‍

Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper has spoken to debunk the press lobby's rhetoric that free speech is at odds with press reform.

In a new edition of The Spectator’s podcast, Women With Balls, she encouraged Keir Starmer’s government to act with the Liberal Democrats on the issue before another press scandal emerges.

She discussed with journalist Katy Balls how the Leveson model would protect free speech and enable accountability for members of the public seeking justice following press intrusion.

Daisy, who has been Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats since 2020, following election to parliament in 2019, serves as a Member of Parliament in the St Albans constituency.

Previously, Daisy was Joint Executive Director at Hacked Off.

Since leaving the organisation for the House of Commons, she has continued to champion the importance of delivering on Leveson.

The interview covered many aspects of her ambitions and political objectives, culminating with her recollections working with victims of the press at Hacked Off.

Katy Balls:

You previously were involved with Hacked Off. Do you still think that there needs to be further press regulation than there is, as things stand?

Daisy Cooper:

When I worked Hacked Off, (I was there for four years,) and most of what I did was working with the victims of press intrusion, and I heard some truly, truly, awful stories. Many of them happened before I had joined Hacked Off but some of them happened whilst I was there. And there were two in particular that I found very, very harrowing, and I won’t say who they were, and I won’t give enough details to make them identifiable but in both cases they were men, two different ages, where they have been involved through no fault of their own, just by accident had been involved in a very peculiar thing that happened that had caught the attention of the press. Both of them were hounded so badly that both of them had had suicidal thoughts and one was close to taking their own life and there is a real problem, at times, with how the press can behave.

I’m a big supporter of free speech, I’m a free speech campaigner I’ve campaigned on free speech in Parliament but I do think there should be independent self-regulation under the Leveson model that makes sure that there is a mechanism so when things do go wrong that the press can be held to account and at the moment the press can’t be held to account effectively and I do hear from time to time people saying, 'oh politicians shouldn’t be involved in regulating the press,' and I agree they absolutely shouldn’t but we have this absurd system, at the moment, where we have this so-called regulator called IPSO which is chaired by a politician and the system that I supported, which Hacked Off has called for, the Leveson regulation system would be a system where politicians can’t be involved in regulation, but that you have an independent body that makes sure that when the public wants make a complaint that it is dealt with effectively and it is dealt with independently as well. And I think that system actually gives ordinary folk the ability to hold the press to account and what I always hold onto is that the concept of free speech isn’t just about allowing people to say whatever they want to say, with no responsibility to answer for it. Free speech was always about people without power, being able to speak truth to power, and actually free speech is about making sure ordinary folk can hold big companies to account and that’s what I think the Leveson system could deliver.

Katy Balls:

I suppose then there is a risk that some publications might end up being bankrupt because they have to pay out fees on various things in it but Keir Starmer, in the past, has been quite open on press regulation but they have ‘gone quite quieter’ on it.

So, do you think this is an issue where, if there was the will in the Labour Party, you could potentially work together on it?  

Daisy Cooper:

I don’t know what the Labour Party’s position is on it. Absolutely it's gone quiet, there is on there are a lot of problems this government has got to fix and its clearly put this one, either lower down the list or on the back burner, right?

But I think what we have seen in the past, is that historically, there has always been some kind of crisis that has raised the question about how you hold the press to account, about once, every ten to twelve years. I hope it doesn’t happen again, I really do, because I’ve met with people and work with people who have been involved in those kind of things and devastating to see the impact it has on people’s lives, so I hope we don’t have that kind of scandal again, but if we do then this whole question may well come round again and that's what we have seen time and time again.

‍

‍

Hear the full interview here https://www.spectator.co.uk/podcast/the-daisy-cooper-edition/

‍