20 August 2000 – When football hooligans run riot and inconvenience the general public, that’s news. No one in his or her right mind would contend that reporting the story is an invasion of the miscreants’ privacy. So what is so different about the case of Euan Blair, who hit the headlines for his alleged misbehaviour in an Italian hotel? Does the fact that he happens to be the Prime Minister’s son (with one strike against him already for public drunkenness) make his conduct a matter of public interest? Well yes, actually, it does.

Many parents will sympathise with Mr Blair over his apparent inability to curb the excesses of teenage testosterone, and may feel relieved that their own offspring manage to misbehave without attracting media attention. The fact remains that, unlike them, Mr Blair is responsible for running the country and does so in a very presidential manner. If he is shown to be incapable of controlling his own son, it casts doubt on his competence to control the nation. The comparison is unfair, but it will be made. And that is why Mr Blair is so furious with the media.

Downing Street at first accused the press of total fabrication – it being quite in order to label journalists as liars – and then admitted that there might be some substance to the story after all. Apparently there were complaints made by hotel residents, though exactly how those complaints reached the ears of reporters is something we may never know.

Now Mr Blair is threatening to take the matter to the Press Complaints Commission. He should think again. The PCC has an important role in protecting the privacy of the ordinary citizen, though it often fails to do so, but the public behaviour of public figures should lie outside its remit. The Blairs, all of them, are in the public eye and enjoy a raft of privileges which go with the territory. On the flip side, they are subject to justified press scrutiny. The solution is not to go bleating to the PCC, which has better things to do, but to keep their own house in order.

Bill Norris
Associate Director

(Bulletin No 26)