There didn't need to be dirty deal with Murdoch for Labour to dismiss reviving Leveson II

Starmer's government were never going to reopen the plague pits of press regulation.

Previously: Celebrating the marionette monarch
The King's Speech and the media response to it remains one of the weirdest British constitutional traditions.

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The most watched media boxset of 2011, the Leveson Inquiry, which picked over the practices and ethics of the British press with a range of horrendous guest stars like Piers Morgan and Paul Dacre, was meant to have a sequel. Its second series would have examined unlawful behaviour within media organisations and the relationship between the press and police, but it was cancelled in 2018 by then-Culture Secretary and now faded reality TV star Matt Hancock.

While Labour in the Corbyn years was committed to commissioning new episodes of Leveson, the party under Keir Starmer has been keen to avoid picking at the scab of press regulation. Labour made it clear in December 2023 that it would not commit to Leveson II for fear of angering not just Rupert Murdoch and News Corp but Reach, owner of both the Labour-backing Daily Mirror and perpetually-livid Tory rage bait purveying Daily Express.

This is all worth noting again because the i reports today, drawing on a forthcoming interview in The House magazine, that the new Culture Secretary, Lisa Nandy, has made it clear again that Leveson II will not be revived:

Asked about the status of Levenson 2, which was put on hold by the Tories in 2018, Ms Nandy said: “Well, it’s not something that we committed to in the manifesto.”

The i report goes on to claim:

The Sun and the Sunday Times backed Labour at this month’s general election after News UK received private assurances that a Starmer-led government would not pursue Leveson 2, or introduce restrictions on press freedom…

That detail adds spice to the i’s story but I don’t believe Labour needed to make those assurances so recently having shown with every one of its public positions and its leader’s frequent contributions to The Sun that it was not going to cause trouble for the Murdoch family or any other part of the tabloid press.

The idea of an explicit deal done during underhand meetings makes for more dramatic reporting but Starmer complied by degrees from the moment he won the Labour crown. His promises during the leadership contest, cravenly offered in Liverpool, to not speak to The Sun barely lasted the breath required to make them.

If the endorsements from The Sunday Times and Sun were procured that way, Labour got a bad deal. Both were lukewarm and came extremely late in the general election campaign. What’s more likely is that News Corp, keen to back winners and to retain the opportunity to lecture the new government on what it should — and crucially — should not be doing, made an expedient choice.

The deal sealed on Hayman Island back in July 1995 that secured The Sun’s backing for Tony Blair was one made between a Labour leader with a far stronger hand and newspaper that still sold millions of copies and wielded far greater influence. At that conference, Murdoch joked to Blair that:

If the British press is to be believed, today is all part of a Blair-Murdoch flirtation. If that flirtation is ever consummated, Tony, I suspect we will end up making love like two porcupines - very carefully.

In 2024, the collection of pricks involved is very different. Lachlan Murdoch has much less interest in Britain than his father, caring far more about Australia and the US than the old motherland. He’s also far less bothered about The Sun and its status as a tool for prodding the Prime Minister.

Blair and his team were worried about The Sun and News of the World monstering him as they had done Neil Kinnock. Starmer had a more personal and particular worry about News Corp, having gone from pretty chummy with the organisation in his early period as Director of Public Prosecutions to being seen as the man who prosecuted journalists over phone hacking and, particularly, put Rebekah Brooks, now News UK’s CEO, in the dock.

Labour under Starmer didn’t need to be prompted by News Corp to keep Leveson II dead and buried. It was proactive in making it clear to the media groups that it wouldn’t cause them any more problems in power. I don’t think the Murdochs had to make threats because the fear was already deep in the heads of Labour politicians and advisors. The ghosts of election losses past were enough to haunt them.

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