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News Release 26th July 2002QUESTIONS TO THE PRIME MINISTER ON PRESS FREEDOMSMichael Fabricant grilled the Prime Minister when Tony Blair agreed to be questioned by the Liaison Committee (the Committee of Chairman of House of Commons Select Committees). "As Chairman of the Information Select Committee, I was tasked with asking the Prime Minister about his relationship with the press and the whole question of 'spin' in this Government", says Michael Fabricant. "I am particularly concerned that Tony Blair has plans to emasculate the Press Lobby which by thorough questioning has exposed a number of honours for favours scandals among Labour Party donors. I believe the Prime Minister intends to replace the Lobby with more general Presidential-style press conferences which won't allow sustained probing by experienced journalists", Michael adds. An extract from the questioning follows below (from Hansard):- Michael Fabricant: What about the lobby because you know the lobby is a very different sort of organisation? There can be sustained questioning, rather unlike this Committee, I might add. You have got a small group of people who can pursue a particular issue and some would say that Mittal would not have been exposed if it had not been through the thorough questioning of two or three very able journalists. What is the future of the lobby because it has been said that the lobby is going to be replaced by this new form of press conference? Tony Blair: No, it is not that, but it is simply important to open the lobby up, and there is no great mystique about it. I think, and I may be wrong about this, but I think we are the first people to actually put it all, as it were, on the record and the official spokesmen-the two civil servants that do these lobby briefings for me-if you have occasion to read the notes they have to be pretty quick on their feet, and it is like 45 minutes of Prime Minister's Questions twice a day. Michael Fabricant: Well, they are on the website and we do read them, and they are going to continue? Tony Blair: Absolutely, we have briefings for journalists, but how we change that over time and make it so that it is more open to other journalists as well, that is an issue too. |
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