26 Jun 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Nick Clegg’s former Parliamentary Private Secretary has said News International threatened to “turn against” the coalition if its parent company News Corp’s £8bn bid for control of BSkyB were referred to Ofcom.
Quoting from a note of an October 2010 meeting with News Corp lobbyist Frederic Michel, Norman Lamb MP said that News Corp would have “turned nasty” if business secretary Vince Cable, then responsible for handling the bid, referred it to the broadcast regulator.
Lamb said he took Michel’s comments to mean “very clearly that positive coverage he said they had given might change.”
The note, read out by Lamb and posted on the Inquiry website this afternoon, read:
0900 meeting Fred Michel News International. An extraordinary encounter. FM is very charming. He tells me News Int. papers will land on VC’s [Vince Cable] desk in next 2 weeks. They are certain there are no grounds for referral. They realise the political pressures. He wants things to run smoothly. They have been supportive of Coalition. But if it goes the wrong way he is worried about the implications. It was brazen VC refers case to Ofcom – they turn nasty. Then he talked about AV – how Sun might help the debate – use of good graphics to get across case.
James M[urdoch] has met Nick [Clegg] – worth working on him to he could be receptive to case. Times will give it fair hearing.
So refer case and implication was clear. News Int turn against Coalition and AV.
In another note read to the Inquiry today, Lamb wrote that he had spoken to Nick Clegg about the meeting — among other things — noting that Clegg was “horrified” by it: “We will lose the only papers who have been positive,” it read.
Lamb said he has been thinking for some time whether to give this evidence to the Inquiry, saying he felt it necessary after Cable’s claim that “veiled threats” had been made to the Lib Dems connected with News Corp’s bid for full control of the satellite broadcaster.
The bid — which News Corp abandoned following the phone hacking scandal that emerged last summer — has become a key focus of the Inquiry as it examines close relations between the press and politicians. In December 2010 Cable’s responsibility for the bid was handed to culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, following the revelation of the business secretary declaring “war” on News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch.
The high level of close contact between Hunt’s department and Michel over the course of the bid brought the government’s impartiality into question. Hunt’s adviser Adam Smith resigned in April after a series of emails between the department and News Corp revealed that the company was being given advance feedback of the government’s scrutiny of the bid.
Earlier today, the lawyer of the parents of a British schoolboy killed in a coach crash in Switzerland in March described the family’s distress at press intrusion, in particular the “unauthorised publication” of photographs of them by various newspapers.
Giles Crown told the Inquiry that a photograph of the grieving Bowles family had been taken outside the bereaved relatives’ hotel near Sierre, Switzerland, without their consent and printed in the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph. Photographers were banned from the property and told not to come within 20 metres of the hotel, Crown said.
“It is clear that the people in the photograph have no knowledge that they are being photographed,” he added.
Crown said that the Sun had published a quote from Sebastian Bowles’ account of the trip that had been posted on a blog set up for the pupils to communicate with their parents.
He also alleged that the MailOnline had also published photos from Sebastian’s father’s Facebook page, adding that he was certain his privacy settings had been set to the maximum level.
Edward Bowles later deactivated his Facebook account after he found that the photos, which Crown said were of a “private, personal and family nature”, had been obtained by the press.
Bowles contacted the Press Complaints Commission with the family’s concern over media intrusion and sent a letter on the family’s behalf to the PCC and various media outlets requesting they not be contacted.
The Daily Mail replied in a letter on 20 March, noting that the pictures taken from Facebook were publicly accessible, but that they had now been removed from the MailOnline version of the story.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow.
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25 Jun 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Lord Justice Leveson has stressed there is no “hidden agenda” to his Inquiry into press standards.
In opening remarks to this morning’s session — which were posted on the Inquiry website — Leveson said he understood “only too well” journalists’ anxieties over the “dangers of a knee-jerk response” to the phone-hacking scandal that erupted last summer, but added that “no recommendations have been formulated or written; no conclusions have yet been reached.”
Leveson was making his first public response to a Mail on Sunday story on 17 June that alleged the judge had threatened to quit over comments education secretary Michael Gove had made to Parliament in February, in which he suggested a “chilling effect” was emanating from the Inquiry.
Leveson said he did contact cabinet secretary Jeremy Heywood following Gove’s comments to clarify whether the government still supported the Inquiry.
“I wanted to find out whether Mr Gove was speaking for the government, whether it was thought that the very existence of the Inquiry was having a chilling effect on healthy, vibrant journalism and whether the government had effectively reached a settled view on any potential recommendations,” Leveson said. “Put shortly, I was concerned about the perception that the Inquiry was being undermined while it was taking place.”
The judge said it was “absolutely correct” for the press to hold the Inquiry and himself to account, but added it was “at least arguable that what has happened is an example of an approach which seeks to convert any attempt to question the conduct of the press as an attack on free speech.”
