pressures you allude to towards 20 the bottom of 21063 are pressures created by economic 21 considerations, namely there are fewer journalists, more 22 spaces to fill, particularly online, less time to do it? 23 A. Yes. 24 Q. Again, the consequences of that are fairly obvious, but 25 in your own words, what are they? 14 1 A. I can remember when I was first on the Daily Mirror, you 2 went into the news room and there were dozens and dozens 3 of journalists in there. There was a huge great 4 open-plan office and there were lots of others who were 5 out and about doing their stories in the field, as it 6 were. So newspapers are now much, much bigger, and 7 they're having to fill this huge space online to adapt 8 to the Internet, but there aren't that many of them. 9 So as -- I can't remember which witness it was 10 yesterday, but he said actually it's become something of 11 a desk job, where they sit there rewriting other 12 newspapers' copy, rewriting agency copy. Actually, 13 journalism, if you like, as a craft, there aren't that 14 many of them doing it. And I think that again has just 15 been the force of competitive pressure which has forced 16 newspapers to cut down on costs, cut down on the number 17 of journalists that they employ, and I think that -- 18 we'll probably talk about this later -- that's had the 19 consequence of their increasing reliance on private 20 detectives, which again I think has been a hugely 21 detrimental factor in the development of newspapers as 22 they are. 23 Q. The immediate result of that more generally is that the 24 demand for speed means that there's less time to check 25 the accuracy of stories and more of a propensity for 15 1 inaccurate stories; is that right? 2 A. Well, I can remember, again, from my own days in 3 newspapers, where it was part -- if you worked on the 4 night shift, it was part of your job to make sure even 5 within the building that not too many people knew what 6 was on the front page because the competition was going 7 to take place in the morning on the news stands. Now, 8 the competition takes place instantly on the television 9 and across the Internet, and what happens -- so all the 10 front pages are being sent out to Newsnight, to Sky News 11 for the paper reviewers and so forth, because that's 12 where they're make the first impact. So on the 13 television they have no idea if the front page stories 14 are true or false, but they discuss them as though they 15 are true. 16 So journalism used to be about trying to find out 17 what it true. Now it is largely a discussion about the 18 process of establishing whether something might be true. 19 So it's totally changed what news -- how news is defined 20 by those who are in journalism. 21 Q. You summarise that point in your own words at 21065, 22 four lines down: 23 "This is an inevitable response to the pace of 24 change but it has meant that rather than journalism 25 being about the pursuit of truth, much of this is the 16 1 coverage of the process of getting to the truth, which 2 often gets lost in that process." 3 A. Yes. 4 Q. And then you refer to the old editorial rhythms, which 5 you had experienced as a journalist in the 1980s, and 6 those rhythms have rather sped up, perhaps, in the 7 modern age? 8 A. Yes. Again, I do understand why that has happened. 9 I think it is a result of this phenomenal technological 10 change that has swept through the media industry, but as 11 it's happened, I think too few people within journalism 12 have stopped to think what is this actually doing to our 13 profession, to our trade as journalists, as journalism? 14 Q. Yes. As an adjunct or part of the same phenomenon, 15 under the heading "A changed definition of news", you 16 say: 17 "This has created a situation accelerated by the 18 Internet and the social networks in which false stories 19 can become news for the fact of being said or reported 20 rather than because journalists have checked them out." 21 And then you give a recent example, rumours that the 22 British husband of a prominent Danish politician was 23 gay, and that was entirely incorrect? 24 A. Yes. But the fact of it being a rumour said in the 25 political context was felt by some newspapers sufficient 17 1 to be able to run it. And of course this is further 2 complicated, as you've seen in recent days with 3 Mr Staines, it's further complicated by "journalists", 4 in quotes, who operate on the Internet because they can 5 say what they like and then it's out there and then the 6 rest of us sort of have to scrabble round trying to 7 catch up with something that's already round the world, 8 literally. 9 Again, it's a totally changed context and I think 10 sometimes that we -- I mean, I do still think the 11 newspapers are the -- the television, the radio and the 12 newspapers are still the most important parts of this 13 debate, but I think that there's a danger that the pace 14 of change is going so fast that we're even getting left 15 behind now in terms of how we're debating it. 16 Q. You point out towards the bottom of the next page, 17 21066, that the Internet is not subject to any 18 regulatory oversight at all. That's certainly true in 19 relation to someone like Mr Staines. Less true, 20 I think, in relation to any press institution who 21 publishes in print, but also uses the Internet? 22 A. Correct. 23 Q. The regulation would apply to -- 24 A. I think that's where newspapers are at a disadvantage. 25 I've thought about it. I don't quite know what you do 18 1 about this part of the way the media industry is 2 developing, but I think it's something that -- I know 3 the French government are looking at whether there is 4 some way of kind of regulating journalism on the 5 Internet. I think it's a very, very difficult thing to 6 do, but I think we have to think about it. 7 Q. Maybe we'll look into what is happening in the EU in 8 relation to press regulation of the Internet, but 9 doubtless not today. 10 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: If during the months to come you 11 think about it and find a suggested solution, I'd be 12 very grateful if you'd let me know. 13 A. Okay. I shall think about it. I'm sure the press will 14 be delighted you're asking me to think about regulation. 15 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I'm actually asking everybody to 16 think about it. 17 A. Good. 18 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I'm not singling you out. 19 A. Okay. 20 MR JAY: May I move on to your next theme, page 21067, under 21 the heading "When hysteria becomes inhumane", and the 22 classic example of that is the case of the McCanns, 23 which we heard about last week. 24 A. Yes. I think if anything, my assessment here, which 25 I wrote before they gave evidence, completely 19 1 understates the inhumanity of the coverage that 2 surrounded them. 3 Q. You write, as we were told in evidence, that others were 4 subjected to similar treatment and brought libel 5 proceedings successfully as well. 6 A. Yes. 7 Q. Can I ask you, though, page 21068, towards the bottom, 8 the article you wrote in the Times on the hounding of 9 Britney Spears, I haven't been able to find a copy of 10 that, but you provide us with the YouTube hyperlink. 11 Are you able to elaborate a little bit on that, please? 12 A. The reason I wrote that at the time was to make the 13 point that there comes a point with some people in 14 public life or the entertainments industry where they 15 are deemed to be such big figures that actually you can 16 do and say anything and it kind of doesn't matter. 17 I think it started -- I think the Princess of Wales 18 before she died, you could put her certainly in this 19 category and some showbiz people as well. 20 But the reason I put that in here was actually to 21 show that since then, the distinction between them and 22 what you might call ordinary people who through no fault 23 of their own become newsworthy has broken down. So when 24 the McCanns became a news commodity -- I remember 25 watching when Madeleine McCann first went missing, 20 1 I remember watching it and there was one point where -- 2 I wish I had now -- I thought I ought to write to these 3 people because you could see what was happening. They 4 thought they were using the media to help them in the 5 hunt for their child, and I could see what was 6 happening, the media were using them to be built into 7 the kind of news commodity which they subsequently 8 became. So that they became "anything goes" people and 9 you could say anything, do anything. 10 As I say in my statement, how nobody from the Press 11 Complaints Commission stood up and said, "Excuse me, 12 what is going on here?" when it was so obvious to 13 anybody who was reading the newspapers and watching the 14 television, is beyond me. 15 I make the point there not as a great defender of 16 celebrities, although I think celebrities are entitled 17 to certain rights as well, but actually to show that the 18 distinction has completely vanished, that somebody who 19 through no fault of their own becomes newsworthy now can 20 be subject to exactly the same sort of inhumane 21 treatment as -- the reason I described Britney Spears is 22 because it was perfectly obvious at the time that she 23 was deeply disturbed and they were live on television, 24 these shots of convoys of cars, motorbikes, following 25 her to hospital. You just think: does nobody sort of 21 1 stand back and say, "Should we be doing this?" and 2 I don't think they do. I think some people do. In 3 fact, I quote one photographer who resigned from one of 4 the main celebrity agencies, but you had 5 Richard Peppiatt here yesterday. There aren't that many 6 who resign over what they consider to be wrong or 7 inhumane activity. 8 Q. The photographer who resigned, you say, admitted that 9 the hounding of Britney Spears had gone beyond anything 10 his conscience would allow. Are you paraphrasing what 11 he said or was it more or less exactly that? 12 A. I think I was paraphrasing from something that he wrote 13 at the time. 14 Q. In terms of direct evidence you can give, at the bottom 15 of this page, 21069, you refer to a dinner you attended 16 last year and you were introduced to the editor of Heat 17 magazine. Can you tell us a little bit about that 18 encounter? 19 A. It was perfectly friendly and amicable. He was a very 20 charming sort of bloke and I was just doing my usual -- 21 some of the things I've been saying to you and I've said 22 in my statement about my assessment of the impact of the 23 celebrity culture on the rest of the media and on what 24 Britain was becoming as a culture, and he said, "Well, 25 we perform a very useful role. What would you rather 22 1 have, magazines like ours or public executions?" 2 I think that is the attitude. You know, we allow 3 the people -- we allow the public to sort of hate or 4 like these people, celebrities, who want to be in the 5 magazines -- some of them do, some of them don't. 6 Again, there's no real distinction between them. But 7 I think that is a kind of fairly -- you saw from 8 Paul McMullan yesterday, they think it performs a huge 9 public service. 10 Q. His position was, and maybe it's shared by others, that 11 all the press is doing is mirroring society outside and 12 perhaps mirroring human nature and therefore it's an 13 entirely appropriate response. Do you have a view on 14 that? 15 A. I saw when your colleague questioned Mr McMullan 16 yesterday, you put to him some of the things that he'd 17 said to me and I do use the word honest about 18 Mr McMullan, because he's brutally honest about what he 19 did and how he defends it, and there's no doubt 20 whatsoever that the reason why these celebrity magazines 21 are so successful and the reason why X Factor and 22 Pop Idol are so successful is because it's what the 23 public want. 24 The question, I think, that -- just as in politics 25 sometimes, you have to ask the question, in law you have 23 1 to ask the question, I think in the media as well you 2 should ask the question as to whether there are broader 3 responsibilities about the sort of country that we are 4 and the sort of country we want to be and the impact 5 that the media culture is having upon that. 6 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Mr McMullan put it this way. He said 7 the only barometer, effectively, was the fact that 8 somebody puts a pound coin on a newsagent's table and 9 buys the paper. 10 A. That is a barometer, but when you get on to talk 11 about -- editors are fond of saying -- when I say 12 they're not accountable to everybody, they say, "We're 13 accountable to our readers every day". They are, up to 14 a point. The readers don't actually know a lot of what 15 goes into producing the stories that they're reading. 16 They very rarely see corrections of anything that's 17 wrong. If they do see them, they're buried away in the 18 back of the newspaper. So they may say they're 19 accountable to their readers on a commercial level, but 20 there's no transparency about the journalistic practices 21 that they use to fill their papers. 22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: And, of course, the very impact of 23 what's been happening in this room for the last two 24 weeks itself is creating a reaction -- 25 A. Absolutely. 24 1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- which underlines the point you're 2 just making. 3 A. Absolutely. If you go back to the reason why you asked 4 me to come here, my statement that if the public knew 5 the truth about the way parts of the media operate, they 6 would be horrified, the public out there are horrified 7 by what they've heard in the last two weeks and not just 8 because of film stars and -- but because of what they 9 saw from the Dowlers and the McCanns and the Watsons and 10 they will argue these are atypical. My argument is they 11 are not atypical. This is what happens to anybody that 12 they decide is a major news commodity. 13 MR JAY: Thank you. 14 I'm now on page 21070. You make the point there, 15 level with the upper hole punch: 16 "It's the culture of denigration and of desperation 17 to get a story at all costs that leads someone working 18 for a newspaper to think it permissible, despite the 19 law, to hack the phones of celebrities and for editors 20 and executives to commission, condone or turn a blind 21 eye to such criminality." 22 You're making the point there that if there is an 23 ambient culture which tends to point in one direction, 24 it's hardly surprising that certain types of activity 25 ensue? 25 1 A. Yes. Again to quote Mr McMullan yesterday, he said that 2 basically the attitude of the editors he worked for was: 3 whatever it takes to get the story, you get it. 4 If that is the attitude, whatever it takes, and they 5 decide to cross a legal line, then what's to stop them 6 the next time and the next time and the next time? And 7 of course the editors may not know. They may genuinely 8 not know that the law is being broken left, right and 9 centre. 10 Here's how I think often it may happen. Let's say 11 that a newspaper commissions a private investigator to 12 do something and they do it successfully and it helps 13 the newspaper publish a story they want to publish and 14 meanwhile the private investigator now knows that 15 actually there's good money in this. So they then go 16 and look for stories, which then sell as if they were 17 freelance journalists, and the newspapers establish, 18 actually, this guy's quite a good source. The newspaper 19 doesn't necessarily want to know or even ask how these 20 stories are coming in. They're treating these people as 21 journalists. 22 But to use Mr McMullan's phrase yesterday, you're 23 talking often about the criminal underworld, who are 24 feeding newspapers, and editors then have stories put 25 before them. Do they know? Do they ask where they came 26 1 from? Do they always know? When Mr Dacre said to the 2 House of Lords committee he had never published a story 3 based on illegally obtained information, can he really 4 say that? Does he really know that? I don't think he 5 does. 6 Q. Thank you. The heading now, "The fusion of news and 7 comment/invention", 21071. 8 A. Can I pick up on one thing in my statement there? 