thedailymirror--2020-03-08--Robert Peston's 2020 Hugh Cudlipp London Press Club Lecture in full

Robert Peston gave the annual Hugh Cudlipp lecture , which is sponsored by the Daily Mirror and held in honour of late Mirror Editorial Director Hugh Cudlipp , at City University on Friday .
Read the full lecture here : Global system breakdown has defined all our lives for 13 years , from the banking system ’ s boom and bust , to the rise of a new anti-globalisation and populist generation of politician and political leader , to the mounting cost of global warming , to the exponentially charged proliferation of a jumping-the-species virus .
There is definitely no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wicked .
And we have a choice , as people , as nations , as culture .
We can try to understand what is happening in a balanced , calm , rational , scientific way .
And rebuild some sense of control over our destiny .
Or we can continue shouting at each other , in social media ’ s Tower of Babel , and turn Call of Duty4 : Modern Warfare into the model of our future .
Or to put it another way , journalism we can trust , impartial journalism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , so that as citizens we have the information that allows us to make those reasoned choices .
Having been mugged by Roy Greenslade into giving this lecture in honour of the legendary Hugh Cudlipp , this will be performance catharsis for me , very public psychotherapy even – after 35 years as a journalist , living on the adrenalin of reporting on events and trends that are no respecters of a normal working day and that have shaken and changed our world .
But mostly what I want to do – with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we have to rescue impartial journalism from possible oblivion , and fight back against the pernicious ideas that impartial journalism either doesn ’ t matter , or is just what I or you happen to think it is , that there is no distinction between the objective and the subjective , and that to argue otherwise is a fatuous exercise in impossibilism .
Even our leaders , with their deeds as much as words , show contempt for the idea of impartial news .
Trump disintermediates – goes round – established media every @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with the American people via Twitter .
Our own prime minister has shown a preference for being asked patsy questions by faceless and carefully selected citizens via Facebook rather than being interviewed by established television or print journalists .
On Brexit day itself , 31 January , Johnson spoke directly to the nation through social media , not television .
Now for the avoidance of doubt , as someone who has tried to practice impartial journalism all my professional life , in newspapers as much as TV , let no one think I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kind of belief that journalists like me have some kind of privileged relationship with the truth .
To use a term of art , I ’ ve fucked things up far too many times for comfort in 36 odd years as a hack .
But what distinguishes the impartial news journalist from the propagator of fake news is the response to the embarrassing evidence of our incomplete knowledge .
During the general election , I notoriously made a mistake on Twitter when I said that the health secretary ’ s special adviser was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hospital .
But to clear up a few things about this .
I was not spun by Cummings or a Tory official about this .
Nor did I allege Labour ’ s involvement in the fracas in my Tweet .
Having read about the fracas on Twitter , I rang two people who were eye witnesses who both told me that the adviser had – in the words of one – been “ lamped ” .
Subsequently a film emerged that showed that the adviser had been knocked not very hard in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So I took down the tweet and then put up another tweet apologising for my mistake .
I was not under pressure from ITV to make the correction .
I simply said sorry because that is what I would always do , since I am well aware I do not have privileged access to the truth .
This was a routine cockup , not a conspiracy – and it wasn ’ t the first or last such boo boo I ’ ll make .
What matters about this incident is that it was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as a conspiracy to undermine Jeremy Corbyn .
My tweet in which I said “ I apologise for getting this wrong ” was seen as confirmation that I am a Tory stooge .
Jeremy Corbyn himself – or whoever manages his account – tweeted a screenshot of my deleted original tweet , along with tweets by Laura Kuenssberg , my colleague Paul Brand , and Tom Newton Dunn of the Sun , and said “ this is what media bias looks like ” .
Unsurprisingly I thought this was offensive and wrong .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ correction was made instantaneously .
This is both a trivial and important point .
It reinforces the importance of sustaining and reinforcing a culture of impartiality and striving for truth in news .
But in today ’ s world of identity politics and argument based on who we think we are rather than what we think we know , saying sorry seems only to encourage the hate .
