Thank you very much, sir.

I think -- yes, I would say that in order for it to be credible, and credibility is very important, I agree with that, yes.

Well, I don't -- I think that if I see a politician and they want to talk about general politics and they want to talk about -- they want to explain their views and I want a general understanding of what's going on, then that's appropriate in one scenario ...

Yes.

I believe that -- but my own -- I can only describe my own personal conduct, which is that if there is a matter of industry that I have a particular, you know, view on, like, I don't know, the EU privacy directive, and I want the minister in charge to ...

Yes.

Yes. It is a duty I take very seriously. My father and I understand that in order to be an effective newspaper publisher you have to be an outsider. That doesn't mean that you can't have friendly relationships with people and get along with them, but ultimately it ...

Mm.

Including members of our institution. Including myself.

I think that is correct. I think there shouldn't be -- yes, no, I think it's the job of our institution to hold people accountable, yes.

Yes.

Certainly I believe that newspapers have a right to publish what they think is in the public interest and sometimes the debate over what is in the public interest is a debate. Sometimes we come down on the wrong side of that debate. Happily, the MPs' expenses, which is a ...

I think that it's very difficult to ferret out information, particularly given all the rules around data protection and so forth that's come through in the last, you know, few years. So the Guardian had to work very hard indeed, and they have my admiration for all the ...

Okay, interesting. I can't speak for -- the Guardian certainly surfaced much of what's now become public knowledge, so I would say that was an example of the press regulating itself to a degree.

To guard ourselves?

Mm.

Mm-hm.

Yes.

Well, polarity is the best guard, really. If you get a Hurstian type situation where one individual becomes very powerful, then you don't create natural balance, the universe gets out of kilter, so to speak. But in a commercial world where people are not forced to buy newspapers, in ...

And Paul is duty-bound to honour those practices as part of our organisation, as indeed every other employee is duty-bound to do.

If legislation wishes to intersperse on that and effectively become the one that's responsible, you could end up in a situation like the FSA, where you have ...

We set the parameters as an ethical organisation, what we believe to be right, yes. That's naturally -- there has to be a set of parameters. We believe in the Editors' Code, for example.

Okay. Hm. It's a very interesting question. I can certainly see why people would be concerned. It's hard to imagine, though, a free commercial press which isn't run by commercial interests, and those commercial interests may sometimes be corporations and sometimes they may be individuals and sometimes ...

Yes.

Yes.

Mm.

Yes.

I would certainly agree that in order for self-regulation to work, I think that you would have to have all members of the industry support it, yes. Or the defined industry support it, whatever that definition was.

I would like to think so, yes, but it is very difficult to enforce the law on people where you have no authority to do so.

Well, the press complaints body, as I understand it, is a body which is about complaints. People are able to complain to it and under the codes that they have then journalists and newspapers have to correct themselves. I believe that that's been largely done. I don't know ...

The press -- do I feel -- I believe that the establishment and many members of the public do not believe that self-regulation has worked and so therefore it has not worked. I mean, rather the form of the PCC has not been able to establish a level of truth and faith ...

To be honest, I can't remember it, but he said that there was no evidence that -- he said that he was going to deal with the matter and make sure that it desisted and that he would put in controls within the organisation to stop it happening again.

I can't remember in detail what Paul said. I'm only sort of paraphrasing what he said.

He instigated it because he said that he -- this report had come out, that it shone a light on an area of practice within our organisation which was not best practice, and that he was going to do his best to put in better controls to stop it happening in ...

Paul instigated it.

Yes.

But not wilfully. Sorry, I don't believe our newspapers set out to wilfully upset the McCanns. I think they were reporting on briefings that they had which they believed at that time to be true. And when they realised that they'd made a mistake, they rectified it.

Okay. Firstly, it is obviously a very big story because of the nature of it. The McCanns encouraged publicity in order -- for very good reasons, and then there was, I believe, the problems of the jurisdiction, Portugal, created briefings by police officers. I think our journalists were unfamiliar with the ...

The stories they disagreed with?

Sorry, part of what problem?

I'm sorry?

As a parent, you would have to be inhuman not to feel deeply about what the McCanns went through, and I was no different from anybody else.

I see. There is obviously a danger of it, yes. It is not a conduct that we condone in our company. Indeed, Paul Dacre's decision to attack Richard Desmond's ownership of the Express is an example of that. He thought it was a gross -- he thought the government ...

Sorry, I don't quite understand. Could you explain?

I don't personally, no. I don't think so, no.

Oh, I think if he had found something genuinely shocking about me, then he had every right to publish it. Still does, you know.

I don't believe there was a truce, and I think the proof is in the pudding, so to speak. You know, the Express continued to attack me, you know, so.

So, if I shall tell the story as I remember it: Paul Dacre felt very strongly that Richard Desmond should not own the Express Newspapers, that the government had -- should have used the fit and proper person clause in order to stop him from doing it because of his other ...

Yes, I do.

I have no recollection of it, no. I don't believe it's true.

I do.