9 I think it is important about the Princess of Wales 10 because I was involved in the management of the 11 aftermath of that and I thought it was very, very 12 interesting the extent to which the debate about the 13 role of the paparazzi in her death barely figured in the 14 days that followed. You could argue that actually we on 15 the political side of the fence could have done more to 16 promote that debate, but actually what we were busy with 17 was trying to calm the country and organise the funeral. 18 But I think there was an extent to which some of our 19 papers were deliberately fanning that sense of public 20 hysteria that there was at the time as a way of 21 diverting attention from genuine public unease about the 22 role of photographers in her death. 23 Q. Thank you. "The fusion of news and comment", and this 24 is the wavy line of delineation between fact and comment 25 that you touch on. 27 1 A. Yes. 2 Q. And the cult of agenda. Could you expand upon that 3 please in line with what you say in the middle of 4 page 21071? 5 A. Well, if you look at the PCC code, clause 1 on accuracy, 6 subsection 3: 7 "The press, whilst free to be partisan, must 8 distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and 9 fact." 10 I would say that most of our newspapers every single 11 day are in breach of that on something. I refer, for 12 example, to the Sun on the issue of Europe or the trade 13 unions, the Mail on pretty much anything that doesn't 14 coincide with the view of its editor, the Express on 15 Europe, the Star on asylum seekers. There is a complete 16 fusion of news and comment and it's just taken for 17 granted that is what newspapers now do. 18 Q. You've alighted there on four fairly right-wing papers, 19 Mr Campbell. 20 A. No. If you go down I think at one point I say the 21 Mirror on pretty much anything the current government 22 does. 23 Q. That's a bit later on. 24 A. It is. 25 Q. Can we be clear though that obviously you have a certain 28 1 position in relation to the Mail, for example, because, 2 as you've told us, anything which doesn't coincide with 3 the peculiar world view of its editor you believe might 4 be problematic. Of course, you're -- 5 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Actually, whether peculiar or not, 6 that's a judgment, isn't it? 7 MR JAY: It is. 8 You would presumably accept that if we are in the 9 realm of comment and expounding a world view, the 10 Daily Mail, through its editor or otherwise, is quite 11 entitled to do that? 12 A. Absolutely. Absolutely. 13 Q. Is this your evidence, that the difficulties arise only 14 where facts are misrepresented? 15 A. I think that -- "The press, whilst free to be partisan, 16 must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and 17 fact". If you were to rely upon -- okay, let me take 18 the Daily Mirror at the moment. The Daily Mirror is 19 a paper I worked for and obviously is much closer to my 20 political view than the Mail would be, but I think if 21 you only ever see stories in that newspaper that are bad 22 for the current government, then that is not 23 distinguishing between fact, conjecture and comment as 24 a strategic decision of the newspaper. 25 What I'd say -- the reason why I often do 29 1 concentrate on the Mail in regard to this is, one, 2 because it's the most extreme example, because if you 3 take somebody like Rupert Murdoch, who is routinely 4 described as the most powerful media figure in the 5 country, Rupert Murdoch is a powerful media figure right 6 around the world. His focus upon Britain and upon his 7 British titles is probably fairly small. The Mail is an 8 extremely successful newspaper but it is utterly the 9 product of one person. There's nothing goes in that 10 newspaper that isn't decided pretty much by him. 11 Whatever is written today about my evidence to you is 12 probably being decided by him this morning, and whoever 13 is here to cover it for him, that's what they'll do. 14 And that is how that newspaper works. 15 You heard from Mr Peppiatt yesterday the impact that 16 has upon some other newspapers, because within the media 17 industry it's seen as an incredibly successful product, 18 which it is, commercially it is. They do actually have 19 a lot of journalists, they do invest in journalism. 20 My point is that once they decide that a person or 21 an organisation or a profession, social workers or 22 people who are on strike today or anybody who had 23 anything to do with Tony Blair, once they have decided, 24 as it were, they are one of his targets, then you will 25 never ever ever read anything other than negativity 30 1 about that person or organisation in that newspaper, to 2 my mind in breach of a PCC code which says that you 3 should distinguish between fact, comment and conjecture. 4 In other words, they only take the facts that fit 5 the agenda, and then they fuse them with comment and 6 conjecture, and then they drive their agenda through 7 every single -- it's not just headlines, it's pictures, 8 it's the whole lot. 9 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But aren't you there talking about 10 balance, Mr Campbell, rather than distinguishing between 11 fact and conjecture? Aren't you saying actually what 12 they're doing is they're making a strategic decision 13 about what stories that they want to put in the paper? 14 A. Yes. 15 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: And is that what the code is on 16 about? 17 A. No, I think that what they do -- I would accept that, 18 I would accept that that is a legitimate thing to do, 19 but newspapers having strident positions and strong 20 positions and using their newspapers to promote those, 21 I don't have a problem with that at all. But when they 22 are taking a fact and using that to promote that agenda 23 and it turns out that the fact is inaccurate, which is 24 routinely the case in a lot of these newspapers -- 25 I mean I go on over the page to talk about the issue of 31 1 Europe. I'm actually not a huge Europhile; by Blairite 2 standards, I am something of a Eurosceptic, but I've 3 given you there at the top of page 072 just some of the 4 examples of things that Europe has done, in quotes, to 5 us, and they're all untrue. 6 So you have an agenda, "We're anti-European", you 7 then tell the public that Brussels is banning kilts and 8 curries and mushy peas and paper rounds and charity 9 shops and bulldogs and bent sausages and cucumbers and 10 the British Army and British made lavatories and the 11 passport crest, and it's all complete nonsense and they 12 know it's nonsense. They're not all the Mail, by the 13 way. 14 MR JAY: You give us a couple of examples towards the bottom 15 of that page: the banning of the selling of eggs by the 16 dozen, and we have those under tab 3 for you, 17 Mr Campbell. We printed that out. 18 A. I thought -- the reason I picked on that is because it's 19 actually not that serious a story, but it's sort of 20 typical. Again you had the example of Mr Peppiatt 21 yesterday about the Muslim-only lavatories, where they 22 run the story and then it doesn't happen so they say 23 they've had a victory for their campaign. 24 So the Mail run a story saying that Europe is going 25 to ban grocers from selling eggs by the dozen and then 32 1 the European Parliamentary Committee puts out 2 a statement saying it's complete nonsense so they run 3 a story the next day saying victory for their campaign 4 on something that was never going to happen. So they 5 have two bites at the cherry on something that is 6 utterly false but fits their agenda. 7 Q. Then there was a statement from the European Parliament, 8 which we've printed off, which makes that clear. 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. Maybe the next document under tab 3, the story in 11 relation to the grammar school girl, can we look at that 12 as a particular example, because you've drawn that to 13 our attention. Do you have that, Mr Campbell? 14 A. Yes. 15 Q. We've printed off the online edition, obviously. 16 A. Yes. 17 Q. You can see the headline: 18 "Grammar schoolgirl, 14, found hanged after row with 19 pupils from nearby comprehensive." 20 LORD LEVESON: Let's not provide too much detail of this, 21 Mr Jay. The detail of the fact but not the names. 22 MR JAY: No, I'm not going to give the names. What happened 23 here is that there was an inquest, as you point out. 24 We've noted what the headline was. The first line of 25 the story: 33 1 "A girl at a top grammar school was found hanged 2 amid fears she was bullied by pupils from a nearby 3 comprehensive." 4 And you make the point, well, that fits into 5 a certain world view. 6 A. Yes, the world view of grammar schools good, 7 comprehensive schools bad. 8 Q. You say if you look into the second page of the article, 9 at the very top -- 10 A. It says: 11 "While the inquest did not hear any evidence of 12 bullying ..." 13 Q. There's reference to messages from friends, but the 14 point you're making is that there wasn't in fact any 15 formal evidence of bullying adduced to the inquest; is 16 that correct? 17 A. There was no evidence of bullying at the inquest. That 18 is my central point, yes. And that's a story which 19 again -- I mean, in having researched for this 20 submission, I've deliberately not gone for the -- in 21 some cases for the ones that made big headlines. I'm 22 trying to show this is routine, this is endemic. This 23 is a -- you see a story like that and the attitude is, 24 "Well, how do we turn that to fit one of our kind of 25 what we think about the world?" So there's a story 34 1 that -- and would any consideration have been given to 2 whether actually that family wanted any further 3 publicity for that? Not a second. 4 Q. Thank you. I'm going to move over the Al-Qaeda/Loch 5 Lomond story you refer to because as you say that was 6 completely ridiculous, but at 21074, "The story right or 7 wrong", please, Mr Campbell. 8 A. Mm-hm. 9 Q. I think it's a point you've already begun to develop 10 early in your evidence, that the commitment to accuracy 11 in your view, whereas it was a cornerstone of journalism 12 some time ago, has ceased to be. Is that a fair 13 summary? 14 A. Yes, again let me emphasise: not with all journalists 15 and not with all newspapers. But in some of them, in 16 particular the ones that dominate the marketplace and 17 that make the most noise and that have the most impact 18 upon the rest of the media, I think that the impact of 19 the story is deemed to be far more important than the 20 accuracy. 21 Q. You give some political examples on the next page, 22 21075, in relation to cabinet reshuffles. 23 A. Yes. 24 Q. And plainly there is a lot of mythology about that and 25 stories are made up and often found to be incorrect. Is 35 1 that not a phenomenon, though, that we've seen over the 2 last 20 or 30 years, in your view? 3 A. Yes, I think it -- but I think it's grown and it's 4 developed in a way that -- I cite an example there of 5 when I was the political editor of the Mirror and 6 I wrote a story trailing the budget, I didn't even say, 7 "This is going to be in the budget", I sort of 8 speculated because I -- you know, just Sunday for 9 Monday, got to write something about the budget and the 10 editor asked me why I was writing it when I didn't have 11 a clue what was in the budget. 12 I don't think, I could be wrong, I think very few 13 editors today would actually, if a journalist provided 14 a story that said what was going to be in the statement 15 that George Osbourne did yesterday, had they written it 16 last week, will they be going today to that journalist 17 and say, "Hang on a minute, you wrote this last week and 18 he didn't do it"; I don't think there's any comeback at 19 all. 20 I cite an example of one reshuffle where we had -- 21 I can remember George Robertson was being moved to about 22 nine different departments. He ended up staying where 23 he was. Does anybody go and asks that journalist, "Why 24 did you write that? Where did it come from?" 25 Of course, what they do is they'll say, "Somebody 36 1 told me" and they -- you know, they can defend it. It's 2 a nonsense. 3 Q. Has there ever been a case, to your knowledge, where 4 government has, as it were, reacted to press speculation 5 and done something different to what it was otherwise 6 minded to do? 7 A. Would do you mean by that? 8 Q. To make it more explicit, if a journalist speculates 9 about a particular reshuffle -- 10 A. Oh, would we do the opposite? No. No. 11 Q. Okay. 12 A. The reason why we always knew these stories were made up 13 is because we just didn't talk to journalists about 14 reshuffles. You just didn't. Very few people would 15 know what the Prime Minister was planning, but they'd be 16 routinely written about. It gets very difficult. You 17 have lots of situations where ministers are constantly 18 reading they're going to get moved, fired. It's 19 debilitating within a department, but there's not that 20 much you can do about it. You can't stop it. The only 21 way you can stop it is say, "No, that's not going to 22 happen, this is what's going to happen" and then you get 23 accused of telling them before you've told ministers or 24 Parliament or whatever. 25 Q. Then on 21075, bottom of the page, you deal with 37 1 Mr Peppiatt's evidence, which at that stage I think 2 you'd only seen what he'd said at one of our seminars, 3 but we've obviously heard from him yesterday. 4 A. The point I was making there was that I met a journalist 5 the other day at an event I was at who came up and 6 talked to me and it turned out I used to work with her 7 father, and she told me that she was earning virtually 8 the same today for a shift -- she was on the Daily 9 Star -- as her father had earned almost 30 years ago. 10 So there are very few people, I think, will do what 11 Mr Peppiatt has done and resign and then say why they've 12 resigned, because I understand those people need to live 13 and they need to work and they know that if they do 14 resign, there are plenty more people who will come along 15 and do these pretty low-paid jobs as junior reporters. 16 So I was just emphasising that I think actually 17 considerable weight should be attached to his analysis 18 of what the modern newsroom is like as opposed to those 19 who painted a far rosier picture and tried to pretend 20 that all these practices are behind them. 21 Q. Thank you. The next section of your evidence, "Politics 22 and the media", 21076, is a section which foreshadows 23 our third module, to some extent. If I can be forgiven 24 just for touching on it now, the points you make there 25 about eight lines from the top of 21077, "If the public 38 1 knew the truth about politicians, they would be 2 pleasantly surprised", are the flipside of the point you 3 make in relation to the press. I think what you're 4 really saying is the culture of negativity and cynicism 5 in the press has had an effect on the quality and nature 6 of political discourse; is that right? 7 A. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I think 8 that -- and as I say in there, I apply that statement to 9 all the main parties, including those that 10 I fundamentally disagree with. I think that most people 11 who go into politics do so for the right reasons, and 12 even though some of them went to jail for fiddling their 13 expenses and even though some of them may be incompetent 14 and whatever, I think actually they are basically decent 15 people, but utterly surrounded now by this culture of 16 negativity and also surrounded by -- 17 I mean, again, sorry to keep harping back to the old 18 days. When I was on the Daily Mirror, a red-top 19 tabloid, we had two journalists in Parliament whose job 20 was just to cover parliamentary debates. Now, today, 21 even the broadsheets probably just have a guy who writes 22 jokes about the politicians and they call it a sketch 23 and that's the coverage of Parliament. Unless there's 24 a crisis or there's a sense of scandal, you see very 25 little coverage of what politicians -- yesterday is an 39 1 exception because it was such an important statement, 2 but you see very little coverage of actually what 3 politicians are saying and their assessment of why 4 they're saying it. You see plenty of the downside. 5 I'm just saying I think unless we get the balance in 6 a little bit better place, we should not be surprised if 7 people of quality just decide, "What's the point of 8 going into public life?" I think we're already at that 9 point. 10 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I hope you're not expecting me to 11 come up with suggestions about that. 12 MR JAY: I don't know. Some in the press might blame you as 13 in part responsible for this phenomenon. 