In fact , unlike Prufrock ’ s life measured in coffee spoons , mine sometimes feels measured out in Twitter stream hate – for allegedly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 13 years ago , or not being quite excited enough about the joys of Brexit , or for expressing deep sadness that the party to which my Jewish dad had devoted his life had apparently become a haven for anti-Semites .
The hate felt most extreme this past autumn , before and during that nightmarish general election , when different halves of the country could not understand that my job was not to throw myself in front of the Boris Johnson bulldozer to prevent him winning the election , or to cheerlead for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to adjudicate on what all party leaders were saying – and evaluate which were more likely to make more of us safer , more prosperous , happier .
For gawd ’ s sake don ’ t feel sorry for me .
I love what I do and unlike some colleagues or many in public life , I find it relatively easy to ignore the furious loons .
It is simply that I know that in renewing the case for impartial news , I am preaching to the angry and the unpersuadable .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with me will nod in melancholy support .
But far too many – some of them in positions of considerable power – will dismiss every word as simply the propaganda of the mistrusted and loathed MSM , the mainstream media , as the voice of a self-perpetuating oligarchy of vested interests , as an exercise in exhibitionist onanism ( as the current PM might say ) .
So what is impartial journalism ?
Well it should not be bland .
And it is not journalism devoid of views .
It is journalism that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that is likely to happen , that this or that politician is more likely to be right about a certain important issue – based on evidence , but never on political affiliation , or religious leanings , or commercial interests or prejudice .
At times , I have been very passionate in the way I report , perhaps too passionate .
At the BBC , I argued that the banks had been reckless and disgraceful borrowers and lenders who were jeopardising our livelihoods .
I got away with it because I had worked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ journalism for years , and actually knew what I was talking about .
Which meant I redoubled my efforts when politicians , bankers , regulators tried to shut me up .
MPs who should have known better argued that the equivalent of wartime style D Notices should have been issued to close me down .
One of the reasons I love the BBC is it never blinked – and not only because there were times when my bosses didn ’ t have a clue what I was saying .
At ITV , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ anxious by insisting on saying what I believed to be true about the economics of Brexit , in the face of considerable resistance from our lawyers .
I argued that leaving the EU would make us poorer , at least for a decade or so , because there is an inescapable cost from introducing friction into the UK ’ s trading relationship with its most important market .
I have gone through these arguments so many times I won ’ t bore you with them again today .
But the important point is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as I was during the banking crisis – because I set out the evidence in explaining my conclusion , my view .
That said , and unlike George Osborne , who had a politician ’ s skin in the game and could therefore never be impartial , I argued that the costs would be real but not catastrophic .
I also said there could be reasons to leave the EU that had nothing to do with our prosperity , and everything to do with ideas about the importance of national self determination .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ was a Remainiac who should be locked in a sound proofed cell .
The regulator Ofcom adjudicated in ITV ’ s favour when Vote Leave complained we were failing in our obligation to be duly impartial .
But even though the bad penny of Brexit ’ s economic costs have of course turned up , Cummings and co had the last laugh .
Because as a genius impartial journalist , I had assumed that the lessons of history – that citizens vote for what will make them richer or stop them getting poorer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ determined the referendum outcome .
But I had under-estimated both the resonance of so-called “ taking back control ” and that vast numbers of voters on low incomes who were so disillusioned with the political establishment that when Cameron and Osborne said Brexit would be self-harm they saw the fear in their eyes and decided to punish them .
So to repeat , impartiality is about fact or evidence-based journalism , but again please don ’ t confuse that with immaculate powers of foresight .
Here though is where it all gets bit @ @ @ @ @ @ @ immense pride for the BBC for a decade , I watched with disappointment the corporation ’ s coverage of the referendum .
Because , as I ’ ve argued before it felt to me that the BBC was confusing balance with due impartiality .
Balance , or hearing a range of competing views , is of course important .
But the duty of the reporting journalist is to weigh up those competing views and say that on the weight of the evidence this or that view is more likely to be correct .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s viewers and listeners to hear one business leader or economist say Brexit would make us poorer , and another say it would make us richer , and then not be given help by presenter or journalist in assessing which was more credible .
