Thursday, March 1
Out for a little run, back to watch (former Met assistant commissioner John] Yates up at 12 at Leveson. I went into Twitter overdrive, probably over the top, but it was hard not to. Robert Jay did a good job, focused on his relations with [Neil] Wallis [former deputy editor, NotW]. [The inquiry heard evidence about the pair’s numerous lunches, at top London restaurants.] He was oily and smug and couldn’t see the grave he was digging. He was doing it from Bahrain where he was seemingly an advisor on policing. The tenor of my tweets was that it was incredible he had got to a senior position.
Friday, March 30
Woke up to the grim, grim news that George Galloway [Respect Party politician and former Labour MP] had won the Bradford East by-election with a massive 10k majority. Landslide. Disaster for Ed and for us. Nobody saw it coming. And him of all people! He was milking for all it was worth, said he failed to save the people of Iraq but he would save the people of Britain.
Tuesday, April 24
Off to the airport and caught bits and bobs of James Murdoch [Rupert’s son and a senior figure in his media organisatio] at Leveson and he looked very uncomfortable, both about hacking and what he knew when, and about lobbying on the BSkyB bid.
He really did come over as shifty. Too much ‘can’t recall’ going on. But then he divulged a stack of private correspondence with [culture secretary] Jeremy Hunt’s special adviser and Fred Michel [James Murdoch lobbyist] which was going to be a big thing because it looked like Hunt had set up a back channel to help BSkyB. [Hunt at the time was charged with making a decision on whether to allow a takeover by Murdoch’s News Corp of BSkyB.]
Thursday, May 10
On the train back I was following [Andy] Coulson at Leveson via Twitter. [Coulson was editor of the NotW at the time of phone activity, before becoming David Cameron’s communications director. He had resigned in 2011, amid continuing coverage of the phone hacking scandal.] He was clearly playing a very straight bat, but as they couldn’t do phone hacking there was a bit of an odd feel to it. [The topic was avoided as it was subject of an active police investigation.] I got an email to say Toby Young [Sun on Sunday columnist] had said on Twitter that I had leaked my statement. I got Gerald [Shamash] on the case after I demanded an apology and he was pretty grudging.)
Friday, May 11
Rebekah Brooks was at Leveson and was pretty defensive but felt by most of the commentators to have done OK. Not so sure.
Monday, May 14
Campbell returns to give evidence to the inquiry again. While the earlier hearings had examined phone hacking and the relationship between the press and public, the inquiry was now looking at relations between the press and politicians.
I went in in the pouring rain, and felt totally confident. I had a meeting with Jay and his team first. He was clearly not very fond of the Murdoch lot. He told me in confidence that John Major would also be coming. I didn’t feel as nervous as the last time. He warmed up fairly gently, reading out TB’s book on how he hired me, how I was a “genius” with “clanking great balls”. Move on, said Leveson. He did it fairly thematically and the only time I felt under any pressure at all was when Leveson clearly felt it was odd that TB spoke to Murdoch three times in the days before the war in Iraq. I was able to say something about the call but only from my diary not memory, though to be fair I did not do nearly as much “cannot recall” as the NI lot. Jay did not really press me hard. I kind of knew I had won when Quentin Letts [Daily Mail sketch writer] sloped out, looking a bit disappointed.
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