14 A. Well, they do, they do. And that's because, I think, 15 they -- I talk earlier about the sort of -- they live in 16 denial, in my view, most of them, of what this change of 17 culture is doing and their responsibility within it. 18 I go on later in my statement to say that I think 19 that both sides of the political debate have to accept 20 some of the responsibility for the fact that we've got 21 to where we are, but not because of what they would 22 accuse us of but actually for failing to recognise the 23 damage it was doing and do something about it, because 24 if you like of the collusion and the desire to have them 25 as sort of not destroying you -- that's putting it 40 1 negatively -- or supporting you, putting it more 2 positively. 3 So I know they say that and I reject it. I think 4 it's a very, very self-serving argument. 5 Q. Fair enough, Mr Campbell. These are things which we'll 6 take up probably in the spring. 7 Can I move on to the next heading in your statement, 8 "The decline of genuine investigative journalism", 9 21080. You launch that section with reference to an 10 event you did with Carl Bernstein in Italy two years ago 11 and something he said there. Could you help us with 12 that, please? 13 A. Yes, I had an event at a journalism conference with 14 Carl Bernstein and he said that Watergate, the story for 15 which he is most famous, was a great story but 16 a disaster for journalism because ever since, and you 17 see this every time anything happens, there's always 18 a "gate" attached to it very, very quickly, but what 19 happens now is that a journalist feels, I think as 20 Paul McMullan said yesterday, "God, could I bring 21 a government down?" Journalism is only journalism, 22 investigative journalism, if you can kind of have that 23 sort of impact. 24 But actually -- and it's been interesting just to -- 25 when Anne Diamond was giving her evidence and they 41 1 talked about thalidomide, that is still the 2 investigation that people talk about as being the great 3 investigation because there have actually been so few, 4 and I think that you saw Nick Davies yesterday who 5 clearly is a brilliant investigative journalist, and you 6 saw also the sort of arguments that he has with himself 7 the whole time about how he is pursuing a story, but 8 there aren't many like him in journalism at the moment 9 and they're not encouraged because going back to the 10 economic considerations, I had a colleague on the Mirror 11 who could sometimes spend six months doing a story. 12 They just don't have the time now, or the resources. 13 They have another page to fill, another page lead to 14 churn out, another thousand words on the Internet to 15 fill. 16 Again, I think this is an area, there's some work 17 going on in this in some of the outside organisations, 18 but how you boost genuine investigative journalism 19 I think is also part of this debate, because it's dying. 20 Q. One almost sees more of it now on the television than 21 one does in the printed press; is that right? 22 A. I'm not sure about that. I think television is subject 23 to a lot of the same forces. 24 Q. 21081, relations between politicians and owners and 25 editors. I am going to park that one, Mr Campbell. 42 1 A. Okay. 2 Q. Until spring. 3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: You'll appreciate, Mr Campbell, that 4 we're coming back to do that. At the moment we're 5 focusing on the public. 6 A. Yes. 7 MR JAY: Papers as political players, journalists as spin 8 doctors. That's 21082. This is a point I think which 9 bears on our module. You say at the start: 10 "It is also the case that newspaper owners, editors 11 and senior journalists have increasingly become 12 political players as well as spectators, using 13 newspapers either as instruments of unaccountable 14 political power, or to promote their own commercial 15 interests (as often happens in the Murdoch and Desmond 16 papers' coverage of issues related to their broadcast 17 interests, for example), or to promote their own 18 political agenda, not just in comment columns but across 19 news pages too, which often continue to carry a veneer 20 of objectivity, but whose substance is geared almost 21 word by word to promoting the paper's line on an issue 22 or an individual." 23 A. Yes. 24 Q. That's your basic thesis. You then give us an example 25 in relation to a piece in the Guardian and Ed Miliband's 43 1 recent speech to the Labour conference. Could you 2 elaborate on that? 3 A. I just thought it was again not untypical. She wrote 4 that after the speech there was a sort of -- the 5 journalists kind of get together and sort of decide what 6 the line is on the speech. This goes back to the fusion 7 of news and comment. So they tell each other that 8 actually it wasn't very good and he made a mistake 9 saying that, and that actually becomes the news of the 10 speech. That's them if you like as -- that's what 11 I mean by they are the spin doctors. They are the ones 12 who are deciding what the line is and then it gets 13 promulgated. 14 I quote there David Blake, a former editor. This is 15 a comment he put on my website the next day when I drew 16 attention to Polly Toynbee's observation and he 17 describes rather well how that happens. 18 Again, I'm not sure there's much you can do about 19 that, but I think it's important that the public do 20 understand -- I'm not make making a party political 21 point here because the same would happen with 22 a Conservative leader as well, where they sort of get 23 together and decide this is the line and the next day 24 that is defined as public opinion. How did they know 25 what public opinion is? How did they know how the 44 1 public has reacted? 2 I think this probably does relate much more to the 3 debate about politics and the media, but this idea that 4 they will kind of decide how the public is reacting, 5 what the public is thinking, when the public actually 6 doesn't get to hear what the politicians actually say. 7 Q. Thank you. 21083, the reliance on anonymous and often 8 invented quotes. You say it's a growing phenomenon, 9 reliance on anonymous quotes, and perhaps as a related 10 point, many of those quotes in your view are invented or 11 probably invented. Is that an inference you're drawing 12 or is it something you have direct knowledge of, 13 Mr Campbell? 14 A. Well, it's impossible to know the extent of it, but -- 15 I mean, I don't have access to the same sort of research 16 facilities that I used to do, but I could point back to 17 dozens and dozens of dozens of stories which you know to 18 be wrong, and that's why it's often frustrating when 19 you're in a situation where you know a story to be wrong 20 and when you -- you see a headline, you read the story 21 and it's based upon an anonymous quote. And as I say in 22 here, the anonymous quotes are usually very, very short 23 in the tabloids and a bit longer in the broadsheets. 24 You heard from Mr Peppiatt yesterday about he was ticked 25 off for his anonymous quotes not being good enough, his 45 1 invented quotes not being good enough. 2 I give the example of the Mail Online and the 3 Amanda Knox appeal verdict which had versions of both 4 verdicts, complete with the reaction. How did they have 5 the reaction to the verdict? Somehow they pressed the 6 wrong button, they published the wrong version, with the 7 wrong verdict, complete with the reaction in quotes. 8 How did they do that? 9 Q. We've found that example and printed it off under tab 5 10 in that bundle, Mr Campbell. It's courtesy of Tabloid 11 Watch. 12 Of course, we can recall that the verdict was given 13 at about 10.20 at night, I remember seeing it on the BBC 14 News, so presumably what people had to do was to mock-up 15 two versions, since there could only be two outcomes, 16 and here we have the mocked-up wrong version, which 17 presumably other papers did? 18 A. I don't know. I don't know. I don't think they did. 19 Q. There are some quotes here which perhaps is the point 20 you're making. If you look towards the bottom of the 21 page and the penultimate paragraph. 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. "Prosecutors were delighted with the verdict ..." 24 It might be said that they would have been, had it 25 been that verdict. 46 1 "... and said that justice had been done." 2 It's a bit of a trite quote, but -- 3 A. But it would be a very odd thing for them to say, before 4 the verdict, "justice has been done". 5 Q. If that were the verdict, it's something which they 6 would obviously say. 7 A. Possibly. On a "human factor, it was sad two young 8 people would be spending years in jail", they also said. 9 Q. It's back to this speed and accuracy? 10 MR CAPLAN: Can I interrupt that the position is clear that 11 we are adamant that the quotes in these kind of stories 12 where there are two versions prepared are actually made 13 and both versions are properly prepared and the people 14 are spoken to in the normal way. 15 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right. 16 A. So what -- 17 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you, Mr Caplan. 18 MR JAY: I think, Mr Campbell, your point is -- 19 A. That means a journalist has gone to the prosecutor -- 20 I'd like to ask Mr Caplan whether if I was covering 21 a court case and I went to him and said, "Can you give 22 me a quote for guilty and a quote for innocent", I'd be 23 very, very surprised if Mr Caplan would do that, but 24 we're being led to believe by the paper that he's 25 representing that a prosecutor has said, "I'll give you 47 1 a quote for guilty and a quote for innocent"? It's 2 absurd. 3 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Well, you're exemplifying something 4 you're concerned about and I understand the point. 5 A. Yes. 6 MR JAY: Still on page 21084. Your point about pre-budget 7 coverage I think is one we've already covered, 8 Mr Campbell; is that right? 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. You deal with one concrete example towards the bottom of 11 the page in relation to an Independent columnist. It's 12 right to say, though, that he was suspended by the 13 newspaper? 14 A. Oh, that's the point I'm making, that this is Johann 15 Hari in the Independent who was suspended when it was 16 revealed that he was taking people's quotes from other 17 interviews and pretending they were his own. I'm making 18 the point that the Independent dealt with that. And 19 likewise the BBC and Alan Yentob and the so-called 20 Noddy -- I think that was called Noddygate, where he was 21 pretending to have been in interviews where he wasn't. 22 I'm making the point that in relation to this business 23 of newspapers making up quotes, that they don't have the 24 same accountability and I give the example of the Sunday 25 Times and John Prescott when John Prescott complained 48 1 over a quote he'd never made, which they admitted to him 2 that he'd never made, and then when they print their 3 so-called apology in the paper, they said it was 4 a production error. So they won't bring themselves to 5 admit that actually they made it up. 6 I go on to say that actually in American broadsheets 7 and some of the magazines there is a system of 8 fact-checking even of anonymous quotes and that's 9 something that perhaps might help British journalism. 10 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: What's that system? 11 A. Basically, the journalist will write an article and they 12 will then have separate from them, within the same 13 newspaper or magazine, fact-checkers whose job is to 14 check the facts, so that, for example, if any of us were 15 interviewed for a piece, the fact-checker would phone us 16 and say, "You're quoted as saying this, is that an 17 accurate reflection of what you said?", for example. 18 MR JAY: In relation to the John Prescott piece, the Sunday 19 Times did thoroughly apologise. This is clear from 20 a printout from the Guardian Online who reported the 21 story on 12 June 2011, which is in our tab 5? 22 A. But they did say it was a production error. 23 Q. They did? That was on a tweet: 24 "Due to a production error, a quote was wrongly 25 attributed to ..." 49 1 Then it was Mr Prescott's tweet -- 2 MR DAVIES: I'm sorry to interrupt. But these are two 3 different stories, the Twitter story. The first one, 4 which Mr Campbell referred to just now, was a genuine 5 quote, it was not made up. What was wrong was that it 6 was misattributed to Mr Prescott. And the paper did -- 7 and that was -- it was an error by a subeditor and the 8 paper apologised for it. It was an entirely different 9 story, which was also a mistake, which arose from 10 a misattributed tweet which came four months later. 11 Both were genuine errors and in neither case was 12 anything made up. 13 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you. 14 MR JAY: I hadn't appreciated there were two errors. 15 A. Nor had I. 16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: The great advantage of splitting off 17 these two parts in the terms of reference, and I saw 18 great disadvantages when I first saw them, but the 19 advantage is that it is not the absolute detail -- 20 examples, one needs. 21 A. Okay. 22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: But I will not have to resolve this 23 sort of detail. I am looking for culture, practices and 24 ethics. 25 A. Okay. 50 1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: And therefore I'm very happy for 2 people to make their position clear. These are examples 3 of the point that you're making and I understand the 4 point. 5 A. Okay. I'd be very surprised if John Prescott shared the 6 assessment that has just been put to the Inquiry, 7 but ... 8 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes, you may be right, but the great 9 thing is that I don't have to decide that. 10 A. Okay. 11 MR JAY: There's another story you refer to in the 12 Sunday Express which relates to you, that you were about 13 to take up a position at Manchester United? 14 A. Not as a player. Yes. 15 Q. Nor, I think, as the manager. But you were told by 16 someone there, I think, that -- well, in your own words, 17 tell us about it. 18 A. This is again trivial on one level. So I was at home on 19 a Saturday evening spending a bit of time with my kids 20 and the phone started ringing from newspapers, Mail on 21 Sunday, Sunday Mirror, Sunday People, saying there's 22 this story in the Sunday Express saying you're leaving 23 Number 10 and going to Manchester United. I said, "To 24 do what?" I was fed up -- then there were all these 25 quotes, close friends, there was a picture of me and 51 1 Alex Ferguson together somewhere, there were close 2 friends quoted, "He's fed up with Blair, he's fed up 3 with this, he's fed up with that". I said, "This is 4 completely untrue", and that was verbatim, the response: 5 "I know, but it's a good story". 6 It's one of those you think life's too short to 7 complain about it, bother about it, life goes on. So 8 again I put it in as not atypical. 9 Q. Yes. I suppose it might be said it's not a very good 10 story, because I'm still struggling, if I may say so, to 11 imagine what role you might have taken up. 12 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Let's move on, Mr Jay. 13 A. I have played with Diego Maradona. 14 MR JAY: I hope that didn't sound offensive, Mr Campbell. 15 It certainly wasn't intended to. 16 The blog spot you identify and we printed out at the 17 bottom of the page. It is worth reading, but we're not 18 going to read it now. But thank you for drawing it to 19 our attention. 20 A. Again I put that there to show that this is again an 21 "ordinary person" who gets involved in something and 22 it's a pretty horrific read. 23 Q. Yes. Culture of negativity, Mr Campbell, 21086. You 24 make it clear that in your view that has stemmed from 25 a tripartite alliance, not of course that they are truly 52 1 allied: Murdoch, Dacre and Desmond. Can you elaborate 2 on that, please? 3 A. They're certainly not an alliance and I don't suggest in 4 any way that they've sort of come together with 5 a strategy, but I think that Murdoch is the most 6 influential media owner, Paul Dacre, as I've said, is 7 a hugely influential figure within the press and what 8 the press thinks of itself, and Richard Desmond owns the 9 Express and the Star, which have not just in relation to 10 the McCanns but they are as it were at that end of the 11 market. 