Questioned by Robert Jay QC ... News Corporation Chief Executive and Chairman, Rupert Murdoch, speaking at the Leveson Inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the media, at the High Court in London. Credit:Reuters TV Mr Jay, 52, has a long history of leading high-profile, complex and emotional cases. According to his profile on the website for law firm 39 Essex Street, Mr Jay last year defended the Foreign Commonwealth Office against claims of torture in colonial detention in Kenya during the 1950s and '60s. The case was included in Mr Jay's listing in The Lawyer Hot 100 list this year, which said that, although the defence was unsuccessful, it made his name in public law. Mr Jay also acted against the oil-trading company Trafigura in 2007, getting £30 million ($46.8 million) in compensation for people on the Ivory Coast who fell ill from toxic waste.

'This is such fun' ... Robert Jay QC at the Leveson inquiry in December. Credit:Getty Images Mr Jay's work was always detailed and fair, his peers told The Guardian, and he would never "go for the jugular" when facing James Murdoch and his father, Rupert. Anyone watching the Murdochs give evidence this week would have seen this in Mr Jay's line of questioning. Grilled ... News Corp Deputy Chief Operating Officer, James Murdoch, speaking at the Leveson Inquiry. Credit:REUTERS TV In his bright yellow framed glasses, he casually leaned on his podium and "pensively" stroked his beard, as The Daily Beast put it.

"Press watchdogs and Murdoch opponents alike may be hoping to witness a skewering on the stand. But a more understated approach is likely to be in store. Leading the inquiry ... Lord Justice Brian Leveson listens to a response from former News International chairman James Murdoch in London. Credit:AP Jay is known to give his opponents plenty of line to dissemble and thrash about—in hopes of tiring them out before he reels them in "Jay is known to give his opponents plenty of line to dissemble and thrash about - in hopes of tiring them out before he reels them in." Here are some of the best exchanges:

'Pensively' stroking his beard ... Robert Jay QC questions Rupert Murdoch. Credit:Video screengrab Rupert Murdoch was being questioned about The Sun backing the Labour Party only when it was clear Tony Blair would win the election in 1997. Robert Jay: Didn't you sense in these discussions you were having with senior politicians before a general election that a sort of form of pirouette or negotiation was occurring and they wanted to know how far they had to go? Rupert Murdoch: You're making sinister inferences. RJ: It's not sinister.

RM: I want to say, Mr Jay, that I, in 10 years of his power, never asked Mr Blair for anything. Nor indeed did I receive any favours. If you want to check that, I think you should call him. RJ: I don't think that was my question, Mr Murdoch. It was a more subtle question. RM: Indeed it was. RJ: That the interchange between the sophisticated politician and the sophisticated newspaper proprietor would not be a hard-nosed commercial negotiation, how much to pay for something. It would be at a far higher and more subtle level. It would be each trying to work out how much to give and how much to press for. Do you follow me? RM: I'm afraid I don't have much subtlety about me.

RJ: Don't you, Mr Murdoch? RM: No. Robert Jay read from a House of Lords report on communications, based on an interview with Rupert Murdoch, which said he "exercises editorial control on major issues - like which party to back in a general election or policy on Europe". RJ: Now, have your interlocutors faithfully recorded what you told them? RM: Yes. I had - I never gave instructions to the editor of The Times or the Sunday Times. I didn't say, "What are you doing? What are you saying?" Sometimes when I was available on a Saturday, I would call and say, "What's the news today?" It was idle curiosity, perhaps. Other times I'd ring on a Tuesday, from New York, when the Sunday Times would come in, and I would say, "That was a damn fine newspaper you had this week." I probably wouldn't have read the editorial.

RJ: I think the big point, Mr Murdoch, is the last sentence ... in relation to The Sun and The News of the World as it then was: "He exercises editorial control on major issues - like which party to back in a general election or policy on Europe." [...] RM: Yes. Well, I never much interfered with The News of the World, I'm sorry to say, but - yes. RJ: These are political issues, they're not sort of managerial issues, but you would agree with this sentence, would you? RM: Yes, I'm interested, I'm a curious person who is interested in the great issues of the day, and I'm not good at holding my tongue.

RJ: But you did say you're sorry to say that you didn't intervene in relation to The News of the World. Why did you say that? RM: I'm not disowning it or saying it wasn't my responsibility to, but I was always closer to The Sun. It was a daily paper, there was something more urgent about it. RJ: Did you have any role, Mr Murdoch, in relation to the publication of the Hitler diaries in 1983? RM: I'm sorry to say, yes. On James Murdoch's contact with culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, who handled News Corp's bid for BSkyB:

RJ: Did you have a conversation with Mr Hunt on his mobile phone or otherwise? James Murdoch: I believe he called me to apologise for cancelling the meeting but - I don't have a specific recollection, but I think that's what's in the records. RJ: Your reply, which is the one reply which may be relevant, timed at 12.02 in the early afternoon: "You must be f---ing joking. Fine. I will text him and find a time." So you were angry? JM: As I said earlier, I was displeased. After Mr Jay suggested News Corp expected its BSkyB bid to be successful because the Murdoch media had supported The Conservative Party in the general election:

RJ: ... You would expect governments to respond favourably to a bid by [News Corp], since support had been given to at least The Conservative Party by The Sun on September 30, 2009, and you are somewhat blind to what might appear to the rest of us to be obvious, namely that this is in part a quid pro quo for that support? JM: As I've said earlier in my testimony, Mr Jay, there is absolutely not a quid pro quo for that support, and the decision-making around The Sun's policy and who they support, which political parties, et cetera, I've described to you, and it had absolutely nothing to do with other business interests around the place. And the negotiations - the lengthy negotiation and regulatory process - or rather political process around the Sky transaction was entirely separate. I simply wouldn't make that trade. It would be inappropriate to do so and I just don't do business that way. RJ: OK. Mr Jay asked Mr Murdoch about what he knew about phone hacking at The News of the World in 2008, when he had signed off on a settlement to a hacking victim. Loading

RJ: Either you were told about the evidence ... and that this was in effect a cover-up, or you weren't told, or you didn't read your emails properly, and there is a failure of governance within the company. Do you accept that those are the only two possibilities? JM: I was told sufficient information to authorise them to go and negotiate at a higher level, and I was not told sufficient information to go and turn over a whole bunch of stones that I was told had already been turned over … I don't think that, short of knowing that they weren't giving me the full picture, I would have been able to know that at the time.