Leveson: Don’t judge or pre-judge me
Before Gordon Brown’s appearance, Lord Justice Leveson fired off a salvo at the press. I’m not here to judge the politicians. I’m not here to judge the BSkyB bid handling. If you journalists find my inquiry’s questions inadequate it’s because you’re judging us against the wrong criteria.
Oh, and talking of criteria, those in the press who interpreted my draft criteria for how the press should be governed on the website as being my draft conclusions are plain wrong
I suspect he had the Independent on Sunday in mind, not his first brush with that paper. The overall effect will be to dampen expectations of the final report – this, the public evidence sessions, will be as good as it gets for those seeking fresh lines on the Murdoch/politician axis.
Lord Justice Leveson sees his central task as coming up with a new framework for how the press should be governed, the apparatus and the codes.
At times this inquiry has looked like it was roaming way off its original remit, perhaps driven by the need to balance one point of view with another and the need to show it isn’t skimming over issues folk and newspapers are focused on.
Gordon Brown sat listening to the lengthy opening statement from Lord Justice Leveson. Mr Brown has greyed a little more since we last saw him. He looked pale, grey almost in conplexion (sorry Lord Justice Leveson, to stray into the personal, but he used to run the country and we don’t see him very often).
Mr Brown talked about his moral code springing from his religious upbringing. He talked about a period of “enforced reflection” which has given him time to think about the media.
He said “the conflation of fact and opinion” was one of the biggest problems and a way needed to be found to “incentivise the good” in journalism.
He’s let rip at The Sun for portraying him as unfeeling or even “evil” over Afghanistan. He said they accused him of not bowing at the Cenotaph, or allegedly falling asleep at a remembrance service (he was praying, he said).
His answers tend, so far, to be about four-five minutes long. You’re hearing still raw anger gushing forth, and the bits I can see of his written witness statement on the screen in court (not yet on the website)suggest that’s his tone in that document too.
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