12 The reason again why I do differentiate between 13 them, so for example in relation to the Murdoch papers, 14 why I would differentiate say between them and the Mail, 15 they do at least have within them a kind of strand of 16 optimism and a strand of hope about the country and the 17 future and not everything is terrible, whereas I think 18 where the culture of negativity is most relentless is 19 actually within Associated Newspapers. 20 But I think the general point I'm making is that 21 those who are at the top of the industry have presided 22 over this cultural shift to what I define as a culture 23 of negativity, and I think they've done it deliberately. 24 I think they feel it suits their interests. I happen to 25 think they're wrong. 53 1 I think it's one of the reasons why they're in 2 trouble, why newspapers are not as popular and not 3 bought as much as they were, because I think they've 4 misunderstood this idea of what the public want. 5 I think the public want something better than what they 6 give them, but that's what they give them. News is only 7 news if it's bad news for somebody, preferably somebody 8 in power and authority. 9 Q. What harm does this do? 10 A. I don't think we can tell. But I've mentioned one area 11 already where I think the quality of people who are 12 interested in putting their head above the parapet, not 13 just in politics but in public services, in all those 14 sort of aspects of our national life that attract media 15 attention, there's barely an individual organisation 16 I would talk to in the sort of life that I lead now who 17 wouldn't at some point say, "You know, we get a really, 18 really bad press for what we do", and if you think 19 about -- let's just take -- I mentioned earlier 20 something like social workers. Hugely important. They 21 only ever get defined negatively in most of the tabloid 22 press. That has an impact upon recruitment, it has an 23 impact upon morale, it has an impact upon the service 24 that those people provide. 25 I think I cite, I think it's in this section, where 54 1 I talk about the MMR vaccine issue. Obviously the 2 person that in a sense who is most culpable I suppose in 3 that is that guy Wakefield who did the research. He may 4 have honestly believed what he was doing, but it would 5 have gone nowhere, given the weight of scientific 6 opinion against him, had it not been for the fact that 7 our newspapers wanted to give him the ventilation of his 8 views rather than the vast majority who said he was 9 wrong. 10 I think that if there's anybody out there today 11 whose child has got measles, yes, they can blame 12 Mr Wakefield, they can also blame the press for the way 13 they covered that issue. Their desire for the 14 negativity to impact upon who at that time happened to 15 the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and then using this 16 utterly spurious argument that because he wouldn't tell 17 us whether his son had had the jab, therefore there's 18 some sort of great conspiracy going on, again, utterly 19 self-serving and actually dangerous to public health. 20 Q. Of course, the MMR issue is an enormously complex one. 21 The underlying science is difficult for a lay person to 22 understand. Newspapers like the Mail might validly say, 23 "All we were doing was reflecting or voicing genuine 24 public concern, given that an issue had been raised by 25 a medical scientist". 55 1 A. Yes. 2 Q. Is that not legitimate? 3 A. They would say that, but I would argue they weren't 4 giving voice to genuine public concern, they were 5 seeking to exacerbate and fan public concern, and then 6 drive it as a way of seeking to damage the government at 7 the time. And also because health scares and crime 8 scares are at the heart of what newspapers like that do, 9 systemically, day in, day out. 10 What you're suggesting is they would say, "We were 11 doing a public service". If they were really interested 12 in public service journalism, they would have said, 13 "Here's the body of opinion that says this guy Wakefield 14 is wrong", but no, it suited their interests to get 15 mothers concerned enough to say, "This guy must be right 16 because he's being treated like a hero in all our 17 newspapers", and that leads to him being treated 18 similarly on the television and before you know it, 19 parents have stopped giving their children the vaccine 20 and then you have a measles epidemic and never any 21 accountability for the role of the press in that. 22 So Wakefield, he has been subject to accountability 23 in the GMC and all that, but the role of the press in 24 it, which I think is just as important, nothing. No 25 comeback whatsoever. 56 1 Q. Thank you. Page 21087, you draw attention to a speech 2 the then Prime Minister gave, possibly in his last days 3 of power, on 12 June 2007. 4 A. Yes. 5 Q. We've copied that under tab 6. What he says here but, 6 of course, how one interprets his speech will be a 7 matter for others, is broadly consistent with what 8 you're telling the Inquiry; is that fair, Mr Campbell? 9 A. Yes. 10 Q. He does deal with the issue of regulation at page 6 on 11 the internal numbering of his speech as reported. 12 A. Okay. 13 Q. The last two paragraphs on the page where he refers to 14 the need for the regulatory framework to be revised. 15 A. Yes. 16 Q. He says how this is done is an open question. 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. I think it's clear from your evidence that this is the 19 case, but were there discussions between you and the 20 then Prime Minister about this issue in particular? 21 A. Not so much at this time. In fact, I'd left Downing 22 Street by now and actually I had very little, if any, 23 input into this speech. Certainly when I was still in 24 Downing Street we did talk about it and we didn't 25 disagree about that much but this is one thing about 57 1 which we did fundamentally disagree, because I felt that 2 he had reached a position -- and this wasn't about my 3 view, this was about his view. He had reached 4 a position and some of his senior colleagues had reached 5 a position where they felt that this -- and as I say on 6 1087, I think the fuel protests and the foot and mouth 7 crisis had been something of a turning point in this -- 8 where he actually felt that what the press was becoming 9 and had become was something of genuine concern, not 10 just for the damage that it did to the government, which 11 you kind of take as part of the territory, but actually 12 the damage that it was doing to the culture and 13 therefore to the country. 14 His argument was very much that we were still seen 15 as an all-mighty, all-powerful government that the press 16 basically just -- we were in control of them and this 17 would just look -- the public wouldn't really understand 18 this. 19 My argument was that he, as the Prime Minister, 20 genuinely saw a problem and therefore had 21 a responsibility to address that problem. 22 His other argument was, look, there's too much to 23 do, and I completely understand that, I completely 24 understand that, but as I say in my statement, he used 25 to -- he called it my stuck record because I felt that 58 1 the -- it was beyond doubt by then that the system of 2 self-regulation had completely failed, that these people 3 at the top of the industry were utterly, as 4 Nick Davies -- I completely agree with what he said, 5 utterly incapable of being trusted with self-regulation, 6 and therefore if that was a serious issue, it was the 7 responsibility of government to address it. 8 For all sorts of reasons, that never got done. 9 I say within the statement the sort of thing that 10 I thought we should have been looking at, but there was 11 no appetite, there was no appetite. There was a shared 12 analysis, but there was no appetite for change. 13 Q. We'll come to your analysis of what was required then 14 and what may well be required now. 15 You say in your statement that you noted the lack of 16 serious response to Mr Blair's speech, and others picked 17 that up including Mr Paxman; is that right? 18 A. It's interesting. That bit that you referred me to on 19 page 6 about regulation, I could be wrong there, but 20 I don't remember there being much coverage at all of the 21 issue of him addressing regulation and whether there 22 should be a change. They all decided -- the headline 23 was "Blair says the media are feral beasts" and on we 24 go. It sort of hung around for about a day. The issues 25 within the speech sparked no debate whatsoever, and as 59 1 Jeremy Paxman -- I quoted Jeremy Paxman -- he won't 2 forgive me for it but I've quoted him favourably, where 3 he says: 4 "I thought the way we responded to Tony Blair's 5 speech was pretty pathetic on the central charges that 6 the media behave like a herd, have a trivial and 7 collective judgment and prefer sensation to 8 understanding. He said I'm sorry to say but I think 9 there's something in all of these arguments but there 10 was a collective refusal to engage, the media just 11 'pressed the F12 key. Yah booh. You're a politician. 12 We're media yahoos. Get over it'." 13 And that accurately sums up the way the speech was 14 covered. 15 Q. Before our break, can I draw your attention to something 16 else Mr Blair said on the seventh page of this document, 17 which rather chimes with something you've said. I quote 18 from it: 19 "It is sometimes said that the media is accountable 20 daily through the choice of readers and viewers. That 21 is true up to a point, but the reality is that the 22 viewers or readers have no objective yardstick to 23 measure what they are being told. In every other walk 24 of life in our society that exercises power, there are 25 external forms of accountability, not least through the 60 1 media itself. 2 "So its true politicians are accountable through the 3 ballot box every few years but they are also profoundly 4 accountable daily through the media, which is why a free 5 press is so important. I'm not in a position to 6 determine this one way or another, but a way needs to be 7 found. I do believe this relationship between public 8 life and media is now damaged in a manner that requires 9 repair. The damage saps the country's confidence and 10 self-belief; it undermines its assessment of itself, its 11 institutions; and above all, it reduces our capacity to 12 take the right decisions in the right spirit for our 13 future." 14 And then he concludes by saying: 15 "I have made this speech after much hesitation. 16 I know it will be rubbished in certain quarters." 17 Of course, had he made that speech earlier on, he 18 would have been or might have been very heavily 19 rubbished in certain quarters, do you think? 20 A. There's no doubt about that at all. I mean, I agree 21 with every word of that and I think actually that poses 22 the question that's now before the Inquiry and 23 subsequently will be before Parliament, about what to do 24 about it. But that something has to be done, I don't 25 see how any reasonable person can disagree with that. 61 1 Q. Someone might be notionally prodding me to ask this 2 question, and so I'll ask it, that owing to Mr Blair's 3 relationship with the press, particularly the Murdoch 4 press at his zenith, as it were, it wasn't really in his 5 interests to pursue these issues since there was only 6 a downside for him and no possible upside. Is that 7 a fair observation or not? 8 A. The stage that he made this speech, as you said earlier 9 it was just before he left office, so I don't think it 10 mattered that much. But I think certainly back -- 11 I mean Philip Gould who died recently and who updated 12 his book, he reminded me that actually I'd been banging 13 on about this well over ten years ago, and I think 14 certainly back then part of the judgment would have been 15 that, you know, broadly the press don't give us as much 16 of a hard time as they used to give Labour governments. 17 That would be seen as a plus. 18 I reached a position, I think one or two others did, 19 that that was kind of irrelevant. Yes, it's easier if 20 you have the press broadly onside -- I wouldn't even say 21 onside, just not intent on trying to destroy you on 22 a daily basis systematically, that makes your job 23 a little bit easier, but I think that the argument 24 I kept making was that actually this has now sort of 25 gone beyond any political advantage that we might or any 62 1 other party might think they gain. And I hope, 2 I really, really hope, that the current government and 3 both parties within it do approach this from a position 4 of principle as opposed to calculation about their 5 interests at the next election, because I think this 6 should be a big issue at the next election. 7 MR JAY: Would that be a convenient moment for a pause? 8 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Certainly. 9 It's one of the reasons why it's important to move 10 on with the Inquiry, so that the debate can be had 11 sooner rather than later. 12 A. (Nods head). 13 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Right, we'll have five minutes. 14 Thank you. 15 (11.30 am) 16 (A short break) 17 (11.38 am) 18 MR JAY: Mr Campbell, you've drawn attention to Mr Paxman's 19 MacTaggart's lecture, which we've printed off. 20 A. Yes. 21 Q. Which is towards the back end of our tab 6. It extends 22 to, on this print-off at least, 16 pages, but if you go 23 to page 5 of 16, you'll see the reference to at the very 24 bottom the response to Tony Blair's speech as being 25 pretty pathetic. 63 1 A. Yes. 2 Q. He does say something about you, though, on the next 3 page, which I suppose I had better read out. Three 4 lines from the top of page 6 of 16, you quote this bit: 5 "By and large, the response to Blair's attack: 'just 6 pressed the F12 key. Yah booh. You're a politician. 7 We're media yahoos. Get over it'. Of course, the 8 attack all seemed a bit rich coming from a government 9 which took the media more seriously and tried to control 10 it more effectively than any previous administration. 11 "I remember once being in number 11 Downing Street 12 waiting to do an interview with Gordon Brown and the 13 side door of number 12 opening. In previous 14 governments, number 12 was where the chief whip had his 15 office. Now, as it swung back, I was astonished to see 16 the place being taken over by what seemed to be 17 a fibre-optic version of a Victorian counting house -- 18 a squad of young people sitting at a row of desks, on 19 the phone, bending the ears of journalists. At the 20 top -- could he really have been sitting at a higher 21 desk? That's certainly how I think I remember it -- sat 22 the brooding figure of Alastair Campbell." 23 A bit of a side swipe at you. I don't really want 24 to ask you to comment. Is that factually correct, 25 however? 64 1 A. No. Did we move to number 12? Yes. Eventually 2 Gordon Brown moved there when he was Prime Minister. 3 I'm not going to criticise Jeremy because I thought it 4 was a very, very good speech. Just as a matter of fact, 5 I doubt he would know what the young people were doing 6 on the phone. He assumes they're bending the ears of 7 journalists. And also this higher desk is news to me. 8 "Brooding" I will possibly allow. 9 I also note he says my diaries will turn out to be 10 a gold mine for future psychiatrists. So I don't think 11 he was being terribly serious at that part of the 12 speech, but at other parts he was. 13 Q. Page 21089, "Labour should have addressed the issue when 14 in power", we've covered some of that already, 15 Mr Campbell. May I deal with the issue of Mailwatch, 16 which is the middle of this page? 17 A. Yes. 18 Q. It was your office preparing and publishing rebuttals of 19 false stories in the Daily Mail, and it was called 20 Mailwatch. Is it right that it was dropped after only 21 two weeks? 22 A. I think it ran for longer. I can't remember, to be 23 honest. I've tried to get hold of some of them but 24 I don't have the same access to government papers that 25 I used to, but no, I think it ran longer than that. It 65 1 certainly was dropped. 