Today’s latest revelations from the Leveson Inquiry are a reminder of how wise it was to create a judge-led inquiry with wide terms of reference and powers. And who was it who did that when the Coalition Government was drawing up the plans, rejecting the talk of a lesser inquiry? Step forward, Nick Clegg.
PS I should have added that it was of course Lib Dem MP Adrian Sanders who was the first in the party to be calling for a judicial inquiry, following his experience on the DCMS Select Committee.
* Mark Pack is Party President and is the editor of Liberal Democrat Newswire.
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12 Comments
I don’t think Nick Clegg deserves a drumming at every opportunity, and indeed, he should be commended for calling for a deeper inquiry.
My only criticism with Clegg over this matter is that, , once the evidence of Hunt and his ministerial aid was “potentially” a Breech of the Ministerial Code, Which as we all know is outside the remit of the Leverson Enquiry to judge on. Cameron should be conducting a Ministerial Enquiry NOW on whether a breech has occured.
It is absurd that the Government and ministers aids are being given pre-access to all the evidence against them and witness statements that have been provided to the enquiry, for-arming the minister(s) so they can copulate some kind of rebuff and arguments, which will more likely be a lets say, full of half truths and a lot of not to my recollections, which as we all know in court languages means ut is plausible it happened but i don’t recall, In other words, of course it happened, but that’s the line to use to stop a “perjury” charge being brought against you
It stinks,. and i think Clegg should embrace the Liberal Democrat in him, if it still exists and demand that Cameron deals with Hunt now.
Would show Clegg actually had some backbone maybe and some redeemable qualities, god know’s he’s going to need them lol
Is there anything in the coalition agreement about withdrawing from an administration due to rampant Tory sleaze?
These people spend all their time at school learning to ‘network’. When they go to university they build up their ‘network’. Then they use this ‘network’ to further their own career and create success for their company.
Then they come before the tribunal and say none of this ‘networking’ has any influence over anything. They only spend their life making ‘small talk’ and nothing more.
Yet the man in the flat cap in the ‘public bar’ of the Dog and Ferret spends half his life sounding off about the politics of the day – but when politicians and their friends get together they never mention it.
Who is kidding who?
Get the man from the Dog and Ferret to ask the questions at the Leveson enquiry. Then we might get a little closer to the truth. It will certainly be a lot closer to real life.
Can I just correct Mark on a couple of points. Brian Paddick was the first in the party to call for a judicial review and Chris Huhne was the first Lib Dem MP to call for one. I was the first, in September 2010, to call (in the letter produced below) on the Leader to support one. Our Leader’s view at the time was that this was a minority issue and such matters should be left to the Metropolitan police. It was only when the Milly Dowler story broke in July 2011 that he first publicly announced his support for such an enquiry. Can we have more facts and less spin please.
Adrian Sanders MP
Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP
Deputy Prime Minister
70 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2AS
5 September 2010
Dear Nick
I hope you have had a good summer break.
You will have seen numerous articles and reports recently about the Prime Minister’s press advisor, Andy Coulson. I am concerned that the Labour Party’s ‘political’ attacks on him are diverting attention from the role of the Metropolitan Police and persons within News International, of whom Mr Coulson may or may not be just one in the phone hacking scandal.
Our Party has a long tradition of seeking to hold to account those who exercise power and influence over our lives. The Metropolitan Police, News International, the Press Complaints Commission and possibly the Prime Minister’s office need to be held to account in this matter. How we react as partners in Government could be a test of our own values and principles.
The Culture Media and Sport Select Committee, of which I am a member as I was in the last Parliament, took evidence last year from the Metropolitan Police, News International staff both past and present, and others, as part of an investigation into press standards, privacy and libel. The allegations of illegal information gathering by the News of the World became a major part of our enquiry. I would recommend you look at our report and conclusions at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmcumeds/362/362i.pdf
This was the longest and most detailed enquiry I have known in 13 years membership of the House and I would particularly draw to your attention to this conclusion by the Committee:
In seeking to discover precisely who knew what among the staff of the News of the World we have questioned a number of present and former executives of News International.
Throughout we have repeatedly encountered an unwillingness to provide the detailed information that we sought, claims of ignorance or lack of recall, and deliberate obfuscation.