After the referendum , the Brexit-leaning Daily Mail heaped praise on the BBC for not giving any kind of view during this political battle of our age .
Maybe that shows the BBC ’ s view of impartiality is right and I ’ m wrong .
But I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when ministers attack the BBC , as they often do , for failing to appreciate the strength of pro Brexit feeling in the UK , that is absolutely not evidence the BBC is failing in its duty of impartiality .
Brexit might absolutely be the best path for this country .
But neither the BBC or ITV should argue that simply because a majority of the people see it that way .
Among the many things that I wish in life , I wish the BBC was more confident in its news coverage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in my time at the BBC did its bosses stop me saying what I wanted to say .
A couple of days before the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 , and just ten minutes before going to air on the Ten O ’ Clock news , a piece I had made on the economic implications of Scottish independence was pulled , on the orders of the corporation ’ s most senior executives , who feared the ire of Alex Salmond .
The least edifying aspect of the incident is that the assorted bosses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the decision , just in case it leaked and became a cause celebre .
What this shows , of course , is why it is so hard for the BBC to stick its neck out and give a view .
The backlash against it from politicians and media when it makes a mistake is so disproportionately great that sheer terror grips those who run it .
It is of course vital to repeat that impartial journalism is a standard that none of us as individual journalists can ever attain .
It is what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we research , how we weigh the evidence , what we say and how we say it .
It is why , when I was a business journalist , I chose not to invest in stocks and shares , because I did not want the perception of the impartiality of my reporting to be undermined by the idea that I might be favouring a company to get richer .
All serious business and financial journalists abjure direct investing .
But it wasn ’ t always so .
When I was a cub reporter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tried to recruit me .
And one of the perks of the job they offered was that they had close relationships with stockbroking firms who gave the Mail hacks privileged access to offerings and placings of new shares at the discounted flotation price – a reward for bullish coverage .
I made my excuses and left , as they say .
But that kind of incestuous relationship between hacks , brokers and bankers was rife at the time , and – thank goodness – has largely been swept away .
Also , from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not been a member of a political party , because I never wanted to be seen as a pamphleteer or propagandist .
Building what used to be called in the City a Chinese Wall between my private political convictions and how I research and present my stories has been vital to my credibility .
Though some of you will say I am kidding myself .
There is an argument that in today ’ s climate of mistrust of the media , journalists like me should be more frank and open about our underlying @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But although I can credibly claim not to show sympathies for any particular party , there are some facts about me that condition how I am seen and that I ’ ve chosen not to hide .
In the current febrile political climate , it matters – and I say this with regret – that I am Jewish .
Five years ago , the idea that I would ever have begun a report by saying “ as a Jew ” would have been unthinkable .
But when reporting on the toxic question of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ feel I have to say it – because although I strive to be as impartial in covering this issue as I would be when covering a general election or reporting on a corporate takeover , I can not shed my Jewish identity in the way that I can cease to be a member of a political party or can dispose of shares in a company .
To be clear , this is not a matter of religion .
I have never been a practising Jew .
I have always been a proud secular @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me is that if we had lived in Germany , Austria or Poland during the second world war , we would have been sent to the gas chambers , whether or not we thought of ourselves as Jews .
It is a matter of birth .
And it matters that all my life I ’ ve encountered antisemitism , and also that antisemitism has become much more prevalent in recent years .
There is an argument , I suppose , that because antisemitism is a personal issue for me , I should not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who believes in the importance of impartial journalism I should always stand aside when a story about antisemitism and Labour needs to be covered .
Possibly that is what Seumas Milne , Jeremy Corbyn ’ s director of strategy and communications , believes .
When I pointed out to him during the general election that Corbyn had refused to be interviewed by me – even though Johnson , Sturgeon and Swinson had each been interviewed by me twice – he said , and I quote from a text he sent , “ your @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fair or balanced and included a high degree of slanted editorialising , reaching a low point in your broadcast on the 10 on 26/11 ” .