2 I had suggested to the then Prime Minister that the 3 level of misrepresentation of government, government 4 policy, public services, what was happening in the 5 country, was so severe that we should actually assign 6 somebody as part of their job to just look at the 7 Daily Mail day by day and rebut stories that were false, 8 and some days, as I say, it ran to pages and pages and 9 pages. But we dropped it after a few weeks partly 10 because, to be absolutely frank, because other ministers 11 persuaded the Prime Minister that this wasn't a good 12 thing to do. Entitled to their opinion and that's fine. 13 But I wish we had carried it on because I think 14 actually it served a useful public service. 15 Q. I wouldn't dream of asking you who those other ministers 16 were. We'll move on to page 21090, "Culture of 17 negativity extends well beyond politics", all of which 18 may well be true but outside the terms of reference of 19 this Inquiry. 20 The MMR issue you deal with specifically, but we've 21 covered it at 21091. 22 A. Mm-hm. 23 Q. Can I ask you to elaborate, though, on your next theme 24 or heading, 21092, "The media controls the terms of 25 debate about the media". 66 1 A. Yes. 2 Q. Can you expand a bit on that? 3 A. I've argued for years that the change that is necessary 4 within a culture that's gone bad is only going to happen 5 if there is an honest debate within the media about the 6 media. To be absolutely frank, it's taken the scandals 7 that have led to this Inquiry for that to happen. If 8 they'd had it, then they might have been able to have 9 got themselves to a better place without all this. 10 So, for example, I make the -- I don't know if it's 11 here or somewhere else in the submission, where I make 12 the point that what's going on at the moment in terms of 13 the media debate on this is exceptional. It's very rare 14 that there is so much coverage within the media about 15 the media and about the press in particular. Because 16 they control the terms of the debate. If they decide 17 that something is not newsworthy and it's not 18 interesting -- I mean, for example, when the McCanns' 19 case was at its height, I think there should have been 20 coverage then, big, major coverage, debate going on 21 about what was happening to them and what the press were 22 doing to them. It was a part of the story, but it was 23 over there, it was in the corner. 24 So I think that what I'm saying here is that they 25 can decide on a -- again I'm not suggesting a sort of 67 1 conspiracy, they get together and say, "Let's decide how 2 to cover this", but they can decide whether something 3 actually gets properly ventilated, they can decide 4 whether the public do get to hear about these debates or 5 not and there's a limit then to what the politicians can 6 do because, you know, politicians are ministers, they're 7 busy. There's lots and lots of things that they're 8 trying to do, but I've been arguing for a decade now 9 that this is a serious issue where the debate has to be 10 heard out in the open. It's not happened until now 11 because the media has kept control of the terms of 12 debate. 13 Q. Thank you. I'll move forward now to "Dubious 14 practices", 21094. Do you have any direct knowledge, 15 Mr Campbell, about phone hacking? If you don't, please 16 tell us. 17 A. I do, yeah. Yeah. 18 Q. Could you tell us, please, in outline what your direct 19 knowledge is? 20 A. Well, I'd been visited by officers from 21 Operation Weeting and shown references to me in relation 22 to Glenn Mulcaire and I've also been visited by officers 23 from Operation Tuleta, which I know is not about phone 24 hacking but is about, if you like, dubious practices 25 beyond phone hacking, where I was briefed on computer 68 1 hacking, not suggesting it was me but just explaining 2 what they were looking into. And also briefed on 3 invoices they'd found, that the Mirror had paid private 4 investigators who were looking at me and Peter Mandelson 5 at a certain point, me and a member of my family and 6 Peter Mandelson at a certain point. 7 Can I just say about this though I put this in here 8 because it's part of the general thing you asked me to 9 address. I'm not putting myself remotely in the 10 category of some of the other people who have been here, 11 but in answer to your question, yes, I have direct 12 experience of phone hacking and of some of these other 13 dubious practices. 14 Q. You then comment on the use of subterfuge and the 15 activities of the News of the World's then 16 investigations editor, Mr Mazher Mahmood, who has now 17 moved across to the Sunday Times, has he not? 18 A. Mm-hm. 19 Q. You are concerned about certain aspects of what he does, 20 and we have collected for you some materials under 21 tab 7. 22 A. Yes. 23 Q. These all come from pieces in the Guardian -- 24 A. The problem with a lot of these stories is that they've 25 been removed from the News of the World website. 69 1 Q. Yes. 2 A. So in researching some of this, the only place I could 3 find anything reliable on it was actually to use 4 material published in other newspapers about it. 5 Q. The first example you give is directly under tab 7. 6 It's the Earl of Hardwicke case. 7 A. Yes. 8 Q. To be clear about this, it did result in a conviction, 9 but given concerns about the way in which the evidence 10 was obtained, the judge imposed a suspended sentence; is 11 that right? 12 A. Yes. 13 Q. And the judge said -- this is his Honour Judge Timothy 14 Pontius: 15 "Were it not for that elaborate sting, you would 16 not, I accept, have committed these particular 17 offences." 18 A. Yes. 19 Q. You draw attention to that. 20 My understanding of the criminal law is that the 21 agent provocateur defence is not a defence, however it's 22 a factor which can be taken into account -- 23 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It depends who is doing it, Mr Jay. 24 The decision of the House of Lords in a case called 25 Loosely. I'm pleased to demonstrate some knowledge. 70 1 MR JAY: Not generally a defence. 2 A. The other thing you might want to look at though is the 3 PCC code: 4 "Clandestine devices and subterfuge. The press must 5 not seek to obtain or publish material acquired by using 6 hidden cameras or clandestine listening devices or by 7 intercepting private or mobile calls, messages or 8 emails..." et cetera, et cetera. 9 And of course it goes on to say: 10 "... unless there's a clear public interest." 11 Now in some of these he might be able to argue that. 12 The reason I put all of these in is I think some you 13 could argue the public interest but the vast majority 14 you couldn't. But they did it routinely. And proudly. 15 That was what made this guy's name. 16 Q. Which of the ones do you feel would clearly not be in 17 the public interest, the ones you've drawn attention to? 18 Rather than my going perhaps invidiously through all of 19 these. 20 A. I can't see much in the first one. In the second one, 21 the one about the snooker player, if you read the -- the 22 World Snooker Body did its own investigation. If you 23 read the conclusions of that, you'd be hard-pressed not 24 to realise that actually this was -- this guy was sort 25 of only doing it because he was pushed into it because 71 1 of the circumstances there and he was trying to get out 2 of the room, and I think that's what the Snooker Body 3 accepted. 4 I can't remember what the one about Sven Goran 5 Eriksson was about. 6 I think I would echo something that Nick Davies said 7 yesterday. I think on all of these there are difficult 8 judgments, but I think if you go on, I list at the 9 bottom of that page 095 Sophie Anderton taking cocaine, 10 Kate Middleton's uncle in drugs and vice shock, 11 Peaches Geldof doing a drug deal, swimmer Michael Phelps 12 smokes cannabis, Gordon Ramsay cheating on his wife, 13 Joe Calzaghe taking cocaine, Wayne Rooney cheating on 14 his wife. 15 The point I'm making is I don't think we should buy 16 this line that the News of the World put out at the time 17 of their closure that some great campaigning organ that 18 was changing the world for the better, this journalism, 19 was what was being lost to the world. 20 And then the Victoria Beckham agent provocateur was 21 again ... 22 Q. Some of these examples will be put to Mr Mahmood in due 23 course. Thank you for drawing those to our attention. 24 I know there is something that you wish to talk 25 about in some detail, the theme you pick up at the 72 1 bottom of page 21096, "The growth industry: private 2 detectives of journalists". 3 A. Yes. 4 Q. So to give us some context, in the 1980s, what, if 5 anything, was your experience of using private 6 detectives? 7 A. I don't have -- I don't recall any. There may have 8 been, there may have been colleagues that were using 9 them, but I don't recall private detectives. 10 Q. The position now, you refer to various sources, in 11 particular the work or the recruits of 12 Operation Motorman; is that right? 13 A. Yes. 14 Q. Which we're going to start hearing about after your 15 evidence, doubtless. 16 Aside from obvious problems with criminality in 17 Section 55 of the Data Protection Act, are there any 18 broader issues which you have in mind to bring to our 19 attention in relation to the use of private detectives? 20 A. Well, I think it has been -- what that report would 21 suggest has been something of a growth industry and 22 I wonder if again it's partly related to the economics 23 of the newspaper industry, that these are people who can 24 get stories and get information more cheaply and they 25 can do things that journalists should not do or would 73 1 not do or don't know how to do, and I think that what's 2 happened, as I suggested earlier, is that once it's been 3 established that these guys can do all these things and 4 do them fairly cheaply, then they've just become a means 5 by -- as regular as employing a journalist. When you 6 look at the numbers involved, when you look at the sort 7 of money that Mulcaire was earning for what he was 8 doing, that suggests he was giving them a lot of 9 product, which ended up as stories in the newspaper. 10 Again, I think it's important to emphasise 11 Operation Weeting is only about Mulcaire. We don't know 12 all the stories that he got and which have been 13 published and which actually came from phone hacking. 14 We don't know, as we read a newspaper any morning of the 15 week, we don't know the extent to which these have come 16 via private investigators. We don't know if, in the 17 pursuit of those stories, those private investigators 18 have broken the law. And the newspaper doesn't 19 necessarily know. 20 Q. Thank you. 21 A. I say there at 097 that during the whole -- when the 22 whole kind of Andy Coulson thing was at its height and 23 people were constantly asked the question, "Would the 24 editor know?", well they wouldn't necessarily know 25 everything that everybody did in pursuit of a story in 74 1 the newspaper, but they would certainly know that more 2 and more money was being spent on the hiring of private 3 detectives. Did they ever stop and say, "Why are we 4 spending all this money on private detectives"? 5 Probably not, because they know the answer. 6 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: That raises questions of governance 7 and oversight as well, doesn't it? 8 A. Yeah. 9 MR JAY: In relation to the Information Commissioner's 10 report, or his first report, we know there were two, you 11 point out, and others have echoed this, that those 12 reports attracted very little or very limited coverage 13 or political comment. 14 A. That goes back to my point about the media controlling 15 the terms of the debate. They decided collectively this 16 was of no interest, and I also think there was a failure 17 of politics there that no Select Committee thought it 18 was worthy of pursuit, the government didn't think it 19 was worthy of studying in more detail and -- I mean, 20 there was a real problem that was identified there 21 that's only come to light now. That document's been out 22 there published for years. 23 Q. Thank you. Phone hacking, 21099. 24 A. Can I just go back to 098? 25 Q. Of course. 75 1 A. I do think this is really, really important, because 2 newspapers who have been named in this report, several 3 of them have said they've never published stories on 4 illegally obtained information, including Mr Dacre, who 5 said it at the House of Lords committee. His papers are 6 number one and number four in the list of which 7 organisations have the most transactions with the most 8 private detectives trading in private information. 9 That says to me if he can state that confidently to 10 a House of Lords committee, he ought to be able to 11 answer for every single transaction as to what was paid, 12 why it was paid, what those private detectives did and 13 which stories it led to publication in the newspaper, 14 and if he can't do that, he cannot substantiate that 15 statement to a House of Lords committee. 16 Q. Thank you. Phone hacking, 21099. It may be possible to 17 take the evidence you give in relation to Paul McMullan 18 quite shortly since he largely confirmed it. Indeed, he 19 did confirm it. 20 So that we understand the context, you tell us that 21 you were making a short film for the BBC One Show on 22 phone hacking and you interviewed Mr McMullan. Do you 23 remember when that was? 24 A. I don't remember, but I could easily check. 25 Q. Approximately when? 76 1 A. A few months ago. 2 Q. You say some of the remarks he made were not broadcast 3 on the advice of BBC lawyers. 4 A. He named names. 5 Q. Yes. Well, you say as well that you had other meetings 6 with him. All part and parcel of the making of this 7 programme, were they? 8 A. Yeah, also I sort of bumped into him in TV green rooms 9 from time to time. 10 Q. Everything you say has been substantiated by him? 11 A. I thought it was interesting yesterday, I think I heard 12 him rightly that he said it was still going on. 13 Q. Can I ask you about 21100, level with the lower hole 14 punch. Can we just be clear about your evidence in 15 relation to Mr Blunkett. You have no personal knowledge 16 of that, you're simply reporting -- 17 A. No, I'm just reporting what's been reported. 18 Q. Then you refer to Carole Caplin and say you have no 19 evidence of her phone being hacked. 20 A. I should actually interject there that following 21 Mr Staines' publication of my draft evidence, 22 Carole Caplin got in touch with me and said she had been 23 shown evidence of being hacked and said she would be 24 happy to write to the Inquiry about that, if it was 25 helpful. 77 1 Q. Just so that we understand the scope of her evidence, 2 did she give a period of time in respect of which she 3 was told that her phone had been hacked? 4 A. She thought -- she'd been shown several pages of 5 Mulcaire's notes. It's interesting. In my -- I talk 6 about leaking information about the activities and 7 movements, because what we found was with Cherie Blair 8 in particular, she was turning up at places and the 9 press were finding out about it. As I say in my 10 statement, I did at times directly accuse Carole Caplin 11 of tipping off newspapers about what she was up to. 12 I've since apologised to her for that because I now 13 realise I was completely wrong. 14 For example, one of these specific people that 15 Cherie was visiting was in the -- Carole told me was in 16 the notes, and also during the period 2002 to 2003 as 17 well. 18 As I say, she -- it's probably for her to say what 19 she knows, but she did say if you wanted to hear from 20 her, she'd be happy to write to you. 21 Q. Fair enough. The information she obtained in relation 22 to Mulcaire's notes, presumably -- 23 A. From the police. 24 Q. 25 A. Yes. 78 1 Q. As far as you're aware, this related solely to 2 Mr Mulcaire and to the News of the World. It did not 3 extend more widely? 4 A. To what she was saying? 5 Q. Yes. 6 A. She's been shown the Mulcaire notes so far as they 7 relate to her. As I say here, I'd always been -- the 8 Mail did appear to be the paper that ran the most 9 stories about Cherie and Carole. I think the guy's name 10 was Rayner, I can't remember, somebody who was pumping 11 out stories the whole time and I don't know, I have no 12 evidence of the Mail hacking Cherie or Carole's phone or 13 anybody else doing so beyond what she told me at the 14 weekend. 15 Q. I'm sure the Mail will wish it to be made clear through 16 me that if we're talking about Operation Weeting and 17 Carole Caplin being shown the relevant pages of the 18 Mulcaire notebook to the extent to which they relate to 19 her, the almost overwhelming inference is, maybe it's 20 the only inference, that we're talking about phone 21 hacking being instigated by the News of the World and 22 this is not evidence which incriminates the Mirror. 