The tones of injured innocence which echo this morning around the row over Mrs Cherie Blair's injunction stopping publication of details of her home life are unconvincing to say the least. Put bluntly, somebody may be lying. The former No 10 nannie who wrote the account says that she did not give permission for extracts from her proposed book to be published in the Mail on Sunday. The literary agent approached by Ms Ros Mark says that he played no part whatsoever in the story carried in an early edition of the newspaper. No doubt the truth will emerge, but what is clear is that Ms Mark has written an account of private life within the Blairs' home and that she intended to publish it. She insists that she would do nothing to harm the family and that any money earned would go to an as yet unidentified charity, but this is simply not good enough.
Mrs Blair's determination to protect her family life and her children from publicity is well-known - indeed, the Prime Minister's official spokesman, who appears to have been relaxed about the affair when he heard of it initially, says clearly that the article breached a confidentiality agreement between the Blairs and their former nannie. Knowing this, it is difficult to see how Ms Mark could have felt that she was doing anything else other than breaching confidentiality and trust when she first wrote the manuscript and then attempted to have it published, whether through the newspaper or not.
The Herald and most other responsible newspapers hold firmly to the right to publish matters which are in the public interest, whether they involve well-known politicians or anyone else. But the details of the Blairs' private life are not a matter of public interest, although this stricture does not apply to decisions on places of schooling when the Prime Minister is the head of a Government directing the nation's parents as to how and where their children must be educated. We are very much in favour of freedom of speech, but freedom to pry and gossip is not the same thing. Unless fresh information to the contrary surfaces, the nannie is clearly in the wrong. To elevate this tawdry affair to the status of evidence for further gagging of the media, as some inclined to yesterday, is a step too far.
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