He was referring to a two-way I did on the unprecedented decision of the chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis to write an editorial in the Times Newspaper in which he explicitly raised the question , on behalf of the orthodox part of the Jewish community , to question whether Corbyn was fit for high office , given Corbyn ’ s failure to root out antisemitism from Labour over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I reviewed that two-way .
It was impartial , both in respect of Ofcom ’ s rules and as a matter of common sense .
The point I made was how shocking it was that the leader of an important section of the Jewish community should feel obliged to speak out during a general election , and that he was moved to do so by the deep hurt and fear felt by many of his congregation .
This alienation of an important part of a British community could not be ignored , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to put it mildly – that Milne cited it when disqualifying me as a suitable interviewer of his boss .
Would Milne or any of us have qualms about a woman journalist reporting on gender pay inequality or a gay journalist covering gay marriage in the church ?
I doubt it .
In a way it is extraordinary any of this needs saying .
But it may do in this era of identity politics trumping the politics of economic distribution .
I am not so naïve as to believe that impartial journalists like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in my psyche are prejudices I can ’ t see – even though I am especially privileged to have a partner who has an unusual ability to expose my capacity to confuse myth with fact .
I was reminded of how really hideous prejudices can persist in institutions we think of as liberal when I read Cudlipp ’ s history of the Mirror , written in 1953 : Cudlipp pointed out that the trust deeds of the Observer newspaper at that time stipulated that neither a Jew or a Catholic could be its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ no individual journalist or media institution has a monopoly on truth , the only way to provide citizens with the truths they need to run their lives and make rational decisions about who should lead us is through the intermediation of a rich ecosystem of news organisations that are consciously diverse employers and which are very different each from the other .
Impartial news can not depend for its survival on a single or small number of champions .
There is an enormous amount of attention being paid – rightly – to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wholesale financial and cultural reform at the BBC .
If this were to weaken the BBC , if this were to lead to it abandoning impartial journalism , that would be bad .
So I gulped slightly when the newish culture secretary Oliver Dowden yesterday put the BBC on warning to guard “ its unique selling point of impartiality ” , suggested it was too narrow and urban in its outlook and then said the government would be taking “ a proper look at our public service broadcasting system and the BBC ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it reflects and is close to the British people .
If this or any government is the arbiter of impartiality , we are in deep trouble .
All that said , for all the importance of the BBC , it is not the sole guarantor of a healthy news media capable of holding power to account .
The BBC contributes to the ecosystem that holds power to account .
But it is only part of it .
And if you will indulge me for a second , I can not resist sharing with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is seen by viewers as more trustworthy than the BBC , and that on perceptions of impartiality the BBC is quite a long way behind Sky and CNN .
But then I thought yuck , because declining trust in any provider of impartial news , especially declining trust in the BBC , is bad for our collective mission .
Those who supply it – ITV , the BBC , Channels 4 and 5 , Sky – thrive or fail together .
Even when competing , the taint of one can infect the others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up all boats .
Each of us needs competition from the others , to keep us honest , on our toes , striving for the truth , fastidious .
This is why Ofcom ’ s review of how to reinvigorate public service broadcasting in this new age of digital streaming is so important .
It matters that all of us resolve there is a commercial interest in remaining as public service broadcasters .
Because if we don ’ t , then we would no longer take on the licence condition of committing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in my view , would be deleterious to democracy .
If each or any of us decided to remodel ourselves as Netflix -style streaming services , freed from the obligation to provide impartial news , the providers of fake and toxic news would be the only winners .
By the way , my clear understanding is that ITV wants to and will remain a public service broadcaster for years to come , even though providing national and regional news , and my show , isn ’ t cheap – unless that is Ofcom @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compel makers of Smart TVs and the likes of Sky to make it incredibly easy to find and tune in to us and the other public service broadcasters .
Due prominence is what we all want and I think merit , an ecosystem in which virtue in broadcasting counts for something against the bottomless purses of Netflix , Apple and Amazon .