23 Would you accept that? 24 A. The Mail. 25 Q. The Mail. Would you accept that? 79 1 A. It's not for me to accept or not accept that. I can 2 tell you what she said to me. I can also say to you 3 that during various periods of the time that we were in 4 government, we were very, very concerned about how many 5 stories about Cheri and Carole Caplin were getting out 6 to different parts of the media. I have no idea how 7 they were getting out. I now accept they had nothing to 8 do with Carol. Indeed, Carole has subsequently 9 successfully sued the Daily Mail. 10 If you're asking me to say that I would say that the 11 Daily Mail have never done anything untoward, I'm not 12 prepared to say that. I would say I have no evidence of 13 them hacking telephones. 14 Q. The litigation you refer to was not over phone hacking, 15 was it? To your knowledge? 16 A. Which litigation? 17 Q. Carole Caplin's against the Mail. 18 A. It was a recent case where I think it was libel over 19 something she'd said about she was planning to sell 20 a book or something. I don't remember. 21 Q. Would it be fair to summarise your evidence in this way: 22 you know of no evidence which indicates that the Mail 23 were involved in phone hacking, but by way of 24 observation or comment, you're not prepared to say that 25 the Mail were not involved in phone hacking? 80 1 A. Correct. And also, I go back to the point I made 2 earlier. We've only known in relation to Glenn Mulcaire 3 about stories which have ended up in the 4 News of the World. Again, I'm not suggesting that 5 I know, have any evidence of stories that he got through 6 illegal activities ending up in other newspapers, but 7 I don't know that. And along the way through this whole 8 episode, we've constantly been told first of all by 9 News International and then other newspapers that they 10 don't get up to all sorts of stuff and, well, let's just 11 see where all the evidence leads. 12 Q. Proving a negative, though, is -- 13 A. It's difficult. 14 Q. -- often extremely difficult, as indeed it would be in 15 the context of MMR to prove conclusively that there 16 isn't a causal link. 17 A. I agree, I agree. I agree. All I will say is that in 18 relation to not just Carole Caplin and not just Cherie 19 but all of us who were involved in the government at 20 that time, all sorts of stuff got out. Some of it may 21 have got out because people who were within the 22 government were putting it out there. Perhaps. That 23 does happen. But equally, there were all sorts of 24 situations where you'd just sit there scratching your 25 head thinking, "How the hell did that get out?" And 81 1 given what we know now, I have revised my opinion in 2 several regards as to how some stuff may have got out. 3 Q. I think that's as far as I can take that particular 4 issue. 5 A. Yes, but as I said, Carole Caplin said she'd be happy to 6 elaborate if you wanted her to. 7 Q. I would like to ask you about other activities of which 8 you have personal experience. This is the middle of 9 page 21101. Rooting through dustbins. First of all, 10 your own personal experience of that, could you help us? 11 It's not nocturnal foxes, it's people going through your 12 own dustbins. 13 A. I've had the foxes as well, but no, it's people. Yeah, 14 it's people. You wake up in the middle of the night and 15 there will be people going through your bins. It's 16 happened to me on a couple of occasions, it's happened 17 to other people that I know and it happened quite 18 famously to Philip Gould and his ended up mainly being 19 published, I think, in I think it was the Sunday Times. 20 Q. In relation to the late Philip Gould, I've been asked to 21 put this to you, that similar memos also appeared in 22 other papers apart from the Sunday Times. Were you 23 aware of that? 24 A. Yes, I'm sure they -- Philip was a wonderful human 25 being, but not always terrible careful with where he 82 1 left his bags. So they did, they did, but certainly it 2 is known that some were taken from his bins. 3 Q. This is the point which I think I've been asked to 4 explore, because it is stringently denied by the 5 Sunday Times. How is it known that material departed 6 from his bins? 7 A. Oh, I see. Oh, I thought it was -- I thought it was an 8 accepted fact. 9 Q. The general phenomenon of people rooting through bins 10 is -- 11 A. I thought Benji the binman had confessed to this. 12 Q. In this particular case it is disputed -- 13 A. Okay. 14 Q. -- that Philip Gould's memos departed from his bin and 15 I was just enquiring what, if any, the quality of the 16 evidence is to link these memos with the Sunday Times. 17 A. Okay. Well, I thought it was accepted that they had 18 been, but I'm happy to -- I don't know. I don't know. 19 Q. Maybe could you accept in this case -- 20 A. If that's been investigated and established, but 21 I certainly -- I mean, we can't ask Philip now, but he 22 was certainly of the view that these all came through 23 Benji going through his bins and having lots of 24 sellotape and putting them back together again. 25 Q. Okay. What about personal experience of blagging, 83 1 please, Mr Campbell? 2 A. I would say my experience of blagging is small scale. 3 I've had calls from my bank and my telephone company 4 that people have tried to get into my accounts, but -- 5 once or twice, but nothing that's ever -- I don't think 6 anything that's ever led anywhere. 7 Q. Thank you. I'm not going to ask you specifically about 8 what you say at the top of page 211O2 since it comes, 9 I think, from private information which presumably 10 you're not really prepared to talk about. 11 Can I ask you about harassment, though, particularly 12 when you're with children. Can you assist us with any 13 particular examples of that? 14 A. Again, I'm not going to put myself in the same bracket 15 as these sort of A list film stars who get harassed 24 16 hours a day, but I have had experience of, for example, 17 being out with -- I can remember being out with my 18 daughter when she was about nine, being sort of swarmed 19 by a group of photographers, one of them saying, "Don't 20 worry, she won't be in the picture", and I was saying, 21 "How does she know that?" I put that in there because 22 I know you asked me for my personal experience, but I'm 23 not overcomplaining about that. 24 Q. Targeting of relatives -- 25 A. This I do complain about. 84 1 Q. Tell us a bit about this, please, Mr Campbell. 2 A. I think that people in public life who -- you do develop 3 a very, very thick skin. I have a very, very thick 4 skin. I frankly have reached the point where 5 I genuinely don't care what the papers say about me at 6 all. I've never sued a newspaper. I can always answer 7 back, particularly now in the blogosphere and Twitter 8 and all that stuff, but they know they can sort of get 9 at you through your family. 10 It's almost comical now when I read it, but it 11 wasn't comical at the time. As I say, it's the only 12 time I managed to get an immediate instant apology from 13 the Daily Mail was when they wrote a story about the 14 impact that my father's death had had on me, and the 15 reason it was so easy was because of course my father 16 was alive at the time. 17 This is one time where Mr Dacre, when I phoned him 18 up, sort of admitted he didn't have a leg to stand on 19 and I'm glad to say that we got some money and we 20 managed to build new school gates for my kids' school 21 and new playground equipment that Mr Dacre would be 22 pleased to know is still being used by the children, 23 albeit not today, but that is just one example. To be 24 fair, they apologised. 25 Q. Yes. 85 1 A. Again, it's interesting the background to that because 2 what had happened there was that somebody, obviously 3 with not much better to do with his time, decided to 4 write a book about me while I was in Downing Street, and 5 the Mail thought they were going to serialise it, but 6 the guy worked for the Daily Express so the Express 7 said, "No, you have to serialise it here". 8 So Paul Dacre was miffed at this, that he went back 9 to the Express, so he put together a team of people to 10 pretend to write a book which they put together in a few 11 days, so it was a serialisation of a book which didn't 12 exist which on day one talked about the impact of my 13 father's death. 14 Like I say, if you get a very thick skin, as I've 15 got, it sort of doesn't matter, but your kind of parents 16 and your brothers and nephews and nieces, this is not 17 their world so that can actually have quite a profound 18 impact. 19 Q. Yes, and you point out that it may also be in breach of 20 the PCC code on intrusion? 21 A. I think there is -- again if you go to the PCC code it's 22 clear that people should not be targeted because of 23 their connection to individuals in the public eye. You 24 heard from Charlotte Church about her father's sex life 25 being deemed to be newsworthy because she was famous. 86 1 Why was he famous? Because he's the father of somebody 2 famous. 3 I point to an example recently in the Mail on Sunday 4 which wrote a story which put two and two together and 5 made several thousand. I made a large donation -- not 6 that large -- I made what was deemed at this stage to be 7 a large donation to the Labour Party. One of my sons 8 works for the Labour Party because he wants to work for 9 the Labour Party and he applied for a job and got that 10 job. They do a story about nepotism, suggesting he got 11 the job because I made a donation, ie corruption. 12 Again, did I do anything about it? No. You sort 13 of -- you move on. But I just make that point that for 14 a lot of people -- and I'm making no complaint 15 politically when I say this -- the current government 16 I think are not suffering this to the same extent, but 17 they will, unless the press changes. There will come a 18 point where they do the same to them. 19 Q. I am asked to put to you some questions in relation to 20 this Mail Online article. It's under tab 7 at the very 21 back and the piece is headlined "Nepotism row as 22 Campbell's son is given a plum job with Labour." It 23 opens with this: 24 "Labour has been accused of nepotism after handing 25 a plum job to the son of former Downing Street spin 87 1 doctor Alastair Campbell." 2 What they're doing here is merely reporting what 3 a Tory MP was saying. If you go to the top of page 2 of 4 4: 5 "Mr Harrington, Tory MP for Watford, said last night 6 the appointment of Mr Campbell's son smacked of 7 cronyism", and then a direct quote: 8 "This is the sort of nepotism we have come to expect 9 from the Labour Party under Ed Miliband." 10 Is there really a difficulty in the Mail reporting 11 faithfully what a political opponent of yours is saying? 12 A. No. I'd be very surprised if -- I mean, you put that as 13 though Mr Harrington has sort of made the issue. The 14 Mail on Sunday has made the issue and gone and found 15 a tame Tory MP to say what they want him to say. Again 16 that's part of what newspapers do, I used to do it 17 myself in certain circumstances. I'm merely making the 18 point that they would know that that story would annoy 19 me more than most of the bile that they write about me 20 whenever they do because the stuff about me, I genuinely 21 couldn't give a damn, but they know that bringing your 22 family into stories like this -- and again, I go back to 23 the point we talked about Philip Gould a moment ago, 24 when his daughter applied to try and get a Labour 25 candidature and the press went into absolute kill mode 88 1 on a 22, 23-year-old young woman who genuinely, out of 2 a genuine political conviction, wants to try and -- 3 I think she'll carry on and do it, but I think a lot of 4 young people, if they go through that experience, 5 they're never go to put their head above the parapet 6 again. 7 Q. Finally in relation to this piece in the Mail, although 8 it is put at the end, you see the bottom of page 2 of 4: 9 "The Labour spokesman last night denied any 10 suggestion of nepotism and insisted that [your son] was 11 appointed on merit. He said he was given the job which 12 was advertised because he was the best candidate. The 13 idea that he got the job because of his father was plain 14 wrong." 15 So that's a forthright denial. 16 A. I said that. 17 Q. Uselessness of the PCC and what might replace it, 18 Mr Campbell, 21103. You make a large number of points 19 here. Can we try and summarise them, please, again in 20 your own words, what are the bullet points which set out 21 your position in relation to the PCC? 22 A. That it's failed. That it's failed because this is 23 a body that has been of the press and for the press. 24 That it's had a succession of chairmen and one 25 chairwoman who have been appointed largely as political 89 1 fixers operating in the interests of the press rather 2 than the public interest. 3 There are other failings that it has which are not 4 necessarily their fault. For example, the fact that 5 they feel constrained from investigating what I would 6 call themes. Again, Mr Peppiatt I think had one 7 example -- was it Mr Peppiatt? -- where you have to have 8 a specific complainant who is affected by a story, so it 9 means if generally you think -- I refer in my statement 10 to Islamophobia. There were points at which I think 11 I raised with two PCC chairs, "Look, this is becoming an 12 issue, don't you think you should do or say something 13 about it" and they said, "Somebody has to complain". So 14 an individual Muslim has to say "That paper is being 15 Islamophobic and it's affecting me as an individual". 16 So that I think has to change. 17 And I just think this entire make-up has been wrong 18 from the start. I understand why it's like it is, 19 because this was the last chance saloon that led to the 20 last chance at self-regulation. So the funding, 21 PressBof, it's entirely funded by the press. Again you 22 could say that's a good thing because it means public 23 money is not being spent on this, but it makes it 24 a vested interest. 25 And then these people who have senior positions -- 90 1 I say in my statement that I would -- I mean, it 2 operated sort of like a gentlemen's club. "Let's see 3 how we can fix this and keep that quiet and calm this 4 down" and the editors, who are on the Editors' Code 5 Committee, they may not be sitting in judgment on 6 individual cases, but they have huge power within the 7 organisation, and in my view, in the body that replaces 8 the PCC, there should be no live current media 9 representatives involved in it at all. 10 Q. May I deal with a few isolated points before I ask you 11 to address the future. One isolated point relates to 12 what you say in the middle of page 21103: 13 "There were 22,000 complaints that the reporting of 14 the death of the singer Stephen Gately in the Mail by 15 Jan Moir violated parts of the code that deal with 16 grief, accuracy, discrimination and homophobia." 17 The outcome was that the PCC rejected the complaint; 18 is that correct? 19 A. Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Let me just read paragraph 12, clause 1 20 of the discrimination -- of the PCC code: 21 "The press must avoid prejudicial or pejorative 22 reference to an individual's race, colour, religion, 23 gender, sexual orientation or to any physical or mental 24 illness or disability." 25 Now, they have to make judgments, and I know what 91 1 judgment I would have made on the basis of that. 2 Q. I suppose that doesn't mean, though, Mr Campbell, that 3 the judgment of the PCC was wrong, since the PCC in this 4 instance did investigate the complaint and found that 5 there wasn't a breach of the code; is that correct? 6 A. They did find that, and what I would say is that's a 7 point that I think can still be argued. Now, they made 8 the judgment. My point is they tend to make judgments 9 that favour the press and they put the press interest 10 ahead of the public interest, and I think they've done 11 that virtually through the entirety of their existence. 12 That is not to say they don't do some good work, 13 they haven't done some good work, particularly on 14 mediation and we always felt them helpful in relation to 15 the then Prime Minister's children, but on these bigger 16 questions that we've been talking about, I think the PCC 17 has utterly failed. 