We strongly condemn this behaviour which reinforces the widely held impression that the press generally regard themselves as unaccountable and that News International in particular has sought to conceal the truth about what really occurred.
The involvement of the Metropolitan Police in this affair has left many questions unanswered. Our colleague Brian Paddick has called for a Judicial Review of the Mets handling of the allegation that his phone had been hacked by newspapers when he was a serving police officer. Your predecessor as Deputy Prime Minister is also calling for such a review.
We saw and heard evidence suggesting hundreds of people had information illegally taken from them which the police refuse to confirm, or to share what was taken with those named in documents seized during their investigations.
Imagine if personal information had been illegally taken from you. You would want to know what it was and who has it. You would worry about how it could be misinterpreted and how you could be misrepresented were it to be published at a later date.
It has taken an overseas newspaper, the New York Times, to bring this issue back into the spotlight with the publication last week of further allegations against News International employees and crucially, that key evidence was withheld from the Crown Prosecutions Service.
As a committee, we failed to get to the truth, but then select committees do not have the powers of judicial bodies. It is my belief that only a Judicial Enquiry conducted under oath and in public will uncover the extent of the wrong-doing, identify those responsible, and obtain justice for those who fear, possibly unnecessarily, that details about their lives have been illegally obtained and could be used to misrepresent them at a future date.
If the Office of Deputy Prime Minister allows you I would urge you to instigate a Judicial Enquiry into this affair. If it does not allow this I would like to know whether you will be taking this up with the Prime Minister and urging him to set up such an enquiry.
Yours sincerely
Adrian Sanders MP
Constituency office: 69 Belgrave Road, Torquay TQ2 5HZ Tel No: 01803 200036
“Throughout we have repeatedly encountered an unwillingness to provide the detailed information that we sought, claims of ignorance or lack of recall, and deliberate obfuscation.”
Quite extraordinary and disgraceful that the exNI employees can continue to use these tactics.
Thanks, Adrian, for sharing your unique knowledge of this with the LDV community.
Matt, I was willing to excuse your spelling and other errors in your post above, until you got to the bit about ministers being allowed to “copulate” their arguments and rebuffs!! For what it’s worth, I agree with the broad “thrust” of your own argument! I notice you sign off, like Cameron, with lol. Lots of love?
The first thing that came into my mind when I heard of the “core particpants” is that it gave the wrongdoers the opportunity to put pressure on witnesses to change their story when they gave it verbally, or to change the emphasis so that bad things didn’t seem so bad. The next thought that arrived was that, even if this doesn’t happen, it diminishes the apparent credibility of the enquiry.
I’d like to thank Adrian for not voting with the Tories on the CMS in their attempts to water down censure of the dirty digger. He has probably achieved more in differentiating us from the Tories than any other of our MPs in the last 3 months.
“Throughout we have repeatedly encountered an unwillingness to provide the detailed information that we sought, claims of ignorance or lack of recall, and deliberate obfuscation.”
It also makes the ‘on oath’ meaningless. Coulson, in particular, seemed “unaware” of what, who and where happened; if what he said is an accurate description of No 10 then a local PTA has much to teach them.
Still why are we surprised? Liam Fox was unaware that ‘taking a friend’ to high level defence meetings was untoward; Jeremy Hunt was unaware of his department’s inner workings, etc.
One might be excused for believing that most of the time, of those in power, is spent in ensuring they are ‘unaware’ of what goes on.
What Adrian has shown with the publication of the above letter is that there is a period of nine months between him calling on the Leader personally as DPM to supoport the call for a judicial inquiry and the Leader doing so – and an even longer period between Paddick and Huhne calling for a judicial inquiry and the Leader eventually reacting
The Leader might also wish to explain why during this period it is believed he told the Parliamentary Party that he considered it an minority issue and only came out in favour following the Milly Dowler phone hacking revelations.
If this is not the case he should make that plain.
Thank you Tim for pointing out my illiteracy 😉 my spelling and grammar is not good at the best of times, it deteriorates even more so after too many glasses of wine.
However, on reflection, I think I will stick with the copulate arguments as a metaphor, after all there is an awful lot of back rubbing going on between government ministers in order for them to get themselves out of a hole.
Well done, Adrian, for bringing a pink tongue to these proceedings.
One might even say: “‘simple sword of truth and trusty shield of British fair play”, had that quote not been cornered by the grandson of a Press baron! 🙂