Leveson « Labour Uncut

Posts Tagged ‘Leveson’

The rule of law is more important than unbridled press freedom

28/11/2012, 06:46:03 PM

by Mark Stockwell

Like cornered cobras, journalists and editors have been baring their fangs in recent weeks to put pressure on the government to reject the statutory regulation of the press most now expect the Leveson report to recommend.

This is only to be expected – their way of life is being called into question. Even those newspapers usually so quick to dismiss ‘producer interest’ are suddenly spouting every self-serving rationalisation as to why their industry should be uniquely free from interference.

Let me be clear – I hold no brief for statutory regulation of the press. Instinctively, I favour self-regulation. And I accept that the press is different from other industries, that having an open discourse of ideas and opinions is part of the lifeblood of parliamentary democracy. I get it, I really do.

But it is wholly unacceptable for an editor to state, as Fraser Nelson of the Spectator did on Wednesday, that he will not abide by the law.

Before he has even seen what Leveson proposes; before the government has come forward with its response; before the democratically-elected parliament has had a chance to consider and debate the proposals, Nelson has taken it upon himself to declare his publication and, by extension, his profession, above the law.

(more…)

Posted in Uncut | 6 Comments »

Whisper it quietly, the government maybe about to back Leveson

23/11/2012, 10:32:09 AM

by Atul Hatwal

So now we know, it’s next week. Lord Leveson will finally publish his long delayed report on Thursday 29^th November, complete with recommendations on the future of press regulation.

For many months now, the conventional Westminster village wisdom has been clear: Ed Miliband and Nick Clegg will back the report while David Cameron will demur.

The prime minister will kick the report into the long grass and accept the public’s opprobrium because (a) backing the newspapers’ position will guarantee better coverage for his government as the next election approaches; and (b) most people already think the worst of him on this issue with few swing voters likely switch their allegiance on the basis of press regulation.

But, as Lord Leveson’s report goes to the printers, this wisdom is looks increasingly askew. It fundamentally misreads the credibility of the newspaper owners’ blandishments and threats – and the evidence suggests number ten knows this.

The owners might privately brief the government in warm terms about better coverage tomorrow if Leveson is blocked today, but word are cheap; would they really follow through?

There is a deep scepticism within number ten that the attack dogs of the Daily Mail, Telegraph and Sun will meekly roll over and give the government a pass for the next three years.

A story is a story and in the cutthroat competition of the newspaper market, few will refuse the opportunity to hurt the government if it drives sales. At the margins, perhaps some stories might be soft pedalled, but collectively supressing major news would be commercially counter-productive.

(more…)

Posted in Uncut | 4 Comments »

Our free press should remain free

15/11/2012, 07:00:17 AM

by Peter Watt

I know a bit about the impact of aggressive press activity. Back in 2008 when I resigned as general secretary of the Labour party it was pretty big news. The story revolved around me. For the first few days (it could’ve been a week) there were journalists outside our home, TV trucks in the street and people trying to climb into our back garden to see if we were in but not answering the door.

Luckily the whole family, including our very young children, had shot off to stay with relatives before they arrived. We had to move twice over the next few weeks. The neighbours had their doors knocked but they all closed ranks and wouldnt talk to the media. At one point my wife, Vilma, had to go home to collect some clothes; she went into our neighbours’ house so that she could go into our house unseen by the media via our back door. While she was in the neighbours’ house a journalist knocked on the door and asked her if she knew the neighbours – i.e. us!

Friends were contacted to comment via Facebook and my wider family were phoned at home and work. One newspaper offered a large sum of money to someone to both comment and let them know where I was.

Someone else told me to change the PIN on my voicemail which I did and changed my phone as well. Friends eventually told us when the media had gone; it took a while as for a further week or so after most had left, there was a pooled journalist constantly on guard.