Here speaks the not very impartial journalist .
Finally I want to return to the issue of trust , a virtue that is becoming more and more defined by its absence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our important institutions , including journalists .
I want to link this to the related imperative of holding this government – like any government – to account .
First , it is not a party political point to wish that Labour would get its act together and behave as an effective opposition .
But whoever wins the contest to lead Labour will have their work cut out .
In a parliament where Johnson has an effective majority of 87 and has purged most dissenters from his own ranks , the opposition will struggle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I remember interviewing William Hague shortly after he become Tory leader , following Blair ’ s 1997 landslide victory , and thinking “ nice bright chap , shame nothing he is saying will make a blind bit of difference to anything ” .
The point is that for Boris Johnson right now , only the media can effectively hold him and his administration to account .
And this matters all the more because the plans of this government are radical and go to the heart of the way in which fundamental decisions are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ breathes – including a significant institutional and constitutional reform programme going well beyond the inevitable changes that flow from Brexit .
It is a very big deal how Cummings and Johnson want to remake Whitehall , change the law for the protection of human rights , reduce the power of the courts to over-rule the prime minister , alter the scope and role of the BBC – and suspend our precious civil liberties to combat this horrible virus .
My own current obsession is that our vitally important future trade and security relationship @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by a Whitehall official accountable to the Whitehall hierarchy , or a minister who can be grilled at the Commons dispatch box , but by an unelected political adviser , David Frost .
He is accountable only to the prime minister .
Someone has to keep a close eye on all this , and who else if not the media ?
By the way , the internal contradictions in this government were captured by Frost himself when in a recent speech he prayed in aid the eighteenth century philosopher of cautious Conservatism Edmund @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but whose own job is the very definition of institutional upheaval that would be a Burkean anathema .
If the media ’ s role in shining a light on government is more important today than ever , then it was wholly predictable that one of the first actions of Cummings and his director of communications Lee Cain after the December election was to attempt to show that they – not lobby journalists – are in charge .
They have done this by moving the twice-daily lobby briefings out of parliament , where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own territory in Downing Street .
This is important symbolism .
And they have also tried to ban some news organisations from important briefings .
There has been a bit of public outrage about this – far more than I would have expected , given the relatively low esteem in which the media is held .
But let ’ s not be naïve about this , all prime ministers try to tame and control the news media , either through seduction or coercion .
In Cudlipp ’ s time , when the Mirror @ @ @ @ @ @ @ most powerful newspaper , Harold Wilson gave no fewer than six peerages to Mirror executives , including one to the great Hugh himself .
In James Margach ’ s compelling 1979 account of his relationship with 11 serving prime ministers , the Abuse of Power , the former Sunday Times political correspondent wrote that “ prime ministers are men who may be in a job one day and out the next , and so , having pursued power and seized it , they proceed to use and abuse it in order to dominate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of survival ” .
As I said , that was written in 1979 .
Cudlipp ’ s own history of the Mirror , “ Publish and be damned !
” recounts how Churchill and his war Cabinet tried to silence and even suppress the Mirror during the War , because the Mirror was an unusual and influential critic of his conduct of the struggle with Hitler .
In fact Johnson seems to have at least one big thing in common with his hero Churchill : both earned big bucks writing for newspapers and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the media as the enemy .
I was first a political editor in the 1990s , in the years before and after Tony Blair ’ s landslide victory in 1979 .
In the dying days of John Major ’ s administration , when he was subject to constant criticism and revolt from his own MPs , the press had a clear advantage in its war with Downing Street .
Back then Lobby hacks were unashamedly collusive .
Late afternoon every day , the political editors of what were then known as the “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ huddle to agree the latest attack line against Major .
I was political editor of the pink ‘ un , the FT , and sanctimoniously stood to one side .
The press was a galloping herd that destroyed Major under its hooves .
Which is why when Blair ’ s most devoted aide , Alistair Campbell , became Downing Street director of communications , he got his revenge in first – by explicitly treating most political journalists as the opposition , co-opting a small number of journalists he trusted as the recipients of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ daily scheduled briefing of the lobby into an exercise in ritual humiliation , of the hacks .
