Thank you.

This is probably not very helpful. I have been dragged into this, it is not my ...

You suggest it. I hear what you suggest and I don't believe a word of it.

Are you giving evidence or just putting stuff?

The facts that they accepted that this was just a couple of rogue journalists. They didn't send -- look, at the end of the day all of the information that ultimately the Guardian published, all of the information that News International was shamed into presenting, the police could have gone ...

The facts.

Mine is that the police had no enthusiasm to deal with this. They had a cozy little relationship with the Murdoch press and they certainly weren't going to put it at risk for any of this stuff.

I think it is -- you obviously have your story and I have mine, right.

Well, I will. The idea that there is a choice between dealing with terrorist incidents and therefore not dealing with this is just a pathetic cop out about resources that as a Home Office minister I am fully entitled to tonk ad verilium(?). But I appreciate somebody has to do ...

Don't worry, I am intelligent enough to know where you are getting to.

Definitely.

You have had the editor of the Guardian; did you challenge him on the point?

Look, at the end of the day, when the editor of the Guardian says that the then Metropolitan Police Commissioner went to see him and told him that he had got it all wrong and to desist, closely to be followed then by DAC Yates, I think all of us ...

Because I spent half a dozen years as a Home Office minister rubbing shoulders with the police. I think I know the nature of the beast better than most people who haven't had those exciting experiences.

Well, it depends who you mean by "anybody else". I am probably better educated than a lot of people and have a lot more experience. So am I in a better position? I don't know. I'm not quite sure where this is getting us.

The point is when someone makes a decision --

Well, I mean, comment is free.

I don't know what you mean by "first-hand knowledge"; I read the papers, I listen to -- how would I sit in Mr Hayman's lap while he decided not to do anything about --

So I understand.

Thank you.

Yes. That was always the issue, actually, about satellite television and why it was better to have them operating from here. Although I don't think, and again I am relying on my rusty memory, that didn't stop government trying to legislate for unacceptable content on satellite broadcasting. Of ...

Yes, I know, because, of course, some of the -- I mean, the most difficult to handle sources of news are those which are not newspapers as such, but where someone specialises -- you know, I don't single him out because I have anything particularly against him, I only single him ...

I can't deny that my thinking is probably still very much rooted in yesterday in terms of the newspapers. I think it is one of those questions -- one used to say when seeking refuge from impossible to answer points in the House of Commons "I need notice of that ...

I agree. I think the one thing that I don't think anybody quite anticipated, certainly no one in the legislative business, was quite how influential the Internet would be. I suppose in a way my strong advice would be to opt out of that one. There is enough problems ...

Well, compulsory -- I agree there is a definitional basis, but I think it would have to be anybody who publishes a newspaper.

Absolutely. I just don't understand how anyone can defend the present press complaints set-up, where a major newspaper publisher has opted out for, what, two years now? I also think that although it's ingenious my old colleague David Hunt talking about a contractual basis for compliance, what happens ...

Yes.

Well, I think that -- I think that there is not much wrong, actually, with the basic code they have at the moment. But once again, I think it would be enormously helpful if the Inquiry was to take a view on what parts of the code were justifiable, what parts ...

Yes.

Absolutely, and one of the things that I do think is that, you know -- I think it should have a judicial basis, both in terms of the way it is appointed, with the same scrupulous concern for objectivity that the judicial appointments processes in this country have. I also think ...

Obviously it has to be resourced by the industry, but Calcutt, I think, recommended that the amount should be settled by the body themselves or by those who appoint them, and then, of course, there should be a levy on the owners. I am not sure I would necessarily object ...

I think that -- it depends what you mean by "press involvement". I don't think anyone who is presently employed by a newspaper should be part of a regulatory regime. But of course there are plenty ex-editors -- almost as many ex-editors as there are ex-football managers -- and there are plenty ...

Yes.

Yes.

And also, you know, when I think all the technology and effort and man hours that was used, you know, over my sex life, and then you look at some of these things -- which I was actually quite shocked by. I thought I had got to an age where I ...

Yes.

Self-evidently so. It is an amazing thing that Dominique Strauss-Kahn could, but for this ill-judged lunge at some poor maid in a New York hotel -- he should have been president of France now, and yet it seems obvious that he'd made a sort of study of ill-judged lunges during ...

Yes.

They are comment on what the police themselves have said. You know, for instance, take -- well, first of all, the comment I make when I feel particularly appalled was made by the editor of the Guardian, who -- I didn't sit in his office when he received these two gentlemen ...

Yes.

Well, I am -- I would be pretty certain myself from the common gossip around Parliament when I was there that people were only too well aware that the dangers they faced were often from illegitimate attempts to obtain information. And anyway, anyone who read the papers would know about this ...

Yes.

Absolutely, and indeed, you know -- and that is one of the reasons why -- it amazes me that I think there are still parts of the press who don't want statutory regulation. Now, of course, Professor Joad, you know, I quote -- I don't know if anyone remembers Professor Joad ...

Well, you know, I think that -- I think anyone who is in politics is aware that all manner of different intrusions are used and -- you know, trying to get details of your bank accounts and stuff like that. I fortunately never, although it may come to that, suffered from what ...

So I believe. But again, you know, I come back to this point. I am old enough to have been foreign office minister responsible for Eastern Europe, and it was very interesting to have my glass of beer with Herr Honecker and wait upon Mr Ceausescu. But, you know, so ...

No, I think it was coincidental, because interestingly, the News of the World had the first chance at the de Sancha story and elected not to publish it, so... I think it was just, you know, an inconvenient moment for one's private life to fall out of the cupboard ...

Yes.

Mm-hm.

Well, more than 18 months had elapsed. I do think it is important to remember, Calcutt said -- and it is important, when one thinks of the number of last chances we have had -- Calcutt said 18 months of the new press complaints arrangements. After that, there should be an assessment ...

I did, yes.