LONDON, (Reuters) – British Prime Minister David Cameron said today that he had serious concerns about legislation to regulate the media, risking a split in his coalition after a damning inquiry triggered by a phone-hacking scandal proposed a press watchdog backed in law.
Opposing a legal foundation to an independent press regulator will delight the British media ahead of the 2015 election but will deepen a divide in Cameron’s coalition government and within his own party.
“We should be wary of any legislation that has the potential to infringe free speech and the free press,” Cameron told parliament, watched from the chamber’s gallery by victims of tabloid newspaper phone-hacking who have campaigned for tougher rules governing Britain’s recalcitrant media.
“I’m not convinced at this stage that statute is necessary to achieve Lord Justice Leveson’s objectives,” Cameron said, referring to the judge who has spent a year investigating the press. “I have some serious concerns and misgivings on this recommendation.”
The leader of the opposition Labour Party, Ed Miliband, said he supported a proposal by Leveson to back a new independent press watchdog with legislation.
Leveson said he had no intention of ending three centuries of press freedom but condemned sometimes “outrageous” behaviour by the press that had “wreaked havoc with the lives of innocent people”.
“The ball moves back into the politicians’ court: they must now decide who guards the guardians,” Leveson told a news conference in Westminster, opposite the House of Commons.
Leveson’s inquiry was ordered by Cameron after public outrage at revelations that reporters at one of Rupert Murdoch’s tabloids hacked the phone messages of a 13-year-old murder victim, Milly Dowler.
Leveson said there should be a new independent self-regulatory body, which would be recognised in law, something the press and many within Cameron’s own party, including senior ministers, have adamantly opposed as an erosion of press freedom.
Nick Clegg, the leader of the junior Liberal Democrat partners in the coalition government, will deliver his own statement to parliament after Cameron, implying that the two disagree on the way forward.
Leveson, whose inquiry laid bare phone-hacking, claims of police bribes and the cosy relationship between top editors and the political elite, said the relationship between politicians and the press was too close.