Even after that there would be someone knocking on the door at least once a week. All in all, it was a pretty grim experience that went on for a couple of months with someone even turning up at our door on Boxing Day. For months we had to ban the kids from answering the door.

So I know what serious intrusion into your life by an aggressive persistent media feels like. The truth is that unless you have actually gone through it then it is actually hard to imagine just how frightening and destabilising it really is.

(more…)

Posted in Uncut | 8 Comments »

The Guardian bottles Leveson

05/11/2012, 07:00:16 AM

by Atul Hatwal

Pity the Guardian. Such good work in bringing hacking into the light and making the case for a full independent inquiry: more than any other newspaper, the Guardian helped reveal the full scale of malfeasance across the press.

Nick Davies and Amelia Hill won scoop of the year at this year’s press awards for their story on the hacking of the Dowlers and the paper has been rightly lauded for its dogged and fearless work.

Now, having shown the world why change is needed, days before Lord Leveson delivers his proposals to reform the way the media is regulated, the Guardian has bottled it.

On Friday, the paper ran a long, meticulously parsed editorial giving their position on regulation. Amid the nuanced 1,130 word meander, there is one salient sentence,

“We do believe in a contract system – not the use of statute – to secure participation.”

It’s easy to become lost in the minutiae of regulatory reform, and the Guardian editorial certainly does an excellent job of getting tangled in the weeds, but there really is only one simple question that needs answering: will media regulation remain voluntary, as it is now, or will all newspapers be covered?

Regardless of the various carrots and sticks that maybe proposed in a new regulatory model, without the sanction of law, it is all still voluntary. If a newspaper proprietor does not want to participate, they don’t have to, and that is that.

This is the Guardian’s position.

(more…)

Posted in Uncut | 2 Comments »

Mad Uncle Rupert unsettles anti-Leveson lobby journalists

16/10/2012, 03:41:33 PM

Whispers reach Uncut of disquiet in the lobby on the right approach to oppose Leveson.

The overwhelming majority of parliamentary journalists view the Leveson report as something to be feared and distrusted. The span of opinion ranges from Leveson’s anticipated proposals presaging the end of civilisation to simply sounding the death knell for freedom.

But signs are emerging of a split between the vituperative stance adopted by senior management at some of the leading anti-Leveson titles and the footsoldiers of the lobby.

A recent Mail editorial calling for the Leveson to investigate the BBC, following the Saville revelations, was seen to have made the right point in the wrong way.

The opening paragraph laced into anti-hacking campaigners, Hugh Grant, Steve Coogan and Max Mosley, branding them “three harpies from hell”. One hack at another paper, sympathetic to the Mail’s position said,

“It was way too over the top. The point is about judging the BBC and the press by the same standard, but personalising it like this makes it seem like they’ve got a vendetta and undermines the case. People will think its sour grapes. Dacre needs to button it.”

Then over the weekend, Rupert Murdoch tweeted “Told UK’s Cameron receiving scumbag celebrities pushing for even more privacy laws.” Labelling victims of hacking that News International has had to pay substantial sums, as “scumbags” was widely viewed as a major mistake. One journo murmured,

“He’s basically the mad uncle, locked in the attic, crashing about. Now he’s got twitter, the window is open and everyone in the outside world can hear him. Noone needs that.”

Another scribbler worried about the effect that the almost inevitable divestment of News Corporation’s British stable of papers will have on Rupert Murdoch’s behaviour,

“It’s alright for him. He knows he won’t even have any British newspapers to bother about soon, he can spout off as much as he likes. It’s the rest of us that will have to live with the consequences.”

With journalists from at least one paper under strict instructions to not even tweet about Leveson before the report is published, the signs are that the anti-Leveson lobby is feeling jittery.

Posted in Inside | No Comments »

Is Labour’s poll lead actually 3% not 10%?

06/06/2012, 07:00:07 AM

by Atul Hatwal

So what is the real Labour lead? Sure, we’ve all seen the polls, and they tell a consistent tale across different pollsters. Looking at YouGov, the latest results from the weekend have Labour 10 points up over the Tories, 42% to 32%.

