8 March 2000 – Now that the case brought by Cherie Blair against her former nanny, Ros Mark, has been withdrawn, we may never get to know the full story behind the banned edition of last week’s Mail on Sunday.

As it is, the facts are unclear. Did Ms Mark sign a confidentiality agreement covering her service with the Blairs? She has not denied it, and it seems unlikely that Downing St would take such draconian action if it were not true. So what possessed her to write the book? Can it be that the Blairs were well aware of the project, and agreed to it with the proviso that they were able to vet the manuscript before publication? That seems the most likely scenario, and appears to be confirmed by an interview given by Ms Mark’s mother to the Daily Mail (8 March).

And did the Mail on Sunday really believe that such a book would not be the subject of a confidentiality agreement, given (apart from all else) that the Blairs are both lawyers.

Ms Mark and her former agent, Jonathan Harris, have vehemently denied that they gave a copy of the manuscript to the Mail on Sunday, and there is no reason to disbelieve them. Indeed, the paper itself has never specifically claimed that it has a copy. So where did those “excerpts” come from?

Can it be that the Mail on Sunday reporters, skilled interviewers, extracted the gist of her book from Ms Mark on the pretext that this information was a necessary prelude to publication? And that Ms Mark then posed for photographs, thinking that they would be used only when the Blairs’ consent had been obtained and she was free to make a deal? Such innocence is unfortunate, but too few people realise that if you sup with the devil of Fleet Street you need a long spoon. If this is the true version of events, then Ms Mark was stitched-up by the Mail on Sunday, with disastrous personal consequences, and the paper ought to be ashamed of itself.

No one would deny that the Blairs have a perfect right to protect the privacy of their children – though those who have seen the offending article (which we have not) say that it carefully avoids conflict with the Press Complaints Commission’s Code of Conduct on such matters. The same right, of course, applies to every parent in Britain, though they are less likely to be able to rush to a High Court judge in the early hours of a Sunday morning to get an injunction. Nor are they likely to get the sort of sympathetic hearing from the PCC that No. 10 can invariably rely on.

For whatever reason, several publishers have apparently rejected Ms Mark’s book, and Mr Harris had given up trying to get it published some months ago. In these circumstances, Ms Mark may have been understandably frustrated by the failure to get her hard work into print, and may well have snatched at the last straw being offered by the Mail on Sunday. Many budding authors will know exactly how she feels, but if the book is not worth publishing what does that say about the motives of the Mail on Sunday? Was the paper merely anxious to find something, anything, which would embarrass the Prime Minister and his wife?

None of this justifies the draconian action threatened against the unfortunate Ms Mark, who would have faced heavy legal bills and a possible £15,000 damage award in addition to the destruction of her private life.

Bill Norris
Associate Director

(Bulletin No 10)