CHAPTER 7 FURTHER POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE PRESS

CHAPTER 7 FURTHER POLITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE PRESS

1. Introduction

¶1.1 Having briefly reflected on relationships between politicians and the press from the perspectives of our last five Prime Ministers and brought the narrative up to the present, I turn in this Chapter to the viewpoint of a number of politicians currently occupying senior positions in UK national life, whose perspectives were of particular interest to the work of the Inquiry. The evidence of the Rt Hon Theresa May MP, the Home Secretary, is covered in Part G of the Report.

¶1.2 Having concluded the last chapter with the perspective of the current Prime Minister, I turn next to the views of the Deputy Prime Minister, the Leader of the Liberal Democrat party, before moving on to consider the views of the Leader of the Opposition and of the First Minister of Scotland. The section concludes with the evidence of a number of contemporary Cabinet Members about their relationships with senior figures in the press.

¶1.3 The Inquiry benefited greatly from all of these unique perspectives. As set out below, the personal experiences and approaches of some of these witnesses to handling relationships with the press were of particular interest in themselves.

¶1.4 It is inevitable that I have been highly selective (although, I hope, fair) in highlighting a very few aspects of the evidence which appear to me to be of particular interest for the purposes of the Inquiry. I have also largely confined myself to the words of the witnesses, rather than upon any commentary or debate about their perspectives either as received by the Inquiry or which have emerged elsewhere. Again, there is no need for me to do so, and there are other places (not least Parliament and the press) in which the contest of perspectives about these matters can be seen and understood more fully by the public than in the pages of this Report.

The Deputy Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP

¶2.1 Mr Clegg's evidence was of value not only from the perspective of his current senior position in the coalition Government, but also as leader of the UK's 'third party'. Over the period I considered in the previous Chapters of this Report, the Liberal Democrats and their predecessor political organisations, being neither in Government nor in the position of Official Opposition party, could be expected to have had a very different experience of personal relationships at senior levels between the political leadership and senior figures in the press. Mr Clegg reminded the Inquiry that the Liberal Democrats had never been politically supported by any of the News International titles, and had enjoyed express endorsement, only in recent years and to a degree, from The Independent, the Guardian and the Observer. He also reminded the Inquiry of his highly personal experience of press coverage in the run-up to the 2010 general election.

¶2.2 Mr Clegg underlined that, in these historical circumstances, he regarded himself and his party as removed from the sort of relationship others might have had, with News International in particular.¹¹ He illustrated this memorably by reference to the seating plan at a dinner in December 2009: p27, lines 16-17, Nick Clegg, http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Transcript-of-Morning-Hearing-13-June-2012.pdf He said this about relationships between politicians and the press more generally:²² pp94-95, lines 13-1, ibid

¶"But it's really at the end of the day for politicians to stand up for themselves and say: look, we have a democratic mandate, we've gone out to get elected, we listen to our constituents in our surgeries every Thursday, Friday, Saturday. The editors, the proprietors don't do that. We get out and about in the country much more, by the way, than many of the journalists who constantly pronounce on the state of the country. I just think a bit of – an assertion of the legitimacy of politicians to make decisions in their own right, unfettered, unintimidated, unpressured, would probably go further than almost anything else in making sure the balance is correctly set."

¶2.3 Mr Clegg emphasised the sheer importance of interaction between press and politicians:³³ p9, lines 20-25, ibid

¶"I can't stress enough… the idea that politicians and the press should operate in hermetically sealed silos separate from each other is completely unrealistic and it's totally right they should seek each other out. It's just the manner in which they do so and the spirit in which they approach each other."

¶2.4 He also underlined the value of the press acting as 'a very important corrective in the political system',⁴⁴ p2, line 22, ibid putting that in context in this way:⁵⁵ p3, lines 2-12, ibid

¶"I think the balance to strike, however, is to make sure that politicians are not too – how can I put it? Not too weak-kneed in face of pressure which they don't agree with or is unwarranted or is unjustified in a mature democracy. The pressure is one thing. Intimidation is another. And I think it's very important to point the finger not just at the press but the political class. The more the political class allow themselves over time to be intimidated or cajoled or pressured, of course the more it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."

¶2.5 Mr Clegg's advice to the Inquiry was to recommend a series of 'quite precise proposals' which would not be the subject of 'endless political argy-bargy' and would stand a good chance of cross-party support.⁶⁶ pp87-88, lines 6-2, ibid He underlined, in addition, that the future for press standards "has to be independent regulation, independent of government, Parliament, politicians and the media, with teeth";⁷⁷ pp80-83, lines 16-3, ibid he saw independence from both press and politicians as important, in other words, for a proper and effective system of press standards which would command public confidence.