-- on the Times. Thank you, sir.

Thank you. We were just concerned, particularly about the Thomson letter --

Well, I know that I never approached Mr Blair or spoke to Mr Blair about it. Otherwise I have no knowledge.

No.

I'm not up on these issues.

No, I'm afraid I'm not.

For us to say as a condition of employment in a contract for a journalist they have the right to do that, I think that's a good idea.

Yes. I think -- I wouldn't do it through the NUJ, but I think for --

I have never heard of it.

And there's the editor. Everyone has access to everybody.

No, there's the staff association.

It didn't work out that way when the NUJ was there.

Well? Didn't stop them doing what they did.

I'm sure the people who have been arrested were once members of the NUJ.

No.

I don't know.

Probably. We thought it was good to have a staff association, somewhere where the staff could talk to us if they wanted to as a whole, and which could report to them on the progress of the company.

No, I believe there's an internal -- a staff association, which I'm sure they're represented on. They're certainly very welcome to raise whatever issue they want to.

I'd accept their democratic decision, but let me be quite clear. We didn't throw out the NUJ. There was a particularly militant head of the NUJ who worked at the Sun, and when the Sun's staff overwhelmingly decided to walk through the printer's picket line, he ...

I don't know the law.

If they could find a majority of our journalists who want to join the NUJ, we would have no choice, I think, but to --

I've never heard of it. They always strike me as a very happy crowd.

I will certainly look at it.

Why didn't she resign?

I don't know.

Certainly not. Our journalists are perfectly free to make complaints and perfectly free to join the NUJ.

Oh, naturally.

Who said this?

Well, it is the point. If they were unhappy or being treated unethically, they can join the NUJ.

No. Let me answer this. I don't believe there is any or has been any. We have a very large staff of very, very well-paid journalists, and they are perfectly free to join the NUJ whenever they wish.

As they feared.

I just want to say that the MSC did not disclose any sources of any journalists at all.

I would have welcomed the chance to answer that last one.

Yes.

Yes. He just simply -- I think he was referring to Mr Hunt, I don't know, or his adviser, that all the editors have been called about his decision and that Mr Dacre said that his -- made it clear that their campaign was purely motivated by commercial reasons and fears ...

I was only reading --

I thought I was very complimentary to him.

I know your point.

And in television the same.

-- I'm not answering your question, but I did want to say that whatever might have happened to the News of the World, I have contributed to plurality of the press. You wouldn't be here with ten papers today. I don't know about how some papers are being ...

And I feel -- you've given me the opportunity, and I'm sorry --

Something which -- I might say something else I would say that -- I'm sorry, judge -- I'm very, very proud of. I nearly went broke, and I'm not talking about the company, I'm talking about myself. One night in the hands of the bankers I actually mortgaged my ...

And that is a commercial reason. They said at the time in their public statement that they felt they were in some commercial danger, if you like, if we had succeeded in having 100 per cent of BSkyB.

I don't see the difference. I'm sorry. I think there's no doubt the Daily Mail and maybe other newspapers were campaigning against it and against us as a means of stopping.

Yes, the second sentence -- third sentence?

Yes.

Thank you.

No, I think I've spoken about the state of the printed word at the moment. I made some remarks about the BBC pursuing local newspapers and the danger it was to the press generally, and to the profession. Our best journalists have been trained in the provinces and have ...

Oh yes. That was against the law, quite apart from the ethical side. It was totally wrong, and I regret it and I've said it's going to be a blot on my reputation for the rest of my life.

We want to live in a transparent, open society, but -- and therefore people who pay public relations agents to make themselves popular, or politicians or people who have great responsibility, I don't think deserve the same privacy.