Schools minister Georgina Gould was on the morning round to face questions over why Starmer proceeded with Matthew Doyle’s peerage despite knowing that he had campaigned for convicted sex offender Sean Morton, as The Times revealed. Pressed on Sky News, Gould said there was an ongoing investigation:
“I think the the story was later in the month but I think the prime minister has looked at this given the commitments that he has made to ensure the highest standards in public life. No one is harder on themselves than the prime minister but you know he’s clear that things need to change, vetting has to be better. I think there is an investigation going on at the moment. We’ll have more to say when when that’s completed.”
Doyle’s Labour peerage had been confirmed two weeks after it was known he had campaigned for a sex offender. Starmer could’ve cancelled the peerage at any time up to this point…
Statement by Paul Dacre, Editor-in-Chief of Associated Newspapers Limited, following Harry’s loss in court today:
“Prince Harry wrote a sad book which boasted about his killing of 25 Taliban, his drug-taking and, in cringe-making detail, how he lost his virginity. There isn’t a laundry in the cosmos big enough to wash all the dirty linen he has aired about his own family. For him, to complain about HIS privacy being invaded takes, not just the biscuit, but the whole tin. Poor Harry. I feel sorry for the way a confused and angry young man has been drawn into this case. The bitter irony is that his mother, Diana, liked the Mail. We were her paper. We took her side in her acrimonious break up with Charles. She and I would speak and meet. The Mail’s superb royal reporter was her friend and confidante. The truth is that this trumped-up action – which has cost well over £50 million and wasted a huge amount of valuable court time – should never have been brought to trial. That it did, raises profoundly disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession. Today’s verdict is not just a victory for Associated’s magnificent journalists – several of whom have had a terrible toll imposed on their health and lives – but a free press generally. Make no mistake. This was a conspiracy, supported by Hacked Off, to destroy a paper. Financed by the orgy-loving, racist Max Mosley and involving the actor Hugh Grant, it was also a sinister bid to resuscitate Leveson Two and impose statutory regulation on the press which, even now, is rearing its ugly head in Labour’s Media Green Paper.”