Phone Hacking
Debate between Clive Efford and Helen Goodman(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The whole country is rightly shocked at the revelations of what has been going on in our media, but today is not the time to go into details about who said what or did what at what time. Our role is to secure a full and open public inquiry. I note the acceptance of that by the Government Front-Bench team, but the issue now is when. We need to secure the available evidence to do a thorough job of investigating the issue now. The inquiry needs to be set up while the police investigations continue.
This debate is about what kind of country we want to be. A free press is an essential part of our democracy. It challenges us, exposes our weaknesses, sometimes helps to get our message across and keeps people informed of the arguments to help them to form a balanced opinion. However, the press has developed as Parliament has developed and there is a symbiotic relationship between politics and journalism. The issues we are debating here today really go to the heart of what kind of nation we want to be in the future.
We need to understand that what we are debating today has to do with how we treat weak and vulnerable people or the bereaved, and whether we stand up for people when they are under pressure or being unfairly treated, or whether we become part of a baying mob, egged on by the likes of the News of the World, eager for a kill just for the sheer excitement of it and heedless of the consequences for the victims and of whether what we are witnessing amounts to justice.
I do not believe that people want to live in that sort of country or feel that we have become such a country. The public do not share the values of the media people who have effectively brought this debate to the Floor of the House today. They do not share the values of those who have invaded the lives of innocent victims and bereaved families when they are grieving and at their most vulnerable.
I was not brought up in a country that stood by while others suffered. I always believed that the post-war Britain I grew up in was a country that stood up for fairness and perhaps for those who were not as strong as ourselves. I thought the country was populated by a heroic generation that was justifiably proud of what it had endured through the second world war and of the freedoms that had been won—not just for themselves but for the whole world. That was achieved by ordinary people doing extraordinary things for the greater good of everyone. It is these ordinary people we are defending today.
Who are the people who believe that they can trample over the lives of ordinary people and use them for their own ends or their own advancement? Should we allow ourselves to be seduced into accepting that the things these people dictate to us, claiming they are in our interest, are acceptable and should be allowed to happen?
Clive Efford
I will not give way, if my hon. Friend does not mind.
I cannot go into the detail of specific cases, as others have done. What I will say, however—this is one of the points that I really wanted to make—is that I think there is a corporate responsibility. I applaud Ford for withdrawing its advertising from News Corporation. I also think that anyone who is not a fit and proper person to drive my old taxi should not be put in charge of a major news outlet.
Other organisations—Halifax, npower, T-Mobile and Orange—say that they are reconsidering their position, while Tesco and Virgin Media say that they will wait for the outcome of the police inquiry. That is not good enough. I say to people who may be purchasing goods from those organisations, or thinking of buying a new mobile phone, that they should not trade with companies that do not stand side by side with the ordinary person in the street who is outraged at what has gone on in News International.
Only if ordinary people make a stand will we stop these rich people—rich people who have invaded the lives of ordinary people in the street—making themselves even richer and even more powerful. Only by hurting them where it really matters—in their profits—will the ordinary person in the street influence their behaviour in the future.
Finance Bill
Debate between Clive Efford and Helen Goodman(14 years, 4 months ago)
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