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They're two politicians who agree on almost nothing; two men whose politics could scarcely be more different; two men who today insisted that they had both been much less close to the Murdochs than the evidence might suggest.

Gordon Brown laughed nervously when asked why he and his wife had continued to socialise so closely with those they held responsible for exposing their son's grave illness. "It was my duty" he said whilst his wife Sarah was "very forgiving".

Hours later George Osborne claimed, to his questioner's evident surprise, that he'd taken no view at all on one of the biggest business deals of recent times - News Corps £8 billion bid for BSKYB - and regarded it merely as a political inconvenience.

The lists of lunches and dinners, meetings and phone calls both men had with Rupert & James Murdoch & their senior executives suggested that things may have been just a little more complex than that.

If today's evidence is judged on the headlines it produces - and few men in Westminster care as much about them - Mr Osborne will be delighted if - as looks likely - Mr Brown draws the most attention with his suggestion that Rupert Murdoch may have lied on oath and his statement - also made on oath - that he as prime minister knew nothing and certainly never approved of anonymous press briefings once carried out by his own spin-doctors.