It’s a commanding lead but for those who remember the 1980s and 1990s, there remain nagging doubts.

At the end of 1980 Labour was registering week after week of double digit leads, peaking at 24% for Gallup in mid-December. But we all know what happened in the 1983 election.

Almost a decade later, it was déjà vu.

In 1990, Labour was once again posting massive poll leads. Between the end of February and end of April, Labour averaged a 22% lead across nearly 20 different polls. Impressive. Except, once again, we all know the result of the 1992 election.

The purpose of this trip down a rather painful stretch of memory lane isn’t to be a Cassandra. The future is not written and any form of poll lead is better than a deficit.

But caution is needed. Taking these leads at face value can breed complacency and for Labour, the experience of the past thirty years is clear: as the actual general election draws near, the poll leads have regularly evaporated.

Since those heady days of Dave and Nick in the rose garden, there has been a fundamental shift in how the public regards the government; and David Cameron in particular. The question is how would this translate in the polling booth? Would voters turn away from the Tories, and more pertinently, would they choose Labour?

The problem with attempting this judgement has been the absence of polling data that can be compared to an actual election, outside of the general election.

While there is a regular cycle of local council elections punctuated with by-elections, the pollsters rarely poll these specific areas, and even on those rare occasions when they do, only after the campaign is underway. So it’s almost impossible to compare like with like.

But regional elections offer a new opportunity. London has been polled by YouGov regularly since 2010 and recently voted.

(more…)

Posted in Uncut | 21 Comments »

How twitter and Leveson have destroyed the government’s media strategy

01/06/2012, 07:00:45 AM

by Atul Hatwal

So he’s still got a job. Jeremy Hunt hangs on, defying political gravity. His performance yesterday at Leveson was woeful. Between the further revelations of his simpering texts to James Murdoch and near tearful demeanour, it was by any standards, a dreadful day for the Tory.

But despite all of this, thanks to some catastrophic media management choices made at the top of the government, Jeremy Hunt is still standing.

It’s almost possible to see the meeting: Craig Oliver, Gabby Bertin, George Osborne, all sat round the table at their morning huddle. Yes, it is going to be tough. Yes the evidence is damning. But the public don’t get the detail of Leveson. They just think all politicians are in hock to Murdoch and besides, as long as Hunt stays in post, he remains the story.

Which means David Cameron is not.

This was the rationale behind the PM’s decision to continue backing his critically compromised secretary of state for culture, media and sport: a whole-hearted vote of confidence in his personal, human shield.

In one sense the government media panjandrums are right. David Cameron is nowhere to be found in today’s headlines. It’s all Hunt. But everything has a price to pay, and in this case it is the collective confidence of the lobby journalists.

Although individual newspapers are no longer as influential as in the past – it’s unlikely that the Sun will ever again be the one wot won it– the club of parliamentary journalists still wields massive power when they form a common view.

On these occasions, this shared perspective becomes the lens through which all news, print, broadcast and online, is projected.

For the government, after just two years in office, such a view has formed. The leitmotif in the lobby narrative on the government’s media strategy is now incompetence.

It colours all reporting and increasingly undermines the government’s ability to run the news cycle. Positive stories are treated with suspicion, negative stories with credibility. For Labour, it took over a decade to reach this nadir.

(more…)

Posted in Uncut | 11 Comments »

Hunt memo proves David Cameron manipulated the BSkyB bid process to favour the Murdochs

25/05/2012, 09:27:51 AM

by Atul Hatwal

Although the media focus this morning is still on Jeremy Hunt, the real story should be about David Cameron’s conduct. The reason? The already infamous Hunt memo to Cameron, from November 2010, is a game-changer.

For the first time there is clear evidence that the prime minister, as opposed to a junior cabinet minister or special adviser, directly manipulated the quasi-judicial process considering News Corporation’s bid for BSkyB, in favour of the Murdochs.