18 Q. I understand your evidence on the bigger question, the 19 meta issues, if you like, but on this micro issue, would 20 you accept that without seeing the article in question, 21 without seeing the text of the PCC adjudication, which 22 we just haven't printed off but we could examine if 23 necessary, it's a bit difficult to form a judgment 24 whether they called it right or wrong? 25 A. I agree. I can give you my opinion, they've made 92 1 a judgment and I do accept they have difficult judgments 2 to make. 3 Q. Okay. 4 A. I alluded to this one because I sort of felt it was one 5 where if you look at the words of that paragraph of the 6 code, you kind of think it's an open-and-shut case. 7 I could give you other examples of what have been 8 accepted as open-and-shut cases which ultimately did not 9 lead to a ruling in the complainant's favour. 10 Q. You tell us that when you were in Downing Street you 11 were constantly told by PCC people that the three people 12 who counted in the PCC were the chairman, Les Hinton and 13 Paul Dacre. The PCC people you're referring to, can you 14 tell us a bit about those? You don't have to name them. 15 A. The chairman. The chairman would make no bones about 16 the fact that part of the -- you know, they were trying 17 to keep us happy, as the government, they were trying to 18 keep the media barons happy and they were sort of fixing 19 between the two and I was always conscious of the fact 20 that they were sort of -- you know, these were very, 21 very important people. I'm not suggesting that they sat 22 in judgment on cases, but in terms of what the PCC was 23 and its direction and its strategy and so forth, these 24 were very -- these were players. 25 Q. Presumably they were also telling you that there was 93 1 a triangle, they also had to keep the consumers happy? 2 A. Yes, and to be fair, I think a lot of time, particularly 3 in relation to the work they did in the regions, that 4 was where the bulk of their work went on, but I think at 5 the national level it was much more on what you call 6 these meta issues, which I think they handled very, very 7 badly. 8 Q. Is your point that a body dedicated to keeping people 9 happy, indeed certain different constituencies happy, 10 may well fail in achieving the right objective balance 11 between complex issues? 12 A. Yes. That's why I would recommend that any replacement 13 body, obviously it has to be set up by Parliament, with 14 parliamentary approval, but there should be no political 15 interest on it and there should be no media interest on 16 it. 17 Q. I'm going to come to the future in a very short moment, 18 Mr Campbell. Can I ask you though about a paragraph at 19 the bottom of the page, which now reads: 20 "On virtually all the occasions we resorted to the 21 PCC ..." 22 I think you've been shown some questions by one core 23 participant. These came to you, I think, over the 24 weekend? 25 A. Yes, and I said that I had forgotten about the cases 94 1 where the PCC did rule in favour in relation to the 2 children, and I do accept that in relation to the 3 Blairs' children, they were perfectly good. I'm not 4 sure Cherie would agree with that, by the way, but 5 I think they were okay. 6 Q. So we can be precise about it, the pronoun "we" in the 7 sentence "we resorted to the PCC", that relates to 8 either the Blairs directly or you on behalf of the 9 Blairs? 10 A. Or on behalf of others in government. There were lots 11 of instances where we discussed with the PCC the 12 possibility of taking up a complaint with the PCC, but 13 then didn't take it forward either because there were 14 other things to do and life was too short and there 15 weren't enough hours in the day, or because, in one 16 instance, for example, where my partner took a case to 17 the PCC, spent six months being told by the PCC that she 18 had an open-and-shut case and by the end of it being 19 told that they couldn't rule because it was a question 20 of interpretation. And you were dealing with that the 21 whole -- as soon as you got into it, you reach a point 22 pretty quickly where you're sorting banging your head 23 against a brick wall. 24 Q. Three upheld complaints were, I think, between 1999 and 25 2001 related to two of the Blair children; is that 95 1 right? 2 A. Yes. And again, it's absolutely explicit in the PCC 3 code, but it's broken fairly regularly, that children 4 should be entitled to have an education without any 5 intrusion from the press. 6 Q. I've also been asked to draw attention to one complaint, 7 which came from Number 10, which related to stories 8 about the Prime Minister seeking, I quote, to muscle in 9 on the Queen Mother's funeral arrangements, and those 10 must have been in June 2002, perhaps slightly earlier. 11 A. Mm-hm. 12 Q. Do you accept that the complaint was withdrawn because 13 a memo from Black Rod himself supported the reports of 14 various newspapers which had covered the row? 15 A. No, I don't accept that. I accept that Black Rod had 16 clearly been involved in the story. The story remains 17 untrue. But what his intervention did was make it -- 18 the PCC come to us and say, "Look, this is putting us in 19 a very, very difficult position, so we'd really, really 20 be happy if you withdrew the complaint" and I go back to 21 the point I made earlier. You just give up, you move 22 on. The story wrong, the story was inaccurate, but it 23 became clear to us that they had some sort of source who 24 had said whatever he'd said to them, they'd written 25 whatever they wrote, it remains false, but it became 96 1 clear to us from the PCC, it was the chairman himself 2 who came to see me and said, "Look, this is just a bit 3 tricky", so we said, "Okay, forget it, we'll move on", 4 and that's the way they operate. 5 Q. For whatever reason, the complaint there was withdrawn 6 by you; is that right? 7 A. It was, yes. That was so the PCC didn't -- the PCC 8 asked us not to put them in a position where they had to 9 make a judgment. 10 Q. You say at the top of page 21104: 11 "It is also a weakness that the PCC cannot itself 12 mount investigations or step in publicly." 13 I'm asked to put this to you, that Lord Wakeham did 14 step in publicly on the occasion when Mr Blair's son was 15 found drunk in the street, if you remember that 16 occasion. Lord Wakeham was asked to by you; is that 17 correct? 18 A. That may well be correct. But when I talk about 19 intervening -- Lord Wakeham and other chairs did lots of 20 that, of talking to newspapers at the time stories were 21 alive. That's not what I mean by intervention. What 22 I mean by intervention is, for example -- and may I say, 23 in that case, I'd spoken to the Prime Minister as soon 24 as we were informed -- and we still don't know how that 25 one got out either, let me say. I'd spoken to the 97 1 Prime Minister and said, "Look, he's been found drunk, 2 he's obviously been drinking under age, we could try and 3 make a fuss about this and say he's under age and he's 4 covered by the PCC code" and the Prime Minister said, 5 "No, I think we just have to take it on the chin", so my 6 first contact with the PCC was to tell them, we will 7 accept there's a kind of public interest in there, we're 8 not going to make a fuss, but it might be helpful if you 9 have a word with them not to go completely berserk about 10 this." If they call it intervention, fine. 11 What will I mean by intervention is when you have 12 something like the Madeleine McCann case and the PCC 13 must be sitting there seeing their code broken hour by 14 hour, day by day, and they sit there and watch it 15 happen. That's what I mean by intervention, that they 16 should be able to step in and say publicly, "Hold on 17 a minute, here is the code and here's where you're 18 breaking it". Never did it. 19 Q. Thank you. I think I've covered all the questions 20 others have wanted me to put, but I'm just checking 21 because I wanted to cover them all before we looked to 22 the future because you may have an important 23 contribution here, Mr Campbell. 24 You start dealing with it in the longest paragraph 25 on page 21104, don't you? 98 1 A. Mm-hm. 2 Q. Can we pick out some of the themes You have adumbrated 3 some of them already, that the PCC or whatever body 4 replaces it should be independent of government and 5 totally independent of the press. Are you saying by 6 that that in your view there should be no press 7 experience, no press presence? 8 A. No, not at all. 9 Q. Can you elaborate on that then? 10 A. I think there would have to be press experience and 11 press presence, but I don't think you could have, as you 12 have now, serving editors, serving newspaper executives, 13 currently in their positions, in senior positions on the 14 regulatory body. So I'm not saying there should be no 15 people with media experience -- and also, this thing 16 about independence it is very, very difficult, because 17 ultimately the government does have to make -- when this 18 Inquiry reports, the government will have to take 19 a position on any legislative change and then Parliament 20 would have to endorse it. 21 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: There's absolutely no question about 22 it. 23 A. Yes. 24 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It's been suggested that I'm doing 25 that. I'm doing nothing of the sort. 99 1 A. No. 2 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I am merely going to provide a report 3 to the government and to Parliament for them to 4 decide -- 5 A. Exactly. 6 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- what, if anything, should happen 7 next. 8 A. Yes. And you can guarantee that when government sets up 9 independent bodies, there's always an extent to which 10 people say it can't be truly independent because the 11 government created it, but that's just our system, you 12 have to live with that. But I'm saying it should be -- 13 once it's established, government should not be able to 14 interfere with it and nor should existing media 15 organisations. 16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: There's just one issue about that 17 which I'd like to have your view about, and that is the 18 risk that in an ever-changing market, somebody who's out 19 of the picture, in other words somebody who no longer 20 has to work within the day-to-day constraints of what's 21 going on, will comparatively quickly lose the 22 all-important up-to-date knowledge. Do you see the 23 point I'm asking you about? 24 A. I do, but I think you have -- there are lots of 25 regulatory systems that operate in other walks of life 100 1 where part of their job is to stay abreast of change and 2 to stay abreast of themes. And it may be you could have 3 a system where, within each newspaper, there are 4 representatives who report to that body and keep them up 5 to date with what's going on. 6 You see, I think -- I agreed with an awful lot of 7 what Nick Davies said about this yesterday. I think the 8 good journalists, who are probably still the majority, 9 certainly outside the kind of small circle of newspapers 10 we've been talking about, if you go into the regions and 11 the local newspapers and other serious national 12 newspapers, the majority of journalists, who are good 13 journalists, actually have nothing to fear from this at 14 all. The people who are fighting hardest for the last, 15 last, last-chance saloon, are the ones who got drunker 16 and drunker than the ones who have gone before because 17 they are terrified of losing their ability to do the 18 sort of journalism that they've been doing over the last 19 decade or so. 20 MR JAY: Then you refer to the need for such a body to have 21 real power. Various people have said that. The power 22 to fine owners, editors and journalists. Power to order 23 corrections and right of reply, and a body to 24 pre-adjudicate on privacy cases. If I may say so, 25 you're not the first person to suggest that. 101 1 A. No. Again, this is not -- I say in here this should not 2 be seen as a sort of one-way drive against the press. 3 I think that the -- some of the case law that exists on 4 confidence and defamation works against the press and 5 the public interest. Trafigura was a very, very good 6 example of that. There is still -- I was astonished to 7 discover when researching for this, there are still 8 documents relating to the thalidomide cases which have 9 not been published and the defence is confidentiality. 10 So I think there are some areas where existing caselaw 11 works against the press and the public interest, but 12 I think in terms of the -- you know, I'm not a fan of 13 injunctions and superinjunctions, I think they're 14 a very, very blunt instrument, and again I agree with 15 Nick Davies that if there was somewhere some sort of 16 arbitrating body, independent of government and the 17 press, that journalists could go to in confidence and 18 that victims or subjects of stories could go to as well 19 and say, "This is happening; if this is pursued with, do 20 you see a public interest justification?" I don't think 21 it would be that difficult to set up. 22 Q. You talk about the Trafigura case, but the thalidomide 23 case, my understanding is that the injunction was upheld 24 by the House of Lords in 1973 or 1974. There was then 25 protracted litigation in the European Court of Human 102 1 Rights where the Sunday Times eventually won in 1979, 2 but part of the relief -- or no part of the relief which 3 the European Court of Human Rights granted was to 4 reverse the injunctions. So, in other words, they made 5 a finding on Article 10 but the domestic injunction 6 remains in place. 7 A. Yes. 8 Q. I think what we learned from that is that the outcome 9 would be different now given that Article 10 is part of 10 domestic law by the route of the Human Rights Act 1998. 11 Can I ask you, though, further about the PCC. 12 You've touched on this. You would like a power to 13 investigate without there being an individual complaint? 14 A. Mm-hm. 15 Q. We can see that. And then you're also suggesting that 16 there should be an annual report. 17 A. Mm-hm. 18 Q. One can see the possible utility of that. 19 A. I say in my submission that the real tragedy for the 20 press and good journalists is that the PCC code is -- 21 it's a very good code, it's a perfectly good piece of 22 word: accuracy, opportunity to reply, privacy, 23 harassment, it covers the whole lot, hospitals, victims 24 of sexual assault, discrimination, children. Had it 25 been adhered to, I don't think we'd be where we are 103 1 today, and I think it's a perfectly good basis. 2 But I think what an annual report would do -- assume 3 there's a new body and there's a new code, or a revised 4 code, but it's the basis of any new code of conduct, 5 then to have an annual report where the regulatory body 6 actually analyses the conduct of each newspaper against 7 the code to which they have all adhered. I mean, 8 newspapers love publishing league tables about schools 9 and hospitals and everything else. You could have 10 a league table of newspapers to see which adheres most 11 closely to its own code, and I think actually that would 12 be -- would help drive up standards in the direction 13 that they should be driven. 14 Q. Thank you. Then you have a suggestion on the next page, 15 21106, looking at the tax status of newspaper owners. 16 What are you suggesting there? I imagine you're 17 suggesting that newspaper proprietors, if they own 18 a newspaper here, should pay taxes as domiciled 19 individuals. Is that what you're saying? 20 A. The point I'm making here is that -- it goes back to 21 something I said earlier -- senior owners and editors 22 now, they are players as well as spectators and people 23 talk about their power. As we've seen, it's a pretty 24 unaccountable form of power, but it is a form of power. 25 And why is Rupert Murdoch an American citizen? Because 104 1 he could not take on the interests that he's developed 2 in the United States without being an American citizen. 3 Why are the Financial Times currently having difficulty 4 getting into the market that they want to get into in 5 India? Because they have similar systems. 6 So I'm simply saying that, given they have this 7 power, influence upon the body politic and public life, 8 then it doesn't seem unreasonable to me that they should 9 be fully contributing citizens of the country in which 10 they're making so much money and having so much 11 untrammeled influence. 