Lord Alli demanded crackdown on ‘bullying’ newspapers
One of Sir Keir Starmer’s most prominent donors demanded a crackdown on “bullying newspapers”.
Lord Alli, the Prime Minister’s largest personal donor, called for restrictions on the number of newspapers that a proprietor could own.
He also called for a new offence of “corporate intimidation” to tackle what he called the “bullying” of public figures by newspapers.
On Wednesday night, Lisa Nandy, the Culture Secretary, said she had not met Lord Alli to discuss any of these ideas, and said she had no plans to tighten regulation of the press.
The forthright comments by the peer may heighten fears that the party could give into his demands to restrict press freedom in return for his donations.
Press intimidation
Lord Alli, who made his fortune in the TV industry, has given Labour almost £1 million in donations, including clothes for Sir Keir and his wife worth in excess of £25,000.
He also allowed Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, to stay in a $2.5 million flat in New York over New Year’s Eve, which is listed as his current residence.
In a speech in the Lords in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry into the British press in 2013, he proposed making it a new offence for the press to coerce individuals into giving them information about their private life.
“Like others, I am a little disappointed by some elements of the newspaper industry, who have deliberately misrepresented the report in order to scare the public in pursuit of their own self-interest,” he said.
“I would like a new offence on the statute book to deal with the issue of press intimidation. When a newspaper group uses information on an individual to coerce them into revealing details of their own or others’ private lives in return for protection or non-publication, it feels to me like blackmail, and we should make it a criminal offence.
“The lobbying of newspaper groups on their own behalf in their own papers needs to be looked at again.”
He also used his speech to argue for a state-funded press regulator.
Media ownership laws
A year later, in an interview with the Financial Times, he criticised Tony Blair’s New Labour for being too close to tabloid newspapers.
“I think we [in New Labour] started it, and we got it wrong,” he said. “In that rush to feed the 24/7 media, we just forgot to regulate it, and it forgot to regulate itself.”
He said politicians had let journalists intimidate them in the same “shameful” way that Militant once intimidated Labour, adding that he had spoken to party colleagues about his idea of instituting a new offence of “corporate intimidation”.
“When companies or newspapers use their power to intimidate individuals or politicians, it is no more acceptable than when the Mafia does it to a shopkeeper,” he said, adding: “It is blackmail.”
He also said he wanted to change media ownership laws so that no company could own three or more newspapers, “because it just upsets me”.
He added: “The thing about Rupert Murdoch that’s so brilliant is, before he walks in the door people are trying to work out what to give him.”
Lord Alli also defended the licence fee in the Lords, saying: “The licence fee system, where we as citizens jointly pay for the BBC, should remain in place.
“It is right that the licence fee should be increased in line with inflation through the charter review period. I believe that there is a strong case for more money to be invested in the BBC.”
A source close to Ms Nandy said there are no plans for further legislation on press regulation, and Ms Nandy is opposed to the idea that politicians should be telling the press what they can and cannot say.
