In April 2008, the Government admitted that they had pathetically caved in to pressure from a powerful cabal of newspaper publishers – News International (Sun & Screws), Associated Newspapers (Mail) and the Daily/Sunday Telegraph – of whom they are manifestly terrified. They had planned to introduce jail sentences of up to two years for anyone – including journalists – who breached data protection laws by dealing in or obtaining personal information without the justification of public interest.

Richard Thomas, then Information Commissioner had been vigorous in his efforts to seal the breach in laws protecting privacy and, recognising the inexorable growth in data theft, had demanded that the penalty for offences under Section 55 of the Data Protection Act 1998 – currently fines of up to £5,000 in a Magistrates’ court, and unlimited in the Crown Court – be raised to a maximum of two years imprisonment. A clause to this effect, Clause 76 was embedded in the 2008 Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill. It was progressing through both houses of Parliament, and looked to be well on its way until, after the onslaught by the press, a shameful and compromising fudge was agreed by Downing Street. The clause would be put on the statute book, but then suspended, with the option for the Justice Secretary to invoke it at some future date.

The precise status of a suspended clause is obscure and the muddy waters stirred up by this last minute government U-turn made it unclear in what circumstances its invocation could be triggered. Before making such an order, the Justice Secretary must consult the Information Commissioner, such media organisations and other people he considers “appropriate”, and it could only come into effect if approved by an affirmative resolution by both Houses of Parliament – so not just a matter of pressing a button.

          Although Richard Thomas, who had fought so hard for this new legislation, had been blatantly snubbed, he announced gamely, “Of course we would have preferred the clause to have remained unchanged, although we understand that the Justice Secretary will be able to introduce prison sentences if illegal activity continues. Our aim has always been to deter and this will now be a powerful Sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of anyone involved in obtaining personal data.”

          After the astounding revelations of press misbehaviour, both old and new, triggered by the Guardian’s report this summer on the massive settlement agreed between PFA boss Gordon Taylor and the News of the World for their hacking into his voicemails, it’s more than clear that serious penalties – and not just fines which employers will pay – is required to deter effectively any of the many renegade hacks chasing after stories in any way they can in order to satisfy unscrupulous news editors.

          It’s clear that the moment is more than overdue for the Sword of Damocles to fall. If the Justice Secretary wants to be taken seriously over Data Protection, he must act now.

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I haven’t yet read the recently published book, NO EXPENSES SPARED, the tale of the MPs’ Expenses fracas as told by the Daily Telegraph’s Robert Winnett and Gordon Rayner, but even the few short paras of puff published in their paper last week suggest a certain amount of obfuscation. It contains, they say, the first interview with the ‘mole’ in the Parliamentary Stationery Office, which processes the expenses claimed.

I doubt that it’s real. The suggestion is that this mole, presumably - if he’s real – a civil servant employed by Parliament, was motivated by his disgust that MPs were claiming excessive expenses, while our soldiers in Afghanistan were choosing to buy their own kit to supplement MoD issue. This Richard Littlejohn brand of harrumphing indignation (which seems to be emerging as the Telegraph’s house style under its fizzy young editor) does not convince and nor does this suggested motive fit with my knowledge of the true beneficiary of the Telegraph’s munificence (whose name I forbore to reveal on June 8^th in www.peterburden.net/archives/152 , and still feel I cannot justify releasing.)

This approach is reflected in a cod piece which appeared online on the paper’s site on Saturday morning, cobbled together somewhat incoherently (with very sloppy editing) by the dodgy old former SAS officer, John Wick, who acted as gofer between the seller of the data and the Telegraph. Wick looks to me like the sort of fellow who would make you think twice before buying a second hand bicycle from him.  

The point of his piece is obscure; he says confusingly, for example,

“At no time has the Daily Telegraph indentified the source and yet the various other media outlets have inferred the leak came from either the military personnel, staff of the Stationery Office or even the civil servants themselves.”

It seems, though, that they have.

He goes on to explain the substantial sum paid by the paper to the leaker as follows:

“On the issue of the payment from the Telegraph, it is I who placed a requirement to have money paid for the data and not anyone else involved. It was there to pay for legal advice before the campaign started, to have contingency funds available if charges were made and legal representation was needed – and to give financial support to those persons whose involvement in the campaign could affect their and their families’ livelihood.”

Oh, I see.

All the print commentators still miss the point that the real problem was not at the MPs were paid these expenses (which simply brough their remuneration up to somewhere near a fair rate for the job) but that they hadn’t the bottle simply to put the case over for a salary comensurate with their function as the nation’s legislators.

The papers were so thrilled to find that MPs were, for the time being, even more disliked by the public than themselves, they weren’t going to offer any excuses.

The rational conclusion is that we should field half the number of Members of the House of Commons and pay them at least twice what they’re getting now. Th talent pool from which they would be drawn would immediately grow and improve in quality.

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