The Daily Mail editor obviously doesn’t understand the concept of privacy
Dear Paul Dacre,
Not content with being in the unfortunate position of editing the Daily Mail, you have chosen to dig an even deeper hole for yourself today by accusing a High Court judge of bringing in a privacy law against the British press by the back door. You seem to think that Max Mosley’s victory in his recent privacy court case is “undermining the ability of newspapers to sell newspapers in an ever more difficult market”. You know what? You’re absolutely right – and I couldn’t care less.
The background to your tempestuous remarks is that the judge in the Mosley privacy case had used the privacy clause of the Human Rights Act against the News of the World. Your argument is that this ruling (and subsequent payout to Mr Mosley) threatens the media’s ”age-old freedom to expose the moral shortcomings of those in high places”. You know what? You’re absolutely right again. In your speech to the Society of Editors yesterday, you went to say that in the Mosley privacy case, Mr Justice Eady “effectively ruled that it was perfectly acceptable for the multi-millionaire head of a multi-billion sport that is followed by countless young people to pay five women £2,500 to take part in acts of unimaginable sexual depravity with him”. You know what? You’re absolutely right for the third time.
The problem here is that you don’t really grasp the concept of privacy, presumably because you have spent so much of your professional life ignoring it. Like you, I believe that a free press is essential if we are to maintain any notion of living in a free society. However, I also believe that everyone is entitled to a private life. The Max Mosley scandal led to these two principles colliding at high speed, but in my opinion the right to privacy wins. You made several comments in your speech that amply demonstrate your failure to understand what is at stake here. You said that the ruling essentially gave a nod to people ignoring the “civilised behaviour of which the law is supposed to be the safeguard.” Not so. The law is not supposed to tell us what we can or cannot do in our own free time in a private dwelling. What Max Mosley did with those prostitutes makes my stomach churn but he is still perfectly entitled to do it. Did he break the law? Perhaps, but just because he is wealthy and powerful this does not give you the right to fly the flag of saving this country from evil-doers by exposing his behaviour. Apparently you believe that Mosley’s victory in court threatens the media’s ability to pursue “the crooks, the liars, the cheats, the rich and the corrupt sheltering behind a law of privacy being created by an unaccountable judge”, yet Max Mosley is neither a crook, a liar, a cheat or corrupt on the evidence of his behaviour with those prostitutes. Yes, he is rich, but that alone doesn’t give you the right to invade his private life.
For someone in your position to claim that the judge in the Mosley case was ”arrogant and amoral” is unbelievable. It is the disgraceful intrusion into people’s private lives by the press that is arrogant and amoral. Newspaper editors insist that this information should be public knowledge whereas I couldn’t disagree more. If newspapers really did concentrate on the crooks, the liars and the cheats I would be so much happier. Only elected representatives of the people such as MPs and MEPs should have their private lives on the front pages, and only if they are charged with criminal offences or behave in a manner that is unfitting for public office. I agree with you that the Mosley case has ”huge implications for newspapers and for society” – it means that you might have to stay out of people’s private lives for a change. I was delighted to hear that hours after the Mosley case finished, the Sun and the News of the World had publicly apologised to Sienna Miller for invading her privacy (obviously, the letter I sent to Sienna supporting her cause made all the difference), although I am waiting for a huge fine to now be imposed on these papers. Radical as this may sound, the time has come for newspapers to concentrate on news, and I couldn’t care less if this undermines the ability of newspapers to sell newspapers.
Yours sincerely,
A.Tory
Dacre doesn’t not only have no understanding of privacy, he has no grasp of how English Law works. The Judge didn’t ‘introduce a privacy law’, he interpreted legislation passed by Parliament and signed by the Queen, otherwise known as our sovereign legislature.
Now its the job of the judiciary to interpret laws so passed; they have very little scope, outside of the Common Law (which is in increasing retreat in the era of the EU and HRA), for ‘creating’ laws. While the editor of a prurient tabloid may disagree with the decisions of the judiciary as it will make their lives trickier, it is surely worth noting that while bleating about ‘unelected’ judges, they are at least notionally accountable to the Justice Department while the self-appointed moral guardians of the press are accountable to who, exactly? Its not their readers as most newspapers are barely profitable and get most of their revenue from advertising. In Dacre’s case, he’s responsible to the owners of the Mail who, in the past, have included fans of Hitler who offered him effusive praise in the 1930s. Nice.
Between the two, I choose the Judge!
“…acts of unimaginable sexual depravity…”
Oh dear. Someone had better make sure this poor man never uses the internet, ever.
…And lo, it came to pass that, facing impending irrelevancy and slowing sales, the media turned upon the state, the judiciary, the government and the crown. And the prophet Dacre spake thusly: “it’s unfair. I want to snoop into people’s private lives to stir up a class war.”
And the bloggers stood on the outskirts of the carnage and commented, and they were greatly amused, and they thought it good.
I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I’m on the side of the EU legislation on this occasion. It’s about time we have some firm legal protection for private lives, and if the EU beats our own Parliament to it then good on them!
I will now flog myself for supporting the EU. Back soon.
Good post – I agree with you.
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Precisely to whom is Paul Dacre responsible (apart from the shareholders) and, as we know that the Sun’s management dance to Rupert Murdoch’s tune whether it is explicit or implicit, so just what do these self appointed tribunes of the people think gives them the right to invade privacy?
Like most, I cannot share Max Mosley’s tastes but as they did no harm, they were in private and he has never set up himself as a guardian of morality, I see no reason why they should have been made public for the prurience of the public. Anyone not so self obsessed as these gentry might think that the grotesque libels which the Mail and the Sun (inter alia) perpetrated upon the McCann family might think that this would disqualify folk like Paul Dacre from any remarks on the right of the press to intrude. Of course this obviously disregards any possibility that any reporter, editor or press baron is not an absolute paragon of every virtue including, as I understand in one case, a clean tongue and, in another, a propensity for domestic violence. Humbugs and hypocrites to a person.
I am still at a loss as to why Paul expected any sympathy? Perhaps speaking to the Society of Editors and being an editor himself has removed him from ‘the real world’ almost entirely.
I appreciate that it would take a brave government to introduce privacy laws, but it’s long overdue.
The government can’t introduce privacy laws while leading the charge to destroy the very concept of privacy in the UK. When Anti-Terrorism laws can be used to see if your dog crapped on the pavement or to watch your family over state school entitlement, when the Government is hell bent on having us stamped, catalogued, measured and recorded while simultaneously losing sensitive data hand over fist, it seems to me as though there’d be some kind of dangerous hypocrisy explosion were they to suggest their mates in the press (Dacre is, remember, close to Brown) should observe our privacy…
I agree with Shaun, the anti-terror laws were brought in to fight terrorists, but are now used by councils to snoop on wheelie bins. What difference would new privacy laws make ?