MP Jardine is biting the Press hand that fed her
If you can’t recall much from the journalistic career of Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine then don’t worry.
Not many in the industry can either. The Edinburgh West MP is distinguishing herself in her new career as a politician though – by pulling off the remarkable trick of making people pine for her predecessor, the disgraced SNP turned independent Michelle Thomson.
During the Westminster debate on increased press regulation, Jardine declared the Press should be “held to account by the law and to the politicians who make the law”.
If she held these views while working as a journalist, she ought to hand back every penny she took in wages from the trade.
Should Jardine’s time in Parliament be as short-lived as as her former bretheren in the Press must now hope, then any idea that she might return to teaching journalism in college should be killed stone dead.
The importance of the Press not being answerable to politicians is self- evident. It is a principle vital not just to the health of the free Press but to democracy in general.
This newspaper has campaigned for families let down by the criminal justice system, the NHS and the Department of Social Security. We have repeatedly exposed the failings of politicians of every persuasion.
Within the last month, we have revealed that Facebook microtargeting techniques were adopted by the Yes campaign in the 2014 referendum, broken the news that the family of Sheku Bayoh are to sue Police Scotland and told how minimum pricing laws were being broken at the family cash and carry of Scottish Labour’s health spokesman Anas Sarwar.
It wouldn’t be happening in the environment which Jardine and several other Scots MPs – including the Westminster contingent of Labour – would like to create.
The likelihood is they will all get another bite at the cherry when the House of Lords revive a move for an unnecessary and expensive successor to the Leveson inquiry.
If that f lies, new attempts to force newspapers to sign up to a state-approved regulator will inevitably follow.
In the constituencies of Jardine, Lesley Laird, Danielle Rowley and Hugh Gaffney, there are local newspapers whose very existence would be under threat.
Their editors should remember that the next time a local MP knocks the door looking for some cheap publicity.