Cherie Blair's pregnancy 'possibly revealed by phone hacking': Alastair Campbell

London, Dec 1 (ANI): Alastair Campbell, once a strategist for former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, has launched a sweeping attack on Britain's newspapers, claiming that a story about Cherie Blair's pregnancy was 'possibly' obtained by phone hacking.

Campbell, who left journalism in 1994 to become Tony Blair's official spokesman, told the Leveson inquiry that a handful of people knew about Cherie's pregnancy in 1999, which was revealed by the Daily Mirror.

He admitted that he had 'no evidence' that journalists intercepted the voicemails of either Cherie or her lifestyle consultant Carole Caplin, but queried the source of a number of articles about the former prime minister's wife, the Daily Mail reports.

"I do not know if her (Caplin's) phone was hacked, or if Cherie's was, but knowing what we do now about hacking and the extent of it, I think it is at least possible this is how the stories got out," Campbell said in the statement.

"They often involved details of where Cherie was going, the kind of thing routinely discussed on phones when planning visits, private, as well as public," he added.

The former Daily Mirror political editor used his evidence to launch a three-hour diatribe against the newspaper industry, which he accused of both bias and 'spin'.

He claimed that press has become 'putrid' in many of its elements years after he left journalism.

Campbell said he had worked on newspapers 'at the point at which the culture was changing'.

But he insisted that he did not remember The Mirror or The Today newspaper, where he worked previously, using private detectives. (ANI)