MEDIA STUDIES
New Labour's contemptible cowardice in the face of a tabloid lynch mob
STEPHEN GLOVER
Two weeks ago I wondered whether we were not being a bit hard on Rebekah Wade; editor of the News of the World. Her cam- paign of 'naming and shaming' convicted paedophiles was in some respects misguided, and was also obviously driven, at least in part, by Ms Wade's desire to make a name for herself as a new editor. But she was undoubtedly reflecting concerns that the gov- ernment and the media had largely ignored.
All this remains true, yet such sympathy I felt for Ms Wade has dwindled. For one thing, her personal behaviour has been less than glorious. She has unleashed a contro- versial campaign which has led to rioting and intimidation in parts of Britain. At the very least you would expect that she would appear on television and radio to defend her actions. Instead she has deputed the managing editor of the News of the World, its executive editor, its deputy editor, its public relations manager and even one poor columnist to defend her corner. I almost expected to see our own Sion Simon, who also writes a column for the NoW, being wheeled out, but he wisely stayed away. Why can't Ms Wade defend herself? Why must all these other unfortu- nate people be required to justify a cam- paign which they did not think of and for which they do not have ultimate responsi- bility? I can only assume that Ms Wade is frightened of being torn apart by a John Humphrys or a Jeremy Paxman. If true, this seems rather cowardly. Ms Wade is a public figure and she has done something which has had public consequences. Yet she cow- ers in her tent, oblivious to the battle raging outside which she has started.
That's one thing. The next is even more important. It has to do with the role of newspapers in our society. We all accept, I think, that it is a legitimate function of newspapers to run campaigns to change government policy. It is a fact of life that a newspaper with a large readership is more likely to be listened to than a newspaper with a small one. Rebekah Wade was per- fectly justified — indeed, I applaud her for it — in trying to persuade the government to review laws relating to paedophiles. It is her tactics that have been objectionable. Running pictures of paedophiles has led to riots and public disorder, most notably in Portsmouth. Innocent men have been per- secuted, and several paedophiles have 'gone underground'. One has killed him- self, allegedly because of the hysteria whipped up by the NoW.
Of course, Ms Wade did not wish for such consequences, and she may even have not foreseen them. When it became clear that terrible things were happening, the paper decided rightly to stop running pho- tographs of paedophiles. But last Sunday Hayley Barlow, its public relations manag- er, said that the NoW might revive its cam- paign if the government did not provide public access to paedophile offenders' names and addresses. This may well be a bluff. I cannot easily see Ms Wade wishing to go through all that again, or being allowed to. None the less, it is an outra- geous threat for any newspaper to make. 'Naming and shaming' has led to riots and general mayhem. The NoW is, in effect, saying to the government that, unless it is given what it wants, it will bring disorder to the streets again. This is the language of the hoodlum, and an affront to parliamentary democracy. It goes far beyond the scope of any previous press campaign. No paper was ever so presumptuous before.
This brings me to the conduct of the gov- ernment over the past few weeks. Rebekah Wade may be something of a New Labour figure, loved and admired by Cherie Blair, but we may be sure that over the stripped- pine tables of Islington, far from the housing estates of Portsmouth, her campaign has engendered nothing but consternation and contempt. Why, then, did the government not respond with more vigour, particularly when it became clear that the News of the World was undermining the rule of law? The answer is that the paper has about 11 million readers, about one quarter of the electorate, and that most of them — some 55 per cent at the last election — support New Labour. The government also knows that opinion polls suggest an overwhelming majority of people favour the kind of paedophile register the paper has been demanding.
So ministers kept almost entirely quiet throughout the campaign, not because they were in silent sympathy with Ms Wade — the opposite was the case — but out of sheer funk. Paul Boateng, the middle-rank- ing Home Office minister, even counte- nanced a register, though he changed his mind after the campaign had ended. It did not occur to ministers that most readers of the NoW are not screaming vigilantes who like overturning cars but people who both believe in the rule of law and want tougher measures against paedophiles. The nearest the government got to attacking Ms Wade was on 24 July in the House of Commons when Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, said, 'In our judgment the press in these matters ought to act on the advice of the police who, above all, have the concern of the public's safety there before them.' Heady stuff. Ann Widdecombe, the shadow home secretary, was rather more forthright on the same afternoon when she accused the paper of 'inciting a lynch-mob mentality'.
The government does not agree with Rebekah Wade but it dare not take her on, even when her newspaper causes riots on the streets. It does not reflect that she is a 31-year-old rookie editor who apparently lacks the courage to defend herself on televi- sion. It does not consider that, even though most readers may want a change in the law, they are unlikely to approve of public disor- der. The government is simply terrified of the tabloids, and the News of the World is the biggest-selling tabloid of them all.
Robin Day, who has had a deservedly good send-off, was a good friend of this col- umn. He would sometimes ring up with suggestions and criticisms. He once said that he couldn't follow a single word in any of my several articles about the Guardian's Victoria Brittain.
Once, at a party some 15 or 20 years ago, a friend of mine pointed him out to me. Robin Day was a brooding, pin-striped figure in the corner of the room. Who did he remind me of? I could not say. My friend suggested the name of Winston Churchill in the wilderness years. It seemed a preposterous idea at the time, but there was something grand and melancholic and detached about him.
It has been rightly said that he pioneered the modern adversarial television interview. He was also a pioneer in another sense. Until he came along most journalists, including television ones, were definitely below the salt. Politicians were infmitely grander and much more important. Robin Day was usually a more substantial figure than the politicians he interviewed. They seemed somehow smaller than him. He was the first representative of the new media class that looks down on the political class. I don't think he himself felt more impor- tant, but most of his successors do.
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