Abstract
‘Over the years, Lord Rothermere has been leant on by more than one prime minister to remove Associated Newspapers’ editors but, as he told Lord Justice Leveson on oath, he does not interfere with the editorial policies of his papers.’
A spokesman for Lord Rothermere, on the claim that David Cameron, the then prime minister, asked him to sack Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail
‘For 25 years, I have been given the freedom to edit the Mail on behalf of its readers without interference from Jonathan Rothermere or his father. It has been a great joy and privilege.’
Paul Dacre
‘It is wrong to suggest that David Cameron believed he could determine who edits the Daily Mail. It is a matter of public record that he made the case that it was wrong for newspapers to argue that we give up our membership of the EU. He made this argument privately to the editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, and its proprietor, Lord Rothermere.’
A spokesman for David Cameron
‘Newspapers here aren't under the heel of government – not yet. But the apparatus has been set up, and it could become more coercive one day if it suited the powers-that-be. Happily, the Press remains one sphere of modern life beyond the control of the State. How long will this last? Police trawling through reporters’ records, and a prime minister trying to do down an editor, are aspects of the same lethal phenomenon. How I wish that journalists from the loftiest broadsheet to the most spirited red-top tabloid, and decent people of Left and Right, could unite to defend our threatened freedom.’
Stephen Glover, writing in the Daily Mail