Nicholas Jones

6 February, 2012

The role of newspapers like the Sun in offering “implacable support” for Tony Blair’s backing of the American-led invasion of Iraq was cited at the Leveson Inquiry as an example of how the Murdoch press was required to reflect the political views of its proprietor.

Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, told Lord Justice Leveson (6.2.2012) that he valued his “total freedom” as an editor – unlike the editors of The Times, Sunday Times, Sun and News of the World who had to follow the “strong views” which Rupert Murdoch communicated to them.

Dacre claimed that Blair, as Prime Minister, would have been unable to commit the use of British forces in the Iraq War “without the implacable support provided by the Murdoch newspapers...and that came from Murdoch himself.”

Evidence which backed up Dacre’s claim – although not referred to at the inquiry – was obtained by the Glasgow Media Group in October 2008 as a result of requests under the Freedom of Information Act.

Extracts from telephone conversations between Murdoch and Blair revealed the depth of Murdoch’s commitment to support the British Prime Minister.

 Nicholas Jones

1 February, 2012

Ofcom. the broadcasting regulator, gave an assurance to the Leveson Inquiry (1.2.2012) that it would speed up its investigation into whether it has sufficient power to provide protection against media companies exercising too much political influence.

Ed Richards, Ofcom’s chief executive, told Lord Justice Leveson that if given another chance to look again at News Corporation’s aborted bid for total control of BSkyB it would have placed more emphasis on the “risk to the democratic process.”

Ofcom’s evidence gets to the heart of one of the key challenges for the Inquiry: should there be fresh restrictions on the concentration of media power?  Campaigners for greater media plurality say that News Corporation’s level of media ownership in Britain – 39 per cent of BSkyB together with three national newspapers (The Times, Sunday Times and Sun) – is too large and should be reduced.

In his evidence to the inquiry Richards acknowledged that the absence of the power to make recommendations on the impact of media concentration on the democratic process became an issue during the investigations it conducted into News Corporation’s bid to take full control of BSkyB.

29 Jan 2012

The Sunday Times reports this morning that the Cabinet Office official in charge of government efforts to clean-up of lobbying has stepped down after posting a message on Twitter saying she hoped a group fighting for better regulation of the industry “would die”.

The remark appeared in a series of tweets by Eirian Walsh Atkins, who resigned as head of constitutional policy at the Cabinet Office on Friday. She now faces an internal investigation into possible breaches of the civil service code of conduct.

The paper reports: 'Walsh Atkins will be asked to explain the tweet she posted on December 22, saying: “I wish Unlock Democracy [the campaign group] would die. I am prepared to help it along.”

Asked by The Sunday Times to explain her comment about Unlock Democracy, she replied: “That I don’t like them,” and hung up.

However, more important than her apparent dislike of transparency campaigners is the fact that Walsh Atkins has held regular meetings with lobbyists seeking to influence the government's proposed statutory register of lobbyists, which she was responsible for preparing. She has met with the UK Public Affairs Council (UKPAC), a lobby industry body promoting self-regulation, on at least four occasions since September 2010. At the same time, transparency campaigners have been denied access.

The government's proposals for a statutory register, published last week, were widely seen as a whitewash, with lobbyists' fingerprints all over them.

The fact that the lobbying industry's lobbying of Walsh Atkins would remain a secret under the government's current proposals, will not do the government's case for minimal reform any favours. 

19 January 2012

The government is expected to announce its plans for a statutory register of lobbyists tomorrow (Friday 20 January). Ahead of publication of its consultation, Tamasin Cave of the Alliance for Lobbying Transparency said:

"The devil will be in the detail. We need a robust, compulsory register to reveal: who is lobbying whom, what they are lobbying about, and how much is being spent trying to influence our politicians. And it needs to be overseen by a body independent of the industry.

Anything less and we can assume that the government is putting the interests of its friends in the influence industry above public demands for full transparency.

David Cameron has voiced deep concerns about lobbying in the UK getting 'out of control'. The government must now tackle this £2billion industry and bring their activities into the open. Britain needs to catch up with other countries and allow real public scrutiny of lobbying with a robust register of lobbyists. Only then will we be able to fully understand the impact they have on the way this country is run."

The Alliance for Lobbying Transparency is calling for a robust statutory register, which would require lobbyists – whether companies or trade unions, lobbying agencies or law firms, and larger charities (above a minimum financial threshold) – to regularly declare on a public register:

• Names of individual lobbyists;
• The special interest lobbying (either the employer or agency clients);
• Public body being lobbied;
• Information on any public office held by lobbyists within 5 years (to reveal the 'revolving door')
• Area of policy they seek to influence, whether legislation, regulation or 
public contract;
• Amount of money spent on lobbying (good faith estimate). This will reveal scale, disparities and trends in lobbying.

