A musing on why free speech is more important than the right to privacy ...

Written by Peter Bingle, Chairman, Bell Pottinger Public Affairs

The issue of privacy is once again dominating the headlines. The decision by John Hemming MP to use parliamentary privilege to the name the footballer who had tried to gag Twitter risks provoking a constitutional crisis. What is the purpose of a privacy law which does not command the respect of either the public or its elected representatives?

The tension between the right of individual to protect his privacy and the right of another to exercise their right to free speech is not new. In the 1990s there were two attempts by backbench MPs to deal with the matter. The first was Tony Worthington’s Right of Reply Bill. The second was John Browne’s Privacy Bill. Both were defeated. Indeed I was retained by the newspaper industry at the time to ensure that they were! The ensuring debate, however, had a profound impact on the newspaper industry. The Press Council was abolished and was replaced by the Press Complaints Commission. The first Chairman was Lord McGregor of Durris and the first Director was Mark Bolland. David Mellor had warned the national press that they were in ‘the last chance saloon’ and they had taken the warning very seriously and reacted quickly.

In the 1990s the focus of the debate was over the need to protect self-regulation. There was no real desire by John Major or any of his senior ministers or aides to impose statutory regulation on the press barons. I can remember a superb article by the great Bernard Levin extolling the virtues of self-regulation and warning of the dangers of state regulation. I am not sure the same mood still exists in Number 10 today. The PCC can no longer take self-regulation for granted. It has lost much of its gravitas and authority with the political establishment.

Privacy versus freedom of speech. It is all rather like Richard Strauss’s great opera Capriccio. What is more important, the music or the words? Yet the coalition cannot run away from dealing with this most difficult of issues. How fortunate for the PM that the cabinet minister who will have to resolve the matter is Ken Clarke QC MP. He will ensure that commonsense prevails.

We have all had a good chuckle at the legal attempts to force Twitter to reveal the names of the 38,000 or so Tweeters who have mentioned the name of the (no longer) mysterious footballer. Rather more seriously a journalist faces the prospect of two years jail over the matter. This is palpable nonsense.

Of course in the eyes of the law everybody is equal. That means that a footballer has just as much right to protect his privacy as does a senior politician. There will be occasions when in the interests of children it is essential that newspapers are unable to refer to them. What has gone wrong – at least in the eyes of the public – is the abuse of injunctions to prevent embarrassing information about the private lives of individuals. On this whole issue I am biased in favour of freedom of speech. On the basis that libel and slander are punished with due seriousness we should surely spend our time promoting the cause of freedom of speech. There are still people losing their lives under dictatorships for the cause of free speech. I have yet to hear of a martyr who gave up their life to protect the right to privacy!

The current privacy law is clearly an ass. It has no respect within or outside the Westminster Village. It needs to be replaced with one that does. The time is right for a robust public debate on the issue. It is at times like this that we are fortunate to have genuine liberals in the coalition. It is essential that they win the argument.

What should we do with the issue of privacy? How do we ensure that free speech is never muzzled? Was John Hemming right to use parliamentary privilege?