Is New Labour putting the frighteners
on the editor of the Daily Mirror?
STEPHEN GLOVER
Much ink has been spilt over the abortive price war between the Daily Mirror and the Sun. which, as I suggested would be the case, has turned out to be a waste of time and money. But almost no one has noticed how in recent months the mass circulation Mirror, previously New Labour's most dependable supporter, has increasingly turned against the government in general and Tony Blair in particular. During May it was not at all happy that the party had accepted a donation of 1100,000 from the pornographer Richard Desmond, who is proprietor of the Daily Express. It was also one of the pack leaders pursuing Stephen Byers before his resignation as Transport Secretary at the end of May. Last month the Mirror was exasperated by the Black Rod affair, and it did not spare Mr Blair.
This is pretty spectacular, and it may be linked with another equally sensational development. According to Westminster sources, the Department of Trade has not, as was widely assumed, mothballed its inquiries into the share dealings of Piers Morgan, editor of the Daily Mirror. Investigations grow ever wider, and Mr Morgan may not be off the hook. It is said that there is still a possibility that charges will be brought against him.
Readers may remember that on the morning of 17 January 2000 Mr Morgan bought shares in a company called Viglen which doubled after the Mirror's City Slickers column tipped them the following day. Mr Morgan maintained that when he bought the Viglen shares he had no idea that the Slickers column was about to puff them — an assertion accepted by his employer, Trinity Mirror. However, Anil Bhoyrul, one of the two Slickers, later claimed that he had discussed Viglen with Mr Morgan before the story was published. The Mirror's editor was censured by the Press Complaints Commission, though for dealing in shares recommended by his paper rather than for any impropriety.
Now it may be that the DTI investigation has been wending its weary way, as usually tends to be the case, and that the press was mistaken in assuming that there was no longer any interest in Mr Morgan. But there is another possibility which we must consider. This is that someone in the government has decided to put the frighteners on Mr Morgan. The warning would go something like this: if you persist in criticising New Labour, you may find yourself embarrassed by allegations which you had assumed had been forgotten. Let us examine the chronology for a moment. As I say. the Mirror has been bashing the government for several months. It does not approve of British involvement in Afghanistan. In May it turned up the heat over Richard Desmond and Stephen Byers. Criticisms of New Labour which had previously been confined to Paul Routledge (seen as a stalwart supporter of Gordon Brown) were taken up by the other columnists as well as by the editorials, and reflected in the presentation of news stories. The paper of 29 May, the day of Stephen Byers's resignation, was something of a bumper issue. Paul Starling, a political reporter, referred to 'the rotten, corrosive deceit which is eating away at this government and the public's faith in it'. He described the government's director of communications, Alastair Campbell — Mr Morgan's erstwhile close collaborator on many stories as a 'snake-like chief of spin'. On the same day the paper's so-called 3 a.m. girls (a celebrity gossip column) called Mr Campbell 'a recovering alcoholic', which was not very charitable in the circumstances.
On 2 June a story appeared in the Sunday Times which must have made Mr Morgan sit up and think. Written by David Leppard, a well-known sleuth, it suggested that 'government investigators have widened their inquiry into alleged insider trading at the Daily Mirror'. According to Mr Leppard, among those interviewed by officials was Tim Blackstone, a City PR man, and Peter Stringfellow, in whose nightclub Anil Bhoyrul and his fellow Slicker, James Hipwell, were wont to drink. The story asserted that 'investigators have not ruled out the prospect of criminal charges against Morgan'.
If there were people in government who hoped that this story would have the effect of taming Mr Morgan, and bringing him back into the New Labour fold, they were disappointed. To Mr Morgan's credit, he seemed rather to increase the tempo, at any rate for a time. Day after day the paper's editorial column, the Voice of the Mirror, inveighed against government spin and its spin doctors, who are, of course, directed by Alastair Campbell. When Labour's chairman Charles Clarke criticised the media, the Mirror could not contain itself. This was 'the most pious and hypocritical government of modern times'. Mr Blair's 29-page statement on the Black Rod affair was described by the Mirror in large type on its front page as 'Cobblers'. Inside, the Voice of the Mirror had another dig at Mr Clarke, and the by now regular butt of its spleen, Mr Campbell.
This proved to be the high-water mark, so far, of the Mirror's critique of New Labour and the Blairites. On 18 June the Voice of the Mirror turned its fire on the Tories, blaming them for orchestrating a campaign over the Black Rod affair `to savage — and even destroy — Tony Blair, his wife and those who work for him'. This seemed a pretty accurate description of what the Mirror had itself been doing. Since then, no denunciations of New Labour have issued forth from the Voice of the Mirror or any other part of the paper, with the possible exception of Paul Routledge, though admittedly the government has been having a less torrid time.
Plainly the Sunday Times's story of 2 June did not scare Mr Morgan. Or at any rate it did not immediately scare him. More recently, the Mirror does seem to have reverted to its old role of giving the government the benefit of the doubt. We will need to monitor the paper over the next couple of months to see whether the change is permanent.
I suppose it is possible that Mr Morgan feels under no particular threat, and merely believes that his paper was in danger of taking its criticisms of New Labour too far. But it is also conceivable that he feels himself to be the subject of an implied threat, and that this fear is having a restraining effect upon him. He may well have a case to answer so far as the Viglen shares are concerned. But to dangle the prospect of proceedings in order to bring him to heel would be a very dirty trick. Alas, I cannot convince myself that this government is incapable of it. If it does not press charges against Mr Morgan, we will need to know the reasons. If it decides to go ahead, it had better do so soon. For until this matter is resolved one way or another, the Daily Mirror's coverage of New Labour cannot be divorced from Mr Morgan's alleged insider dealing.
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