Gordon Brown today criticised newspaper coverage of UK involvement in Afghanistan.

The former Labour prime minister told the Leveson Inquiry into press standards that "one newspaper in particular" had not taken on "difficult issues" but adopted the line that he "did not care" about British troops.

Mr Brown singled out The Sun for the way it had portrayed him on a number of occasions in relation to Afghanistan.

In one instance it said he had fallen asleep at a memorial for troops and claimed it was another example showing he did not care about the British forces.

"There's a story you fell asleep, but you were praying, and The Sun decides this is an example of someone falling asleep and dishonouring the troops," he said.

Mr Brown today denied behaving aggressively towards Rebekah Brooks when he telephoned her expecting an apology for negative coverage, only to be told more was to come.

The former prime minister said that he was led to believe by Rupert Murdoch that the then News International chief executive would say sorry for a slew of damaging stories about his handling of Afghanistan.

But when he made the telephone call Mrs Brooks instead told him she had a taped conversation of him apologising to the furious bereaved mother of a soldier about a condolence letter he had sent her that was littered with mistakes.

Mr Brown also repeated previous denials that he had "declared war" on the Murdoch empire after it decided to switch support to the Conservatives ahead of the last general election.

He said the conversation where he was "alleged to have acted in an unbalanced way" as well as threatening Mr Murdoch "never took place".

"I'm shocked and surprised that it should be suggested even when there is no evidence of such a conversation."

The Inquiry was told all telephone conversations with newspaper proprietors would have gone through the Downing Street switchboard, not on mobile phones.
"I would not have known Rupert Murdoch's phone number," he added.

Mr Brown spoke to Mr Murdoch on November 10, 2009, over The Sun's coverage of Afghanistan and also sent him a follow-up email later that day.

He told the Inquiry the newspaper had published a story criticising him for not bowing at the Cenotaph as well as an article about a letter he sent to Jacqui Janes, whose 20-year-old son Jamie, a Grenadier Guardsman, was killed by an explosion.
Mrs Janes had accused him of being "disrespectful" because the message began "Dear Mrs James" and appeared to contain other spelling errors and a visible correction to her son Jamie's name.

Mr Brown has suffered with eyesight problems since a rugby accident in his youth
He said he had phoned the media mogul about the coverage but insisted there was "no reference" to the shift in The Sun's political allegiance during the Labour party conference the previous month.

"He asked me would I phone Mrs Brooks, would I have a phone call with her where she would, he hinted, want to apologise for what had happened and I said I saw no point in phoning her," he said.But he eventually agreed to make the call "out of respect" for Mr Murdoch.

Mrs Brooks went on to tell him she had a tape of a conversation he had with Mrs Janes that the newspaper was planning to publish.

"I didn't get the sense there was an apology coming from The Sun and I decided there was no point in continuing the conversation," he added.

Mrs Brooks told the inquiry last month the tone of the conversation was "quite aggressive".

She added: "The fact that it resulted in such an extraordinarily aggressive conversation shows that it doesn't happen all the time. I remember it very clearly from the nature of it."

Lord Justice Leveson told Mr Brown that he would have been "rather irritated" if he had called someone expecting an apology only to be told further negative stories were to come.

But Mr Brown insisted "when you are dealing with some of these issues you tend to be calmer".

"I don't think I was aggressive," he added.