Simon Walters, the article’s co-author, appeared at the Inquiry this afternoon. He was not quizzed over the story, having been called to give evidence before it was printed.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow.
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14 Jun 12 | Leveson Inquiry
David Cameron has said statutory regulation must be a “last resort” in reforming the British press.
Spending the day giving evidence before the Leveson Inquiry today, the prime minister — who himself called for the Inquiry into press standards — said he was not ruling out statutory involvement in a new regulator, but said there was a need to “make everything that can be independent work before you reach for that lever”.
He said independent regulation of the press must involve all newspapers, be compulsory, be able to impose penalties and have investigatory powers.
A reformed Press Complaints Commission (PCC) had to be seen to be simple, understandable and offer redress for ordinary individuals, he said.
The key, Cameron said, was if an individual suffered press intrusion or was the subject of an inaccurate article, “that it really is worth their while going to this regulator, however established, and they know they’re going to get a front-page apology.
“Are we really protecting people who have been caught up and absolutely thrown to the wolves by the press?” he asked, citing repeatedly the “catacylsmic” revelations of last summer that abducted schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone had been hacked, which led to the closure of tabloid the News of the World and Cameron’s call for a public inquiry into press malfeasance.
“If families like the Dowlers feel this has really changed the way they would have been treated, we would have done our job properly,” Cameron said.
While he maintained he understood the “real concern” over statutory regulation of a free press, he repeated that he felt the country’s current system of press self-regulation had “failed”.
Lord Justice Leveson’s report, which will offer recommendations on future press regulation, is due to be published this autumn.
Cameron emerged from his day in the witness box relatively unscathed, save the revelation of a text message from former News International CEO Rebekah Brooks during the Conservative party conference in October 2009, in which she told the then leader of the opposition that “professionally, we’re definitely in this together” and signed off “yes he Cam!”
Cameron also spoke cautiously about his appointment of former News of the Wold editor Andy Coulson as his communications chief in 2007, noting that it was “controversial” due to Coulson’s resignation from the tabloid following the jailing of one of its reporters on phone hacking offences.
Yet Cameron stressed he and current chancellor George Osborne felt Coulson was a “very effective” candidate.
“The calculation was, who is going to be good enough, tough enough to deal with a very difficult job,” Cameron said.
He described the issue of Coulson’s lower-level vetting by Number 10 as a “red herring”, and defended handing responsibility of the £8bn bid for control of BSkyB to culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, telling the Inquiry that it had been endorsed by Cabinet secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell and backed with legal advice.
Looking to the future, Cameron recommended greater distance and respect between members of the press and politicians, noting that the relationship was not “a particularly trusting one at the moment”.
“When I got into Downing Street I did try to create a bit more distance. I think I need to go back and do that again,” Cameron said.
The Inquiry continues next week.
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13 Jun 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg has called for statutory backing of a reformed press regulator, while making the case for protecting press freedom.
Clegg told the Leveson Inquiry this morning that public confidence needed to be restored in the British press following the phone hacking scandal, but said a solution could “work in parallel”, noting that reforms to press regulation should be “balanced against those enshrining the freedom of the press and the ability of journalists to go after the truth without fear or impediment.”
“A little tweak here and there of a fundamentally flawed model is not going to solve this,” Clegg said, adding later that the recommendations Lord Justice Leveson is due to make in the autumn must lead to change that would celebrate and protect press freedom rather than denigrate it.
The Lib Dem leader said a statutory role should be in the “background” of any regulatory reforms, suggesting statute could play a part in incentivising or cajoling media groups to join into a reformed regulator.
Clegg said he had not yet seen a “convincing case for independent, voluntary regulation of the press” be made, referring to the Irish model as a “fascinating” example.
He made a strong case for supplementing regulatory reform with a stronger definition of the public interest to help guide and protect reporters. “If the press has confidence in a public interest that protects them,” Clegg said, it would “allow them to be a bit more comfortable with the unavoidable reforms of being held to account that they are anxious about.”
While he admitted that a “chilling effect” on press freedom would mean the country would be “losing something very precious”, he branded the claim — as alluded to by education secretary Michael Gove — that the Inquiry is chilling journalists as “preposterous”.
Despite asking his party to abstain on a vote in the Commons today over the future of Jeremy Hunt, Clegg defended the culture secretary’s handling of the £8bn BSkyB bid, arguing that Hunt had given the Inquiry a “full, good and convincing” account of how he handled the bid for the takeover of the satellite broadcaster.
Yet, reminiscent of business secretary Vince Cable’s claim that “veiled threats” had been made to the Lib Dems in connection with News Corp’s takeover bid, Clegg told the Inquiry that his colleague Norman Lamb had told him he had been warned that the party could expect “unfavourable treatment” from the Murdoch papers if they were not open to the bid.
“Norman was quite agitated about that”, Clegg said.
The Inquiry continues this afternoon with evidence from Scottish first minister Alex Salmond.
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