Drawing at the Leveson Inquiry

Court official

When grandees such as Tony Blair were on, people queued from 4am to get into the public gallery. Today there's no queue to speak of.

'Who's on?' I ask.
'Just journalists. And Jon Snow.'

'What was the best day at the inquiry?' I ask a cameraman.

'Max Mosley.'

There's chitchat among the tricoteuses in the public gallery:

'Rebekah Brooks...'
'If she's charged...'
'Can't stand that woman.'
'She came in and looked several people straight in the eye.'



Lord Justice Leveson

'Jay [Robert Jay QC, lead barrister to the Inquiry] has reputedly earned half a million pounds for this. He's worth it. It's public money. My money.'
'I wanted to say to Jay, why don't you really attack Blair?'
'Because Blair's got a legal background, that's why.'
'I need a small child to gnaw. I'm starving.'



Peter Riddell, formerly
of the FT and The Times

My optician says I'm top gun standard. And today I need it because I'm a long way from my targets across Courtroom 73.
I'm messing around with a portable, court-friendly but inadequate drawing kit and reduced to sharpening pencils into my pencil case.







'Will the court rise,' says the clerk, and a mouse's nest of pencil shavings falls on the floor. Sorry.

Court official

Now for a bit of glamour. The harsh fluorescent light bounces off Jon Snow's cheekbones. They are as defined as scimitars. No wonder he's on the telly.



Andrew Grice, The Independent

' "What is truth, said Pontius Pilate",' says Jon Snow, almost quoting Francis Bacon.

'Jesting,' growl two pedants in the public seats, one of them me.

We can hear a helicopter and seagulls.

Simon Walters, Mail on Sunday



Lord Justice Leveson

Philip Webster,
The Times