12 As I understand it, Harmsworth at the Mail is 13 a non-dom, the Barclays are non-doms, Rupert Murdoch, 14 American. There's this very sort of opaque tax 15 structure around the world. I put it out there for 16 others to consider. 17 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Is that achievable as a matter of 18 practice? 19 A. Well, the last government legislated so that you 20 couldn't make major donations to a political party if 21 you were -- if you remember, Mrs Thatcher used to rely 22 on businessmen in Hong Kong? Now you have to be 23 registered here on the Electoral Register and for tax 24 purposes. MPs, to be a member of parliament, to be 25 a candidate in a general election, you have to be 105 1 registered for tax purposes in the UK. So it can 2 certainly be done. 3 Now, I accept, I do accept that the media is now 4 a globalised industry and that you don't necessarily 5 want to damage our own media interests for economic 6 reasons. I just think, though, that when you're talking 7 about a power, it is a power, it's unaccountable, it's 8 unchecked, I think this is something that Parliament 9 should think about. 10 MR JAY: Thank you. Breakdown of contempt of court laws. 11 Try and take this quite shortly, Mr Campbell. You 12 rightly point out the Christopher Jefferies case. 13 A. Yeah, I wrote this before I realised he was coming here, 14 so you've sort of covered all this, really. But I do 15 think there's a point about training. I think a lot of 16 journalists today are not actually trained to be 17 journalists. So if you were to ask them what the 18 contempt of court laws were and how they related to how 19 they're supposed to cover, I think a lot of them 20 wouldn't necessarily know. And this matters because of 21 the point I made about the rhythms changing. You see it 22 on television the whole time. Something happens, 23 breaking news, "Let's go to the reporter, what can you 24 tell us?" And regularly you see them in breach of the 25 contempt of court laws. 106 1 Q. Is your observation directed to some failing in the law 2 itself or is it directed to some failing in people 3 complying with the law and understanding what it means? 4 A. I think it's compliance. 5 Q. Yes, okay. 6 A. Yes. And to be fair, I thought the Attorney General, he 7 took a couple of cases recently and that may change 8 things a bit. 9 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: We certainly heard at the seminars, 10 I think, from some of the professors of journalism that 11 they do indeed treat issues of ethics and law seriously 12 in their courses. 13 MR JAY: Nonaggression pacts between newspapers. You're 14 suggesting there that they keep off each other's private 15 lives. Is that your inference, that may well be right, 16 or is there direct evidence you can assist us with? 17 A. I do have knowledge, but it's not something I would like 18 to throw out here, but I do have knowledge of that, 19 yeah. 20 Q. So we won't. At page 21109, you refer to nepotism being 21 rife within the media, a number of journalists who write 22 articles because they receive gifts or favours. Can you 23 help us about gifts or favours? Do you have personal 24 knowledge of that? 25 A. Again, Richard Peppiatt talked about this a little bit 107 1 yesterday. Just read the consumer sections and just ask 2 yourself why often that part of the product is much more 3 positive and favourable in what it's writing about than 4 the rest of the papers. Answer is because they're being 5 given them, the handbags and the clothes and the 6 holidays and everything else that they write about. 7 Q. Mr Campbell, the section, "Proprietorial interference, 8 including in breach of legal undertakings", it's quite 9 short in this statement. That's not by way of 10 criticism. It might well be a big point in module three 11 of our Inquiry, so I'm going to leave it alone. 12 The herd and bullying culture -- 13 A. I do think there's one point that is relevant to this -- 14 Q. Okay. 15 A. -- and that's the extent to which editors and 16 journalists will say they're not under influence when 17 they're interviewed or they're here, they're not under 18 influence of the proprietor, but it's a myth, it's 19 a myth. And I give one example: the Sun's stance on 20 Europe and the fact that they all share that stance, it 21 comes from the top. 22 Q. The herd and bullying culture. This section is quite 23 general again. You do cover some controversial matters, 24 if I may say so, namely circumstances surrounding 25 Dr Kelly's death, although you're quite entitled to 108 1 point out what the conclusions of Lord Hutton were. 2 A. I do think that's a good example. In fact, the last 3 time I was in this room was for that Inquiry. 4 Q. Yes. 5 A. Which concluded, as it did, and in my view reached the 6 only conclusion that the evidence could lead it to, and 7 where the judge said, "Even if it transpires there are 8 no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, the story 9 is untrue", thousands and thousands of times it has now 10 been reported, broadcast and published that the story 11 was right. The story wasn't. And interestingly, the 12 journalist who wrote it, utterly dishonestly, far from 13 that being in this profession something where you are 14 then, as it were, unemployable, has gone on rather from 15 strength to strength. So I see it as a symbol of what 16 this culture is. 17 Q. Then you refer to the treatment of the phone hacking 18 story in the Guardian, commentary on Mr Justice Eady, 19 commentary on Mr Justice Nicholl. I think we'll take 20 that as read and ask you, please, to cover the last 21 point, "The chance for a free press worth the name". 22 You've really adumbrated this point already, but as it's 23 at the end of your evidence, let's have it again, 24 Mr Campbell. 25 A. Well, I say at the start of my submission that it's -- 109 1 I come at this from three different points of 2 experience, I guess, having been a journalist, having 3 been working in politics and in the government, as it 4 were, at the front line of trying to manage this new 5 media and this new media landscape, and also somebody 6 who's had a considerable amount of media attention 7 myself. I think all three have come together to give me 8 this view that I have, but I do emphasise I totally 9 believe in a free press and I think there are a lot of 10 good journalists in Britain and I think the press should 11 be difficult and they should give politicians a hard 12 time and judges a hard time and the rest of it, but 13 I think we've reached a point where we have to ask that 14 what the press that is being defended by those most 15 robustly defending some of the practices we've talked 16 about, what that free press has become and the damage 17 it's doing to our culture, to our public life, to our 18 public services, to individuals and organisations, some 19 of the individuals you've seen, some of the 20 organisations you probably will, and I think that phone 21 hacking is the issue that has brought this to a head, 22 but I don't think it's actually the most important 23 issue. 24 Q. Thank you. 25 A. I think there are bigger themes here that are being 110 1 brought out and I think it's fascinating the extent to 2 which, now that the media aren't controlling the terms 3 of this debate, the public are already shifting on this. 4 And I've seen plenty of evidence of that in the last 5 couple of weeks, because this is being followed pretty 6 closely and I think the public are getting a mirror on 7 a world they didn't really know that much about, and 8 I think the more they see, to go back to the reason you 9 called me when I said if the public knew the truth about 10 the way sections of the media operate, they'd be 11 horrified, they now do know the truth and they are 12 horrified and they are demanding that Parliament does 13 something about it. 14 MR JAY: Thank you very much, Mr Campbell. 15 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Could I raise an entirely separate 16 issue, which I've described on several occasions as the 17 elephant in the room, and that is the Internet? 18 A. Yes. 19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: And the impact of not merely the 24/7 20 news, which you've spoken about, but of the utterly or 21 potentially unregulated mechanism whereby everybody can 22 be a journalist and whereas you could write a letter to 23 your friend 30 years ago, now you can put it out on the 24 web in a very, very public way and it can go viral and 25 go all over the place. And the problem of seeking to 111 1 look at these three mechanisms for communication, 2 broadcasting where you have a regulated system with 3 Ofcom, the press where you presently have the PCC, and 4 the Internet outwith what the broadcasters of the press 5 do on the Internet, but from others, where there is no 6 such regulation, and maybe it's not possible to have 7 any. If you have any views on that subject, I'd be very 8 interested to hear them. 9 A. Well I don't have a formed view, but I think you're 10 right to worry about it and you're right to realise it's 11 part of that debate but I still think we're at that 12 stage where television, radio and the newspapers are 13 still the most dominant forces within the overall media 14 debate. It's changing. 15 So I think that if you manage to get systems of 16 transparency for the people at the top of the industry, 17 and accountability, where the public have proper 18 information about the way that the media is operating 19 and you have a system of regulation that genuinely 20 serves the public interest, you'll drive standards up in 21 the broadcast media and in newspapers. That will have 22 an impact, I think. Because the public aren't stupid. 23 The public are very, very good at working this stuff 24 out. And there's lots and lots of traffic every day on 25 Twitter that is complete nonsense, people telling lies, 112 1 people talking nonsense. The public sort of work it out 2 and I think you can be quite trusting of them in their 3 assessment -- 4 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: It's not so much Twitter that 5 concerns me -- 6 A. It's the blogosphere. 7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: I say concerns, but I'm simply 8 conscious of the point. 9 A. Right, but you see, a very good example that Mr Caplan 10 made a point of this when he was making a submission to 11 you about whether or not to publish my evidence. He 12 made the point that the blogosphere, because it had been 13 published on Paul Staines' blog, was very alive with it, 14 the Internet was very alive with it, but actually its 15 impact wasn't that huge because the newspapers took 16 a view, "We're not going to go down that route", and it 17 sort of faded. 18 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes -- 19 A. Fairly quickly. 20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: -- Mr Caplan's point, which 21 I considered was a legitimate point, which caused me to 22 reverse my original view on the topic, was that he would 23 not have the opportunity to respond to what you were 24 saying because you hadn't yet said it. 25 A. No, but my point is I'm actually supporting something he 113 1 said here. His point was that even though it was out 2 there -- it's a bit like the Ryan Giggs case, where the 3 press couldn't understand why once the injunction had 4 been broken in relation to Ryan Giggs' private life, why 5 therefore couldn't the newspapers write about it? If 6 I remember rightly, the judge said just because it's out 7 there and some people may know about it does not mean 8 that further harm can't be done by more widespread 9 ventilation. 10 I suppose what I'm saying in a long-winded way is if 11 you get the newspaper regulation right, I think that 12 will have an impact on the Internet as it develops, but 13 I think there may come a point, and it may become 14 impossible, there may come a point where you have to 15 apply some sort of if not regulation but standards which 16 can be applied to the Internet as well. 17 I mean, it surely won't be that long before there 18 will be a defamation case arising from something that 19 is, say, said on Twitter. It's published. I don't know 20 where the law stands on that now. But I think that will 21 develop. But I think this Inquiry is about, because of 22 phone hacking, because of the conduct of newspapers, 23 it's looking at the system of newspaper regulation. 24 I think get that right, and actually some of the other 25 stuff ought to fall into place. 114 1 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you very much. 2 On this topic of the press and the public, which is 3 what we've been focusing on this morning -- I appreciate 4 there are bits of your statement that deal with other 5 things -- is there anything else that you would like to 6 add or that you don't feel you've had the opportunity to 7 expound upon as you wished? 8 A. No. I think I've -- I think my statement is there. 9 I stand by what it says. And I've said what I think you 10 might consider in relation to recommendations, and 11 hopefully you'll get lots of other ideas from lots of 12 other people. 13 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you very much. You will 14 appreciate that come next spring, the terms of reference 15 are sufficiently wide to require me to look at other 16 relationships as well, and I'm coming on to the press 17 and politicians. I hope you won't mind if we ask you 18 for your assistance again. 19 A. I'd be more than happy. 20 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you very much indeed. 21 A. Thank you. 22 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you. Right. 23 Discussion re timetable 24 MR JAY: Sir, may I raise some -- 25 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Yes. 115 1 MR JAY: -- timetabling points. The next witness will be 2 Mr Owens. He has a train he needs to catch at a certain 3 time. I hope we'll be able to fit his evidence in. 4 I estimate it will take about 90 minutes. There are 5 continuing issues in relation to Mr Lewis's further 6 evidence. It may or may not be possible to call him 7 this afternoon. I suspect it won't be, but we'll keep 8 his under consideration. 9 There is a bigger problem in relation to Mr Thomas, 10 who is unwell, and we are going to make enquiries over 11 lunch as to how to deal with his evidence, but it may 12 not be possible to hear from him tomorrow or the 13 following day, but I'm going to ask to see what can be 14 done next week. 15 His evidence will have to be taken before Christmas, 16 there is no question of seeking to accommodate him in 17 the new year. There will not be time. This is the 18 appropriate time to consider it. 19 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: There's no question. Some of the 20 material can be extracted through others who were 21 involved in "What price privacy", can't it? Because he 22 still has to give evidence. 23 MR JAY: He is the star witness, and my current view is that 24 the core material should be extracted through him. The 25 other two witnesses I'm not saying are peripheral, but 116 1 they are less central to the narrative. 2 If necessary, we may have to sit on Friday next 3 week, but I'd really like to deal with Mr Thomas next 4 week because we're going to run out of time the week 5 beginning 12 December and certainly the week beginning 6 19 December. 7 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: All right. 8 MR JAY: I give that warning now. 9 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: You can do some work on that and 10 everybody can consult their diaries. We're going to 11 have to be flexible on these things. 12 MR JAY: Yes. 13 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Right. Thank you. 14 MR JAY: We will update you informally just before we start 15 at 2 o'clock. 16 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Mr Caplan, I'm sorry to ruin your 17 short adjournment, but I had believed that the sentence 18 about which I particularly expressed concern had been 19 removed. If it hadn't been removed, then I do think 20 it's an urgent matter. 21 MR CAPLAN: Yes. I hope to have a conversation over the 22 luncheon adjournment. 23 LORD JUSTICE LEVESON: Thank you. That's why I said I was 24 disturbing your adjournment. Thank you very much. 25 2 o'clock. 117 1 (12.57 pm) 2 (The luncheon adjournment) 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 118