Prime Minister David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Mayor of London Boris Johnson recorded 12 meetings with high-profile media figures in the three months after the Leveson Inquiry was completed.
According to Number 10 transparency figures Cameron met with Daily Telegraph editor Tony Gallagher, the then Times editor James Harding and Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the London Evening Standard and Independent, between July and September 2012. He also met with unnamed representatives from The Sun.
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, meanwhile, met Gallagher, Harding and Lebedev as well as Mail on Sunday editor Geordie Grieg and Evening Standard editor Sarah Sands.
In the same period, Mayor of London Boris Johnson recorded meetings with GQ magazine and a lunch with News International director of communications Guto Harri.
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GQ presented the mayor with a designer shirt and a 'goodie bag' of vouchers and complimentary memberships.
Since the end of September, Johnson has listed seven recorded interactions with the media on his gifts and gratuities register, including five with the Evening Standard.
On 12 November Johnson went on a two-day holiday to Italy with Evening Standard owner Lebedev, which the Russian paid for.
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Although a spokesperson originally told Snipe London that the trip was “an opportunity to relentlessly promote his vision for London”, a Freedom of Information request by the website revealed it was in fact a “purely personal” one.
According to Johnson’s list of gifts and gratuities, Evening Standard editor Sands paid for Johnson’s taxi home from Farnborough airport two days later.
Between October 2012 and January this year Johnson also had recorded meetings with Sands and the Standard's political editor Joe Murphy, and attended two further Evening Standard events.
He also attended an event hosted by the Spectator magazine, which Johnson used to edit, and had a private dinnner with News Corp chairman Rupert Murdoch and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne last month.
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