Gushing British papers laud PM Cameron’s stance on press law

Premier puts poll performance in the background

LONDON, Nov 30, (RTRS): British Prime Minister David Cameron woke on Friday to find usually hostile newspapers gushing about his statesman-like qualities after he signalled his opposition to a new law governing the press.

After his party suffered a night of humiliation in three parliamentary elections, instead of facing questions over his leadership, he was cheered for rejecting the main plank of proposals from a public inquiry he set up in the wake of outrage at the excesses of tabloid newspapers.

Under a headline over two pages lauding “Cameron’s Stand for Freedom”, the right-wing Daily Mail said a “Defiant PM” had refused to accept the call for laws to control the press.

“To his enormous credit, however, David Cameron sees this report for what it is — a mortal threat to the British people’s historic right to know,” it said in its editorial.

“If he prevails in protecting that right, with the help of like-minded freedom lovers in the Commons and Lords, he will earn a place of honour in our history.”

The Daily Telegraph, another right-leaning newspaper that has been far from fulsome in its support for Cameron, said the unexpected decision had revealed his leadership and acceptance that press freedom was “a constitutional necessity”. A protester wearing a mask depicting Rupert Murdoch (left), News Corporation chief, pretends to burn a mock Leveson Report as a protester wearing a mask of British Prime Minister David Cameron (right), sits bound and gagged, outside the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre in London on Nov 29. A major inquiry called for new laws to underpin a tougher watchdog for Britain’s ‘outrageous’ newspapers in a verdict

that sets up Prime Minister David Cameron for a bruising political battle. (AFP)

“His decision tells us also something about Mr Cameron’s capacity for statesmanship,” the paper said in a commentary piece on its front page. “He appreciates the need for decisions that are unfashionable or unpopular.

“He has answered the hopes of a Conservative Party that sometimes wonders what he stands for,” it said, under a cartoon mocking the inquiry with the line: (Caption to be supplied by cross-party committee of MPs).

Cameron’s clear sign he would reject the main recommendation of the report from Lord Justice Brian Leveson followed a year-long inquiry that heard in unflinching detail from celebrities, victims of crime and others who said the notoriously aggressive press had ruined their lives.

It also followed weeks of frantic lobbying by the newspapers within Westminster, who argued any involvement of the law in press regulation would amount to state control and an attack on free speech, putting Britain on a par with Zimbabwe.

Critically, Cameron’s stance also puts him on the same side as the majority of his senior Conservative ministers who had openly opposed legislation, and in alliance with Boris Johnson, a former journalist and London mayor who is cheered by the press and seen as a possible challenger to Cameron in the future.

While it will bolster his position in the eyes of press barons ahead of a 2015 election, it is not without risk.

It puts him in clear opposition to Nick Clegg, leader of the junior Liberal Democrat party in the coalition, and vulnerable to defeat in parliament if the opposition force a vote.

It also earned him the condemnation of those who spoke out against the press, including the families of murder victims, who accused the prime minister of betrayal. Both the politicians who oppose Cameron and the press victims plan to keep up the pressure as lawmakers try to find a consensus.