Brown blasts Murdoch papers at Leveson

Gordon Brown condemned News International’s coverage of his government, saying the press conflated fact and opinion as if it had a “license to deceive” and put its own commercial interests first.

Brown, the former prime minister, told the Leveson inquiry it was wrong to think he had the support of The Sun and other NI titles at any time in his term of office. He said it had become clear that the company was following its commercial interest, aimed at weakening the BBC and Ofcom, the broadcasting regulator. He said a series of articles run in The Sun were “not campaigns relating to objective journalism exposing facts.” “These, unfortunately, were campaigns that were designed to cause discomfort to people that were politically unacceptable.” He said: “News International had a public agenda, an aggressive public agenda. They wanted not just to buy BSkyB, they wanted to change the whole nature of the BBC, they wanted to change Ofcom, they wanted to change media impartiality rules.” He said his government had defended the public interest against that commercial interest. “I did so and I think we did so at a cost,” he said.