The night that proved
Labour is the political wing of ‘Hacked Off’
For
almost three hours, senior figures from the Labour Party, the Lib Dems, and the
pressure group Hacked Off wrangled over the detail of the proposed agreement
paving the way for the first political regulation of the newspaper industry
since 1695.
Bizarrely,
Sunday’s crucial meeting, which started at 9pm, was not held in a Government
minister’s office but in Labour leader Ed Miliband’s spacious Commons suite
with its panoramic views of the River Thames.
And an
analysis of the event provides an extraordinary insight into how Labour has
become the political wing of a lobby group that includes Press-hating zealots,
small-town academics, faded actors with rackety sex lives, and, oh yes, the
S&M specialist Max Mosley.
Bizarrely,
Sunday's crucial meeting, which started at 9pm, was not held in a Government
minister's office but in Labour leader Ed Miliband's spacious Commons suite
with its panoramic views of the River Thames
The
gathering included Harriet Harman, the deputy Labour leader; Rosie Winterton,
Opposition Chief Whip; former Labour Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer; and Nick
Clegg.
To the
fury of most Tory MPs, there were four representatives from Hacked Off, which
is fronted by the actor Hugh Grant, including human rights lawyer Hugh
Tomlinson QC; journalism professor Brian Cathcart; former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris,
who recently took ecstasy on TV; and academic Martin Moore.
Significantly,
there was no one from the newspaper industry, which was not even accorded the
courtesy of being told about the meeting in advance.
Astonishingly,
there were no Conservative Cabinet ministers either sitting around the long
rectangle table in Miliband’s office under a portrait of Keir Hardie, founder
of the modern Labour Party.
In
fairness to Miliband and Harman, they had tried to secure the presence of
Oliver Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister who has been engaged in talks on
Press regulation for four months since the publication of Lord Leveson’s
report.
Letwin,
who is supposed to be the government authority on the fiendishly complex
proposed system of regulation, was at his home in South London, apparently
oblivious to the significance of the meeting. The six Cabinet Office civil
servants who were present were unwilling or afraid to interrupt their political
master’s Sunday evening.
Letwin
had no idea Miliband had insisted, and Clegg had agreed, that Hacked Off had to
be at the meeting to give its approval to any final blueprint for the
regulatory machine for the newspaper industry.
As for
the Prime Minister, he was in Downing Street, equally unaware of what was going
on. His officials insist he had not gone to bed.
The
gathering included Harriet Harman (left), the deputy Labour leader; Rosie
Winterton, Opposition Chief Whip; former Labour Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer;
and Nick Clegg
Tories
outnumbered: There were also four representatives from Hacked Off, which is
fronted by Hugh Grant (pictured), including human rights lawyer Hugh Tomlinson
QC and journalism professor Brian Cathcart
Oliver
Letwin, who is supposed to be the government authority on the fiendishly
complex proposed system of regulation, was at his home in South London,
apparently oblivious to the significance of the meeting
Yet it
was obvious to everyone in Miliband’s office, including Letwin’s civil
servants, that it was no routine gathering. Cameron, after months of insisting
there would be no statute to underpin the new regulator, had clearly performed
another U-turn.
Faced
with certain Commons defeat in a vote on Press regulation scheduled for Monday,
he had summoned Clegg to Downing Street on Sunday morning to tell him of his
change of heart. Clegg, a long-standing supporter of statutory regulation, was
delighted.
Later,
standing on a playing field touchline watching one of his sons play football,
he telephoned the Labour leader to say they were on the verge of a major
breakthrough.
Harriet
Harman then went to Miliband’s North London home and left after two hours,
confident a deal was in their grasp. They agreed to meet at the Labour
leader’s office at 9pm.
As the
meeting progressed, Harman — one of the most tribal Labour politicians —
decided to contact the Tory MPs who had backed her campaign for a legislative
solution.
Curiously,
no efforts were made to contact Maria Miller, the hapless Conservative Culture
Secretary
She
texted George Eustice, a former Press secretary to Cameron who was once a
Ukip parliamentary candidate — and is known by the lobby as Useless
Eustice — to urge him to contact Oliver Letwin.