When David Cameron stripped Vince Cable of responsibility for adjudicating on the bid in December 2010, he understood he would face a problem in simply handing over the process to Jeremy Hunt at DCMS.

Hunt was well-known as an admirer of News Corporation: while in opposition he had given a breathless interview to Broadcast magazine where he had eulogised about Rupert Murdoch,

“Rather than worry about Rupert Murdoch owning another TV channel, what we should recognise is that he has probably done more to create variety and choice in British TV than any other single person because of his huge investment in setting up Sky TV which, at one point, was losing several million pounds a day”.

Shortly after Hunt became secretary of state, he had followed-up in June 2010 in an interview with the Financial Times where he speculated on the BSkyB bid,

“It does seem to me that News Corp do control Sky already, so it isn’t clear to me that in terms of media plurality there is a substantive change, but I don’t want to second guess what regulators might decide.”

Cameron knew these comments would inevitably surface and be used by Labour to challenge Hunt’s ability to manage the process impartially. The prime minister needed cover for his decision and turned to his cabinet secretary, who duly obliged.

(more…)

Posted in Uncut | 43 Comments »

David Cameron lied to the House of Commons about Andy Coulson

11/05/2012, 07:00:07 AM

by Atul Hatwal

The reviews for Andy Coulson’s performance at Leveson yesterday might have been glowing, but he did reveal one critical fact. A fact with no caveat or wriggle room.

It came during the passage of questioning on Coulson’s vetting. When asked by the lead counsel for the inquiry, Robert Jay QC, whether he had attended meetings of the National Security Council (NSC), Coulson was unusually clear.

“Yes” he said.

There was no “maybe”, “might have” or “I can’t recall.”

It’s important because attendance at full NSC discussions requires the highest level of clearance, developed vetting (DV) so that participants can view content classified as top secret or above. As has been well established, Andy Coulson did not have this clearance.

So what you might say. If Coulson attended a meeting without the right clearance then that’s not ideal, but hardly front page news.

What elevates this from being another example of shoddy internal government process to significance is the identity of the chair of the NSC: the Rt Hon David Cameron MP.

In this context, Cameron’s reported comments to the House of Commons on Wednesday 20^th July 2011 take on a new salience. Responding to questions about Coulson’s security clearance, he stated,

“He was not able to see the most secret documents…It was all done in the proper way“.

(more…)

Posted in Uncut | 10 Comments »

David Cameron’s political judgement makes him the real Hunt of this story

25/04/2012, 07:10:40 AM

by Atul Hatwal

Why does Jeremy Hunt still have a job? His holding statement last night was so full of holes it could be used to sieve the peas.

Hunt’s words were carefully chosen, and as ever when politicians’ parse, it is what is not explicitly ruled out that counts: “some of the evidence reported meetings and conversations that simply didn’t happen “.

So, some of the meetings and conversations did happen.

That’s enough. A cursory reading of the e-mails suggests that for Hunt to survive, Frédéric Michel would have had to have been a complete fantasist. Jeremy Hunt has already said he is not.

The depth of trouble in which Hunt finds himself can be gauged by the way the Leveson cache of e-mails is being reported: almost always with a prefix such as “devastating”, in the same way Andrew Lansley is normally “gaffe-prone” or “under pressure”.

Naturally, Jeremy Hunt thinks he can ride out the storm. After spending the best part of the past two decades scrambling to climb the greasy political pole (so to speak), he and his advisers will desperately be looking for a way through the minefield. It’s an understandable human reaction.

But what makes less sense is the response from Number 10.

Quite apart from the substance of the issue and the appalling privileged influence that the Murdochs clearly enjoyed, there is something potentially even more damaging in the Downing street reaction, certainly in the medium term: their failure of political judgement.

(more…)

Posted in Uncut | 3 Comments »