Like her predecessor as Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, Maria Miller is under fire this morning for the actions of one of her special advisers. Today’s Telegraph reveals that Joanna Hindley highlighted her boss’s role in press regulation after the paper told Miller’s office it was planning to run a story on her expenses.
“Maria has obviously been having quite a lot of editors’ meetings around Leveson at the moment. So I am just going to kind of flag up that connection for you to think about,” Hindley told the Telegraph’s reporter.
The threat was almost certainly an empty one and there is no suggestion that Hindley acted with Miller’s blessing. But it does demonstrate how greater regulation of the press could make it easier (indeed, is making it easier) for politicians to intimidate troublesome hacks. The Telegraph took the unusual step of publishing the details of private conversations in view of the “widespread concern about the potential dangers of politicians being given a role in overseeing the regulation of the press”.
Hindley is also said to have told the reporter to discuss the issue with “people a little higher up your organisation” before contacting the Telegraph’s head of public affairs to raise concerns about the story. Miller has been accused of abusing the expenses system by claiming £90,000 for a second home where her parents lived.
The culture department has issued a robust response, stating that “Her [Miller’s] adviser noted Mrs Miller was in regular contact with the paper’s editor and would raise her concerns directly with him. However, this is a separate issue to ongoing discussions about press regulation. Mrs Miller has made the Government’s position on this clear.”
But it is notable that some are already calling for Miller to be stripped of her responsibility for press regulation. Former Lib Dem MP Evan Harris, an associate director of the pro-regulation campaign group Hacked Off, has said Miller must “recuse herself” from Leveson matters. If David Cameron wants to prove his commitment to press freedom in practice as well as in theory, it is an option he may encourage Miller to take.
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