Giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry into press standards on Monday, the former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown denies making a threatening phone call to Rupert Murdoch guardian.co.uk

Gordon Brown has insisted that he did not make an "unbalanced" and threatening phone call to Rupert Murdoch in 2009, contradicting evidence given by the media mogul to the Leveson inquiry in April.

The former prime minister released Downing Street phone records to the inquiry on Monday to show that he had spoken to Murdoch on 10 November of that year at 12.33pm. Brown said that the two had spoken about the war in Afghanistan.

The disputed call happened, Brown told the inquiry, a day after the Sun attacked him over a hard to read handwritten note of condolence, and was intended to discuss the tabloid's coverage of the war in Afghanistan.

However, the former prime minister said that there had been no such call on or close to 30 September 2009, as Murdoch had previously suggested, the day the tabloid announced its backing for the Conservatives at the forthcoming general election.

Brown said that "this is the conversation that Mr Murdoch says happened", during which "I threatened him and where I'm alleged to have acted in an unbalanced way". "This conversation never took place," he added.

The former prime minister said "I'm shocked and surprised that it should be suggested, even when there's no evidence of such a conversation, that it should have happened".

He added that he believed there was no point in speaking to Rupert Murdoch or James Murdoch after the Sun had switched to the Tories. "I decided after 30 September … that there was no point in contacting them [the Murdochs]," Brown said.

He added that "this was a matter that was done" and that "I didn't phone – I didn't return calls to News International. I didn't phone Mr Murdoch, I didn't talk to his son, I didn't text him, I didn't email him".

Brown went on to discuss the November phone call, which he said was to discuss the war on Afghanistan. He added that "there was no reference to threats or Conservative parties or anything" and said that the conversation ended with Brown agreeing to discuss the subject further with Rebekah Brooks, then News International chief executive.

In April Rupert Murdoch told the Leveson inquiry he stood by "every word" of an account he had given of a phone call between himself and Brown in the autumn of 2009, in which the media mogul said the then prime minister pledged to "declare war" on News Corp. At that time Murdoch said, of Brown, "I don't think he was in a very balanced state of mind".

Responding to Brown's Leveson evidence on Monday, a News Corporation spokesman said: "Rupert Murdoch stands behind his testimony."

Later at the inquiry Brown was again challenged on his evidence by Rhodri Davies, counsel to News International, citing evidence given previously by Lord Mandelson to the inquiry in May.

Mandelson appeared to acknowledge that there was a Brown/Murdoch phone call when asked if he was aware that the former prime minister had uttered the words "declare war on News International". Mandelson had replied: "Well I wasn't on the call."

Responding to Davies's repetition of Mandelson's evidence, Brown said: "News International have produced not one shred of evidence that a call took place, not one date for the call or time for the call. You're not able to tell us what happened except you have these statements from Mr Murdoch that this happened, and I do find it very strange that we're being asked to debate a call which never took place, for which you have no information about when it took place."

Earlier during his appearance before Lord Justice Leveson, Brown claimed he never had the support of the Sun, saying "commercial interests came first" for its parent company News International.

He also accused News International's former executive chairman, James Murdoch, of "breathtaking arrogance".

In a wide-ranging attack on the red-top and its parent company, the former prime minister said it was "completely wrong" to suggest he had the support of the Sun until the Labour party conference in September 2009.

"At no point in these three years that I was prime minister did I ever feel I had the support of the Sun," said Brown.

"I think what really changed, however, and I have to be honest about this, is that News International decided that their commercial interests came first, and I have to be absolutely clear about that.

"There was a point in 2008 and 2009 where, particularly with James Murdoch's speech in Edinburgh at the MacTaggart lecture when he set out an agenda which to me was quite breathtaking in its arrogance and its ambition; that was to neutralise the BBC, it was to undermine Ofcom and a whole series of policy aims ... which no government that I was involved in could ever agree to."

Brown said the Conservative party "supported every one of the recommendations that were made by the Murdoch group".

"The remarkable thing about this period in government, and I say this with regret, and I say this with a great deal of sadness, is that we could not go along with that sort of agenda," he added, including scaling back Ofcom and the BBC having its licence fee and activities cut.

"While we resisted that ... I'm afraid to say, I think this is an issue of public policy, the Conservative party supported every one of the recommendations that were made by the Murdoch group."

Brown said he did not feel he had the support of the Sun "for almost all the time that I was prime minister".

"You have to remember that when I started off as prime minister, the first thing the Sun did was try to ruin my first party conference by launching their huge campaign about how we were selling Britain down the river and demanding not only a European referendum but demanding that I support it," he added.

"Then it ran a huge campaign on broken Britain, which was taken up by the Conservative party but was simply an attack on the government."

Robert Jay QC, lead counsel to the inquiry, said there was a danger that Brown was "straying away from the ambit of the question".

Brown replied: "I want to make the point, Mr Jay, if I may ... it was suggested that somehow relations with the Sun newspaper or with Mr Murdoch broke down because he decided that he wanted to support the Conservative party.

"I want to suggest to you that the commercial interests of News International were very clear long before that or they had support from the Conservative party."

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