Labour Tells Press - Please Kick Us

Whatever our free and fearless press does, the Labour Party will not lift a finger against it. That’s now their policy. Think about that for a moment: no more the promise that Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry will be given the green light by a future Labour Government, no commitment to press accountability, no regard to all the victims of press misbehaviour. No bugger all.

Can we play nicely, press people?

That less than optimum situation has been spelled out by Professor Brian Cathcart in an article for Byline Times, with the sub-heading giving us the all-important context “Days after four more current national newspaper editors were accused of having acted unlawfully, the party’s media spokesperson rules out future action on press accountability”. There is more.

“Four current national newspaper editors are among dozens of journalists named in claims against the Mail papers as having engaged in unlawful information gathering … Tony Gallagher (editor of the Times of London), Ben Taylor (Sunday Times), Victoria Newton (Sun) and David Dillon (Mail on Sunday) stand accused of having broken the law, … by a group of people including Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Sir Simon Hughes, Prince Harry and Elton John”. And the Labour response to this state of affairs?

“Thangam Debbonaire, Labour’s shadow culture secretary and thus its spokesperson on media affairs … was asked to confirm that Labour would not ‘seek to revive the second stage of the Leveson Inquiry (which was cancelled by the Tories in 2018 and which was supposed to investigate criminality in the media). And she replied ‘Yes’”. Do go on.

“We have to make sure that, no matter what, we do protect our free press. When I say “no matter what’, I don’t mean: they’re not allowed to break the law, they’re not allowed to harass people - that’s already a criminal offence. So there are plenty of things that are covered by criminal law” she claimed.

And that wasn’t all: “There is already media regulation, there is already the criminal and civil law. We don’t have plans to do anything, any new legislation in that area, no.” We know just how effective the current regulatory environment is regarding the press. It isn’t. IPSO is not fit for purpose.

Here's your answer

As Professor Cathcart notes, “the timing is appalling” for Ms Debonnaire. With a General Election only months away, she is telling a press cohort overwhelmingly hostile to Labour that the party all that distance out there in the lead in every opinion poll will not so much as say boo, whatever the press does. Why that is a supremely unwise decision is not difficult to see.

Whatever dirt the right-wing press has on senior Labour figures can be dished with no fear of any comeback. This means that Peter Mandelson, for some reason brought into Keir Starmer’s inner sanctum, will find the guns opening up on him from day one of the campaign, his friendship with the late Jeffrey Epstein likely to be front and centre. And it gets worse.

Remember the pack of lies pushed by the Mail titles about deputy leader Angela Rayner? The claim that she flashed the Tory front bench at PMQs? And the claim that she and Starmer had broken the Covid laws, which was also untrue? All that will be dug up and put out there. Ed Miliband is still a front bench figure. They got away with kicking him last time, and will do again.

The press will howl “Anti-Semitism” while recycling the anti-Semitic smear of Miliband’s late father. Labour won’t lift a finger, so desperate is the party to play nice with the press. Which will get them nowhere, because there is no such thing as playing nice when it comes to the press. The Murdoch and Rothermere press will kick Starmer and his pals black and blue.

Some of the dirt to be thrown at Labour, and plenty already stored up ready for the off, is likely to be the product of unlawful information gathering. But if Labour is to take such a relaxed approach to such mere details, who is going to prosecute the perpetrators? By the time anything happens, the circus will have moved on - even if Labour won. The press would rather they didn’t.

The Red Team now has a sticker on its back. It says KICK ME, PRESS PEOPLE. Unwise doesn’t even begin to cover it.

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