Blair rubbishes claim he gave the green light for Paisley’s phone to be tapped
TONY Blair has denied that he authorised the security services to tap the phone of the late Ian Paisley when he was an MP.
Former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott claimed on Sunday that Mr Blair told him in 2005 that the authorities had eavesdropped on the former North Antrim MP’s calls.
The late DUP leader’s son, Ian Paisley, pledged to raise the issue in Parliament, branding any bugging of his father’s phone “utterly disgraceful”.
But Mr Blair’s office insisted the story was “wrong” and suggested that Lord Prescott’s account may arise from a “con- fused” recollection of a discussion about the long-standing convention — known as the Wilson Doctrine — that MPs should not have their communications monitored.
A spokesman for Mr Blair said: “This story is wrong. No authorisation for the phone-tapping of a Member of Parliament was given during Mr Blair’s time as Prime Minister.
“It may be a confused account of the discussion of the Wilson Doctrine in Cabinet — something which was public at the time — which dated back to the 60s.”
Writing in his Sunday Mirror column, Lord Prescott said that he had been informed of the phone-tapping after the Interception of Communications Commissioner contacted Downing Street.
“Tony asked me to discuss the Wilson doctrine with the Speaker of the House of Commons. I never told him that an MP had been tapped or that it was Paisley,” said the Labour peer, who served under Mr Blair from 19972007.
“Parliament was not informed and Paisley went on to become First Minister of Northern Ireland.”
Lord Prescott added: “I can only think that as the peace process was still a concern, mentioning the fact that a leading loyalist politician had been tapped by Britain’s security services in the past would not have helped.”