I was in the House when the Prime Minister made his statement. He was categorical in his opposition to statutory underpinning. If he had had an open mind, or if he had felt he needed a few more days or weeks to consider the recommendations, he would not have been so categorical in his rejection of the central tenet of what Lord Leveson says will be essential for the new system to work. That is why I question the Prime Minister’s motives.
As the former Prime Minister, John Major, put it in his evidence to Lord Leveson, when he was stressing the importance of all-party support for whatever Lord Leveson’s inquiry recommended,
“if one party breaks off and decides it’s going to seek future favour with powerful proprietors and press barons by opposing it”—
that is, Lord Leveson’s report—
“then it will be very difficult for it to be carried into law . . . So I think there is an especial responsibility on the leaders of the three major parties. . . on this occasion it’s the politicians who are in the last-chance saloon.”
I could not have put it better myself.
6.45 pm