Leveson returns this week as shadow of Paul Dacre looms large over press regulation debate
Despite delivering a 2000 page report with a 48 page executive summary Lord Leveson is a man of few words.
Lord Leveson returns to the public eye this week
Since he made his damning judgement on the standards and ethics of the British press he has said diddly squat on the issue other than a mild remark while lecturing in Australia last year that he would look “with interest” at the developments following the publication of his report.
But it seems that Brian Leveson is like London buses. This week will see him appearing twice before parliamentary select committees; one in the Lords and the other the Commons’ more combative Culture Media and Sport.
On Wednesday his appearance before the House of Lords committee on the Inquiries Act will be the amuse bouche before MPs have their chance to grill the law lord the next day.
The Lords committee is looking at the procedure and costs of public inquiries and, given his experience, Leveson will be asked if they are fit for purpose, cost effective and command public confidence?
Since nothing would have happened since he delivered his report other than government and the press squaring off over statuary regulation and the fact that he will be appearing before the privy council makes a judgement between the industry’s version of regulation and that proposed by the three party leaders it is difficult to imagine what he would say on the efficacy of his inquiry.
It is almost certain he will defend the cost (£5.6m) and the length and also, if asked, articulate his refusal to allow the inquiry to consider other breaches of privacy and the law by private investigators.
By the time he faces the MPs at 10.30 the next day he will at least know what decision was made by the Privy Council and no doubt be asked to give his opinion. The elephant in the committee room will be Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, who launched the venomous attack on the late father of Labour leader Ed Miliband calling him a man who hated Britain.
Dacre has been the elephant in many rooms and television studios since the publication of the Miliband polemic never going public to defend his decision to demonise a dead man instead sending out trusted retainers, deputy editor John Steafal and city editor Alex Brummer, to back his judgement.
Dacre, once again, will be nowhere to be seen on Thursday when Leveson answers the MPs questions but I would make a strong bet that the law lord will be asked to give judgement of the publication of the Miliband article and the subsequent defence.
I imagine Tom Watson, scourge of News Group, slayer of the News of the world, will want to have his fivepennyworth on Dacre.
However, although diverting and potentially serious for Dacre, what Leveson has to say about the politicians and the press failing to get to grips with the recommendations of his report, will be most important.
He will at least know the decision of the Privy Council sub-committee which has been examining the press’s alternative to the politicians’ all-party solution over the summer. David Cameron still believes the industry's system of self-regulation has serious shortcomings.
Cameron says the Privy Council sub-committee – four Liberal Democrat and four Tory ministers – will look at the charter prepared by the industry in advance of any decisions to submit the cross-party charter to the Privy Council. If the press alternative is rejected it may be fanciful to believe that the Privy Council would simply endorse the all-party alternative. There will be more battles to be fought.
The differences in the two charters focus on the independence of the regulator and the need for arbitration.
Cameron will fear a backlash from rightwing newspaper proprietors if he supports the all-party charter but knows that Ed Miliband and the Labour party and Nick Clegg are in favour of statuary regulation and so is the pressure group Hacked Off, which has many high-profile members.
Leveson will not be amused by the delay in implementing his report and although his language will be studied it would not be surprising if he delivers a judicial admonition. Unlike Tom Watson, Leveson operates with a scalpel and not a sledge hammer.
While all the argy-bargy is taking place in Parliament there will be relief in the corporate communications department of the BBC that the heat is off and the Tony Hall, the new director general, may get more gentle treatment when he delivers his vision of the future for the corporation in a speech on Tuesday.
Hall is already on a winner, in not being Lord Patten or any of the other BBC bigwigs oversaw the Savile affair and the executive pay off scandal, but he will still have to deliver.
He has already had a cheap win with a briefing to arts correspondents about how the future BBC will put a wide range of cultural programming back at its heart with a 20 per cent investment across the radio, internet and television.
The programme content will not be the detail pored over by the more political media commentators. They will want to interrogate his future plans for a simpler, streamlined management. Hall has been in the job for six months and this is his first major test. It is, perhaps, fortuitous that his speech comes at a time when so much attention is focused on the Press.
But to misquote Bonaparte: “Give me director generals that are lucky.”
Chris Boffey is a former news editor of the Observer, Sunday Telegraph and the Mirror and onetime special adviser to the Labour government