Nicholas Jones

19 January, 2012 

Without the ability to use the Freedom of Information Act to probe the Metropolitan Police and the Crown Prosecution Service, the Labour MP Tom Watson doubts whether a House of Commons select committee would have made the progress it did in exposing the cover-up over the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World.

He fears that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government is trying to find ways to restrict the scope of the Act – a move recommended by the former Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell, and a view echoed by the former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair.

By using repeated Freedom of Information requests the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee forced the Metropolitan Police and the Director of Public Prosecutions to reveal the contents of their hospitality registers which contained details of social engagements with News International executives.

By using the Act, the committee gained the disclosure of information which otherwise would “still be hidden” and which was far more revealing than could have been obtained by parliamentary questions to ministers.

Nicholas Jones 9 January, 2012 

If the cursory level of questioning of the Sun’s editorial executives is to be any guide, David Cameron has little to fear from the Leveson Inquiry’s brief to make recommendations on the “future conduct of relations” between politicians, media proprietors and newspaper editors.

Dominic Mahon, editor of the Sun, who was among five executives who gave evidence (9.1.2012), faced only a superficial inquiry about Rupert Murdoch’s involvement in the Sun’s endorsement of the Conservatives at the 2010 general election.

Mahon was similarly not pressed to give any details of his four meetings with the Prime Minister in the twelve months since the general election; nor was there any probing of the Sun’s political campaigning on behalf of the government.  In August 2010 Cameron was given two-page spreads in the Sun to launch a hotline to expose “benefit scroungers” or another in October 2010 for the re-launch of the Prime Minister’s campaign on behalf of the “Big Society.”

Nicholas Jones 27 December, 2011

Having focussed initially on the grievances of celebrities and distressed relatives, the Leveson Inquiry into media ethics will start taking evidence in the New Year from newspaper proprietors and executives and the repercussions are likely to become increasingly uncomfortable for David Cameron.

Unanswered questions over the extent to which the Prime Minister was aware of illegal phone hacking at the News of the World are also bound to return to the political agenda if the Metropolitan Police decides to lay charges against the paper’s ex-editor Andy Coulson or any of the other seventeen former employees of News International who have been arrested and are currently on bail.

Because the opening stages of the inquiry concentred on the experiences of those who had suffered at the hands of media intrusion – and the ongoing unresolved dispute among journalists over who-knew-what about the extent of phone hacking – Cameron has been largely insulated from any further damaging fall-out from his decision to hire Coulson in May 2007 as the Conservatives’ media strategist, and then take him into Downing Street as the government’s director of communications after the 2010 general election.

Nicholas Jones 21 December, 2011

After another a week which began with the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne trailing his own Parliamentary announcements – this time on the future of the banking industry – a Conservative MP close to the Prime Minister has defended the practice of government by leaking.

Nick Boles, a founder member of the Notting Hill Set of Conservative activists who backed David Cameron’s bid for the Tory leadership, has told fellow MPs that the “public’s right to know” was more important than giving the House of Commons “a monopoly on first communication of the government’s decisions.”

He readily acknowledged – and defended – the fact that modern government had become “a leaky sieve”.  But it was, for example, because George Osborne’s proposals in the autumn statement had been trailed so effectively in advance, that the public’s “awareness and understanding” of the difficulties of the current economic situation was “far higher” than if nothing had been released in advance.

 Nicholas Jones, 11 December, 2011

“Gullibility” is the word which Chime Communication’s chairman Lord (Tim) Bell is reported to have implied when trying to explain away the ineptitude of senior members of his staff in allowing themselves to get caught in a newspaper sting.

Bell has condemned what he considered was an “unethical, underhand deception” by undercover reporters from the  Independent’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism in tricking Tim Collins, managing director of Bell Pottinger Public Affairs, into believing they were agents for the government of Uzbekistan.

Collins and two senior colleagues were caught on camera “boasting” how top lobbyists could “influence the Prime Minister. (Independent, 6.12.2011)

But Collins is no stranger to the black arts of journalism: he was the Conservative Party’s spin doctor who briefed political correspondents in advance of on John Major’s “Back to Basics” speech at the 1993 Tory conference – a briefing which backfired because of Collins’ guidance that Major was intent on rolling back the permissive society.

8 December 2011

Following this week's revelations about lobbying, the Independent reports today that "the trade body which represents the UK's public relations and lobbying industry is to investigate Bell Pottinger over claims made by executives during a business pitch to undercover reporters".

A rival lobbyist, Mark 'stand up for lobbying' Adams, has made the complaint to the Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA), one of three trade bodies running the lobbying industry's system of self-regulation. 

Adams states: "I am a strong proponent of self-regulation for the lobbying industry...Ideally Bell Pottinger will clear their name and demonstrate they have done nothing wrong. But if they have behaved in an unethical manner, then the appropriate sanctions should be taken against them."

The toughest sanction available to the PRCA is that they terminate Bell Pottinger's membership. That's it. And you thought the Press Complaints Commission lacked teeth.