In the
last text to Eustice at 10.40pm, Harman even appealed for the number of
Letwin’s wife to see if she could help. Harman also tried to raise Letwin
through another Tory MP and regular visitor to her Commons office — the
millionaire Tory MP Zac Goldsmith.
Goldsmith
had obtained a so-called super injunction in December 2008 preventing the
publication of private emails which had been leaked to the Press.
Speaking
at a Commons investigation into privacy, where he sat next to Hugh Grant, he
had drawn a tasteless comparison between certain tabloids and the Nazi death
camp at Auschwitz.
(Goldsmith
had argued that newspapers should not be given free rein to print stories about
the private lives of famous people simply so they could sell more copies and
remain financially viable. ‘No one said Auschwitz should have been kept open
because it created jobs,’ he said.)
Harman
texted him several times, despite the fact he had got married for the second
time only two days earlier. ‘For heavens sake, I’m texting Zac Goldsmith on his
honeymoon,’ she told others at the meeting. But Goldsmith, who is in a hot spot
abroad, did not pick up her texts until Monday morning.
Miliband
himself threatened to phone Letwin but, in the end, it took a call from Clegg,
pulling his weight as Deputy PM, to prise Letwin from his home.
Curiously,
no efforts were made to contact Maria Miller, the hapless Conservative Culture
Secretary, whose brief covers media regulation and who is shadowed in the
Commons by Harman.
‘No one
even mentioned Maria Miller,’ said another source at the meeting. ‘She’s not in
the loop.’
When
Letwin (known to Tory MPs as Left-wing) finally deigned to arrive at 11.45pm,
the people in the room were taken aback not just by his eccentric dress sense —
he was wearing mustard-coloured corduroy trousers and a sky blue shirt — but
also by the fact he brought with him takeaway pepperoni pizzas.
Outrage:
Tory MPs are astonished that Cameron allowed the talks to carry on in the
Labour leader's office with Hacked Off present, yet with no senior player from
the newspaper industry
‘As
Letwin was so late, it would have improved the mood if he had shared them, as
we had survived on coffee and chocolate biscuits,’ said one source. Letwin,
utterly nonplussed to see Hacked Off at the negotiating table, immediately
retreated with the civil servants — and his pizzas — into the waiting room of
Miliband’s office to telephone the Prime Minister and inform him of their
presence.
Tory MPs
are astonished that Cameron allowed the talks to carry on in the Labour
leader’s office with Hacked Off present, yet with no senior player from the
newspaper industry.
With a
triumphant Miliband in the chair, and Letwin sitting sheepishly by his side
after coming back into the main office, the meeting continued as Labour and
Hacked Off called the shots. At one point, Miliband announced: ‘I have a piece
of good news. Hugh Grant has left the country. He is on a plane to Los
Angeles.’
Everyone
cheered because the zealotry of Grant had been seen by all sides as a serious
obstacle to progress.
In fact, in a heated meeting in the Commons last week, he
was rebuked by Ayesha Hazarika, Harman’s special adviser, over his militant
views on tethering the Press.
Heavily
outnumbered, Letwin was persuaded to roll over after Miliband joined him in the
waiting room — where Letwin had once again retreated — for a confidential chat.
The
Labour side knew it was in the bag when Miliband came back into his office
clutching a slice of Letwin’s cold pizza.
The
meeting ended at 2.30am. At 4am a message was sent by Harman’s office to the
BBC saying: ‘Labour is confident of the basis of a deal for Press regulation
after late-night talks’.
By 6am,
Harman was out of her house and touring TV and radio studios to announce that
Labour had won, the PM had crossed the Rubicon and thereby avoided an
embarrassing Commons defeat, and the Commons vote was cancelled.
It wasn’t
until nearer 8.30am that the Tories finally got their act together and sent
Maria Miller out to bat on the airwaves. Just like the night before, it seems
the Tories had been asleep on the job.
In the
event, in a sad comment on a day in which Her Majesty’s Opposition had shown
themselves to be in the thrall of a lobby group, the newspaper industry —
representing countless millions of readers — was not told about what was in the
charter until late afternoon the following day.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2296047/The-night-proved-Labour-political-wing-Hacked-Off.html#ixzz2O6WM0Miw
