Gordon Brown, who has made few public statements since leaving Downing Street, has come to the Leveson inquiry with an unashamed desire to settle scores. In the first hour of his testimony, he “absolutely” denied that the Sun received permission from him or his wife to run a story on his son’s cystic fibrosis, denounced James Murdoch’s MacTaggart lecture as “breathtaking in its arrogance and ambition” and quipped that “You can serve up dinner, but you can’t serve up BSkyB as part of the dinner.” And there was more – the former Prime Minister told the inquiry that he had passed to a recording of Sunday Times reporters discussing “illegal (newsgathering) techniques” to the police, and contradicted Rupert Murdoch’s claim that he told him he had no choice but to “make war” on his company after the Sun’s defection to the Tories (one wonders if the inquiry will adjudicate on this point). Brown’s prodigious memory (we haven’t once heard the words “I can’t recall”) and righteous fury have made this one of the most remarkable performances of the inquiry.
The most difficult moment for Brown came when he was challenged on why he and his wife continued to regularly socialise with News International executives even after the Sun’s story on their son. Brown replied that his wife was “one of the most forgiving people I know”, an answer that some will find implausible. Was it not, rather, that Brown was so determined to win over the media that he cynically forgave even their gross abuse of his family’s privacy?
Asked about his relationship with Murdoch, which was far warmer than Blair or Cameron’s, Brown said it was “faintly ridiculous” to suggest he was influenced by Murdoch’s views. In an amusing line, he quipped that Murdoch would have us at war with France and Germany and have Scotland as the “52nd state” (independent and Atlanticist). Of his similarly warm relationship with Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre, he said Dacre was “personally very kind” but rightly noted that this did nothing to diminish the ferocity of the Mail’s attacks on Labour. Even more than Blair, Brown acquired a reputation as a media obsessive. But, he insisted, he is “so obsessed by the newspapers that I rarely read them”.
Along the way, Brown has also taken the time to remind us of his opposition to euro membership and to defend his Afghanistan policy. The former PM appears to have seized an opportunity to deliver a state-of-the-nation address, leaving Robert Jay QC often struggling to keep him on topic.
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