It's a pleasure.

But it remains solid belief. But I fully appreciate and respect the job that you have to do.

No, I'm not.

No, it's not much more likely, given that journalists found themselves talking on the phone to Mr Yates himself.

Oh, really?

Why should he be talking to these journalists during the course of an Inquiry? Why should he?

Yes, what journalists said themselves. They were as surprised as anyone to suddenly find themselves on the phone to Assistant Commissioner Yates.

Solid belief.

You're entitled to your view. You do your job, you're representing the Metropolitan Police, you're a lawyer, you're employed by them and of course you would say this.

If I thought there was no foundation, I wouldn't have made the comments I did.

I'm afraid I do not find your line of questioning very plausible.

Amazing.

Oh, really?

Who undertook that investigation?

No, you're quite wrong. I do have a basis for belief.

I have belief.

I have belief.

Tab 3. That's all.

Could you tell me what tab? Oh, tab 3.

Yes. Talking of which ...

I mean, I have felt a little bit, in preparing my statement -- my appearance before you, that I have been operating in a rather, I don't know, not anachronistic but I felt that I was taking a rather more backward-looking historical perspective, that the world is fast-changing and moving ...

Yes.

But should we have national rules and laws or should they be European, at least, if not global? But let's talk realistically at any rate. This is an area, I would have thought, where Europe needs to come to the fore rather than try to carve up the operation ...

To be honest, my sort of more practical and liberal sympathies lie on the side of freedom of the Internet. My difficulty, though, with it, is on issues, as I had to deal with as a Secretary of State to do with piracy, and now, even more challengingly, privacy. It ...

No, you can, and I will think about it or find some people to talk to about it and think what is best or what might be helpful, and I want to help you. I don't have any silver bullets or magic solutions, I have to say. I'm ...

Nobody.

Mm.

I'll try.

Well, I would like to think about it a bit more, although I'm sure that there are others who are more knowledgeable than I am about these matters. They are very big issues. I'm not absolutely sure what you do when digital content, the vast quantity of it ...

Sorry.

I think you have to digest what's been exposed and revealed during the course of this Inquiry. Parliament has to take on the recommendations and proposals and government needs to back Parliament in doing that rather than sitting on a fence or sitting on the sidelines not wanting to ...

Why? How?

I mean, all these great investigative campaigns, all these resources and all this investment and journalistic firepower that's thrown by these newspapers at unearthing real wrongdoing, real corruption, real corporate misbehaviour -- where is all this investment in investigative journalism? Where are all these journalists and all these ...

Because they would rely on a system there was industry buy-in. He underlines that. I'm not saying that the industry shouldn't have confidence in the system, but "buy-in", ie acceptable to them and on their terms, I don't think is likely to command public confidence.

Secondly, a ...

You know, Ofcom undertakes a perfectly reputable responsible role in regulating the media generally in this country. Why not have Ofcom or Ofcom-like doing the same in this context?

I mean statutorily based regulation by neither the press nor government. It's what we have in other walks of life. It's what we're used to in this country. It's what lawyers have had to take on, as I said earlier.

Well, I have looked at them. He sent them to me, and I think they are a perfectly plausible, respectable system, as outlined, of self-regulation of the press. I make a distinction between that and what we have at the moment, which is no regulation. We don't have a ...

Yeah.

I do remember saying, by the way, that what they really ought to do is embark on a sort of truth and reconciliation process. I don't just mean News International. I mean the press generally. Put their hands up to everything, and let it all come out, put it ...

It's not advice. I mean, expression of opinion.

I have talked on occasions to people about what's happened, obviously. It's hard not to talk to people about what has happened and to consider what to do about it, but work professionally? No.

Like a job? No, we did not.

Martin Clarke for MailOnline. I thought that was fascinating and chilling, what he was pointing to, and really creates a much bigger challenge for you and what you're doing in this Inquiry than anything that arises from whoever said what to whom over the 2003 Communications Act.

And that's the challenge that we face in the -- I said at the end of my witness statement -- somebody showed me another statement written by somebody. I can't remember his name --

It knows a darn sight more about piracy than it does about privacy.

I think that in a sense, up to a point, they sort of deserve each other, because both must have responsibility for a relationship that has broken down. Both must take responsibility also for putting it right. They need a better working relationship. It needs for openness, more transparency, more ...

I don't accept responsibility for it. No, I don't. I know it's a wonderful defence that the press like to put forward, that if it weren't for these great sort of media manipulators and kings of spin like Alastair Campbell and Peter Mandelson, all would have ...

These predictable questions.

Who's asking you to put --

So, you know -- but that's politics and it's all water under the bridge, and fortunately I've turned a corner and got a new life.

The problem for me was I started off in the 1980s as a rough, tough robust defender of my party, such as it was. It nearly went out of existence in the 1980s. Then I became a lightning conductor for Mr Blair, very handily, and then, of course, I would ...