As his case against the NoW continues, Coogan gives a candid view of the issues – and people – at the heart of the UK media

Coogan on …



The Daily Mail

The Daily Mail is worse than the redtops because it has this semblance of respectability. To me the Daily Mail is like a used car salesman in a cheap suit because it masquerades as having this respectability about it and yet it peddles the same kind of hate-mongering [as] the redtops.

Paul Dacre

I was very pleased that when I slagged off Paul Dacre on Newsnight he ran a story the next day about me and Hugh Grant, trying to dredge up all the old shit. I thought: oh good, I've annoyed him.

Paul Dacre can have my fucking hard drive off my computer. He won't find anything there other than very orthodox pornography that consenting couples used recreationally. He'll be familiar with the stuff.

David Cameron himself said this inquiry is going to look at the whole way … As far as I'm concerned that includes Paul Dacre. That's going to be under oath. That's a big deal. I'd like to see Paul Dacre say a few things under oath. That'd be fun.

The PCC

They singularly failed in the biggest test that has come their way. They've failed spectacularly.

Paul Dacre has very reluctantly said that he thinks the Press Complaints Commission probably needs reforming. That's his calculated response – "well, I can't say nothing, I've got to say something" – it's transparent. So he makes a little gesture. Yes, of course, it needs reforming. He would never have wanted that fucking reform five years ago.

Future regulation of the press

What you need is a totally independent body without people like Paul fucking Dacre on it. How these people are chosen is something to be discussed but, clearly, the devil is in the detail. There should be some lay people or a list of people, like jury service.

Andy Coulson

I think it's patronising to say, well, he's working class, so he couldn't afford to have ethics.

I dare say Andy Coulson's done some very nice things. I'm just not aware of them.

On the tabloid press

It does go beyond what happens to me. And I genuinely don't care if none of the tabloids write another word about me.

On politicians and the Murdoch press

This courting of newspaper proprietors: in a hundred years' time they'll look back at it like the rotten laws of the 19th century. They'll think, what were they thinking? How was that OK?

Cost of legal action, and original police inaction

I wasn't sure if I would find anything in [Glenn Mulcaire's] notebooks. I had to gamble. I had to spend 50,000 quid going through this process to get the information – which is now freely available – to drag it out of the police. [It was] a long, arduous process. And then I might have found there wasn't anything there.

On privacy

However rich or successful I am, I have fucking human rights. That's the first thing. I have certain rights and I need to be treated with respect. I don't deserve to be punished for being successful.

What's really great about this whole phone-hacking scandal is [what] it's thrown up – suddenly, it's OK to talk about it again. "What? You think the press are too excessive? Yeah we know that, they've been like that for 100 years. What's your problem? Get over it." Well, why can't we talk about it, and now we can talk.