PM slaps down Speaker over freedom of Press in Rayner row
Johnson ‘isn’t comfortable’ with politicians summoning newspapers
BORIS Johnson slapped down the Commons Speaker yesterday over his extraordinary bid to summon the editor of The Mail on Sunday for a lecture.
Downing Street issued a thinly veiled rebuke to Sir Lindsay Hoyle after he demanded that David Dillon attend a meeting in Parliament to explain a controversial article about Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner.
Mr Dillon turned down the meeting, saying that while he had the ‘greatest possible respect’ for Parliament, Britain’s free Press would not endure ‘if journalists have to take instruction from officials of the House of Commons, however august they may be’.
Sir Lindsay appeared to be in retreat
‘It’s bonkers – what the hell is he thinking?’
on the issue last night, with aides saying he had no intention of saying more on the matter. The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said that Mr Johnson was ‘uncomfortable’ with the idea of politicians summoning journalists to explain their stories.
He said the PM would not want ‘any perception of politicians seeking to in any way curb or control what a free Press seeks to report’.
He added: ‘We have a free Press in this country and reporters must be free to report what they are told as they see fit.’
Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab backed Mr Dillon’s decision to boycott the meeting. Mr Raab said it was ‘legitimate’ for the Speaker to take an interest in coverage of MPs but added: ‘It’s the prerogative of any editor to decide how they treat that invitation.’
Sir Iain Duncan Smith also questioned the Speaker’s conduct, saying that Parliament ‘should not interfere’ with the contents of newspapers.
The former Conservative leader told the Daily Mail: ‘I’m not sure what on earth the Speaker thought he was going to achieve and I am glad he’s seen sense. As a general rule Parliament should not interfere in editorial matters.’
A former minister added: ‘It’s just insane. The Speaker... shouldn’t be policing accuracy or offensive opinions.
‘It’s bonkers – what the hell is he thinking? I haven’t found anyone who thinks he has handled this well.’
The row began when The Mail on Sunday reported that a Tory MP had heard Mrs Rayner regaling a group of around eight MPs on the Commons terrace that she liked to put the Prime Minister ‘off his stride’ by crossing and uncrossing her legs while sitting opposite him in the Commons.
Labour’s deputy leader categorically denied the claims, which she described as ‘desperate, perverted smears’.
But since then, three further MPs – including a woman – have come forward to say that they were present on the terrace and that they heard Mrs Rayner herself joke about her ‘tactic’. In total, four MPs have all given the same account of what she said, including the use of a startling slang colloquialism.
The Daily Mail also revealed yesterday that Mrs Rayner laughed and joked about a comparison to Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct at a comedy event earlier this year.
In a light-hearted interview with comedian Matt Forde in January, she volunteered the fact that an appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions had drawn such comparisons, joking that it had sparked an internet meme of her crossing and uncrossing her legs.
She told his Political Party podcast: ‘I wasn’t aware I did it
but apparently there was this whole meme about how my dress was a bit revealing, but I didn’t think it was.’
Mr Forde asked if the suggestion was that she was trying to distract the prime Minister. Mrs Rayner, who said she had been ‘mortified’ by the meme, laughed and replied: ‘It don’t take much does it? I don’t need to do that.’
Mrs Rayner yesterday insisted that the fact she had tried to ‘brush aside’ the sexism she faces ‘doesn’t make it oK’. She rejected the idea that she ‘enjoys being subjected to sexist slurs’, adding: ‘I don’t. they are mortifying and deeply hurtful.’
In a letter to the Speaker on tuesday night, Mr Dillon said he and the Mail on Sunday’s political editor would no longer be attending the meeting with him after he had ‘regrettably’ commented on the story in public.
In a statement on Monday, Sir Lindsay told Mps that he ‘shares the views’ of many Mps that the story about Mrs
Rayner was ‘misogynistic and offensive’.
Mr Dillon said he had judged the article ‘without being in possession of the facts surrounding how it came to be reported’.
A spokesman for Sir Lindsay yesterday said he would not be making any comment on the Mail on Sunday’s response. In a statement on tuesday, he insisted he was a ‘staunch believer and protector of press freedom’, saying he had refused a request from a Labour Mp last week to ban the times’s sketch writer for making allegedly ‘sexist’ observations.
He added: ‘I firmly believe in the duty of reporters to cover parliament, but I would also make a plea – nothing more – for the feelings of all Mps and their families to be considered, and the impact on their safety, when articles are written. I would just ask that we are all a little kinder. that is what I wanted to talk about.’
‘Four MPs gave same account’