John Whittingdale is one of the lowest-profile members of David Cameron’s cabinet. Many outside Westminster will echo the ageing Duke of Wellington’s question long ago and ask “Who? Who?” when the name comes up. But the culture, media and sport secretary has important statutory responsibilities, and news organisations have to be keenly aware of them. He presides over the flawed but fledgling system of press self-regulation that emerged in the aftermath of the Leveson inquiry. And he is in charge of the charter renewal process for the BBC, which, in a true Thatcherite way, he is threatening both to weaken and control. In the media world, Mr Whittingdale is therefore closely watched.
This explains why a storm has long been brewing and has now erupted over the decisions of several newspapers not to publish a story about Mr Whittingdale’s former relationship with a sex worker. Critics have come up with a range of machiavellian theories to explain the press’s decision to hold off on the story. Some have charged that the press feared the culture secretary might seek revenge for having his name on the front pages. He might trigger a post-Leveson legal costs regime that was designed to force publishers into the post-inquiry royal charter system which they are boycotting. Or he could decide to reverse his decision not to go ahead with the second part of the Leveson process, a detailed inquiry into phone hacking, which tabloid editors wish to see dead and buried.
Amid such charges lurk darker political speculations that non-publication may have been positively in the press’s self-interest. Some of these were voiced on Wednesday by Labour: that the press may have stayed its hand to keep Mr Whittingdale under its thumb; that the rightwing press do not want another Brexiteer forced out of office; or that the BBC-hating part of the press, and their proprietors, want to leave their ideological chum in place on the understanding that he will cut the corporation down to size and thus open up new media markets for them.
The problem with these conspiracy theories is partly that there is not yet any solid proof to substantiate them. If there were, things might look very different. But successive journalists have looked for such evidence and its absence is no small matter. The charge sheet may also misread the political realities. The collapse of several phone-hacking trials has weakened the pressure to go ahead with Leveson part two, even though some prosecutions also succeeded. Meanwhile, it is understandable, even though far from heroic, for Mr Whittingdale and David Cameron – the prime minister would surely have the ultimate say on this – to prefer to see how the new self-regulatory Ipso system evolves.
There is also a wider point of journalistic ethics at the heart of this that should not be ignored. Mr Whittingdale is entitled to a private life. He is an unmarried adult. The question of who he shares his bed with is a classic example of something that may interest some readers, but is not a matter of public interest. To pretend, in the absence of any other revelation, that a consensual adult sex life exposes a person to blackmail or makes them unfit for office is an idea whose time has gone – and good riddance.
Mr Whittingdale can perhaps be faulted for not telling the prime minister what was going on. But he should not be dragged into the spotlight simply for having a private life or even for making a mess of it, let alone for being a Tory. If there is one thing that caused the press to come under the Leveson microscope, it was a culture of reckless disrespect for individual privacy. Insofar as the press is now thinking twice, that is, in principle and practice, a good thing. And if this episode forces Mr Whittingdale to fear the suspicions and furore that would now follow even more fiercely if he launches an onslaught on the BBC, then that too is a gain.
This is not to say in any way that all media either are or should be holding off from investigating the rich, powerful and famous. There have been intrusive sex stings since Leveson, so that page has not been turned. And there are ongoing courtroom battles between the press and those in the public eye, with increasing recourse to superinjunctions that are disturbingly open to abuse. In the last two weeks, on the other hand, the Panama Papers have been a moment of apotheosis for revelatory investigative journalism which might not have withstood the costs regime of the Crime and Courts Act. It remains a bedrock essential that the UK media environment permits investigation not to shrivel but to thrive.