I had a volatile relationship with him , which veered from him once giving me a scoop on something of genuine significance – Blair ’ s overt courting of Rupert Murdoch – to him shouting across the press gallery floor “ you cunt Peston , still working for the Tories ” .
So an important question is whether the continued existence of a cadre of political lobby journalists – endowed with privileges by parliament , living @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a rook ’ s nest at the top of the Palace of Westminster – helps or hinders trust in the media , in this era of institutional mistrust .
To be clear , there is no longer explicit collusion between hacks , and there is much less hole-and-corner secrecy .
When I first became a lobby member in 1994 , it was against the rules to even tell your girlfriend about the twice daily meetings with the prime minister ’ s spokesman , let alone discuss it in a public forum .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ PM ’ s spokesman was also used by the lobby branch of the freemasons .
It was an era where ministers divulged tidbits to their journalistic chums on the golf course .
And where ministers , especially Tory ones , assumed that they could order a bottle of champagne on the FT ’ s account before I even arrived .
None of this was healthy .
One of Campbell ’ s positive reforms was to end the veil of total secrecy around the daily lobby briefings .
Whereas hitherto there had been no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the PM ’ s spokesman , and then for a brief few years attribution was to nebulous Downing Street sources , Campbell came up with the reportable phrase “ the prime minister ’ s official spokesman says ” – which is the formulation that is still deployed today .
In theory , this puts the prime minister and government on the hook for whatever is conveyed in those lobby briefings .
It is much harder than it was for an unscrupulous PM to deny what is said by his or her spokesman than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but I wonder whether in this age of mistrust there is a need to go further – and livestream the briefings as they happen , to provide reassurance to the wider public that there aren ’ t insidious masonic practices extant ?
There could be a paradoxical and insidious paradox of course about increasing the transparency of these lobby briefings .
Which is that they could become devoid of materially interesting information , and become occasions for simply the transmission of diary schedules and the like .
And this would deliver an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more briefing of selected journalists offline and in secret , which could provide more rather than fewer opportunities for the government to fly kites and test out possible policies with impunity .
It is tricky and delicate setting the calibration in a relationship between media and government or power that forces government to take responsibility for its words and yet doesn ’ t turn off the taps of useful information .
For any individual journalist there is never a dilemma about publishing what a powerful person has said about what the PM or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what is being said is palpable nonsense .
So I was surprised to find myself under attack , along with a small group of other journalists , a few months ago for publishing what Dominic Cummings had allegedly told us ( I choose my words with care ) about – as one example – how the PM hoped to get round the provisions of the Benn Act that made a no-deal Brexit at the end of October nigh on impossible .
Peter Oborne accused me and a few others of being captured by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Open Democracy that attracted attention .
The background is that I had published a series of tweets on this and related issues , such as the prorogation of parliament , that I attributed to a senior Downing Street source rather than to a named individual .
Now obviously under the normal convention , I can ’ t name that source , even today .
But let ’ s conduct a thought experiment .
Let ’ s contend that Dominic Cummings was the source and that he told me – for example – @ @ @ @ @ @ @ law than sign a letter to Brussels asking for a Brexit delay , under the terms of the Benn Act , and that he would also send a side letter along with the main letter , which he hoped would render the Benn Act request null and void .
Which I duly tweeted .
You might say this was just a stunt – because in the event although the PM did everything I said he would , the EU ignored him , the issue never went to court ( though some lawyers and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Brexit was delayed from the end of October to the end of January .
The question is whether journalists should ignore stunts , or rather – as I believe – we should put such posturing into the appropriate context so that it can be properly understood and scrutinised .
As a journalist , I always want to name those I am quoting .
It is frustrating when I can ’ t .
But the tag “ Downing Street source ” gives a big clue to whom I ’ ve been talking .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s all clear from the comings and goings .
And in the end the question is whether democratic debate is enhanced by knowing what Johnson and Cummings want to do , even when those ambitions are often more about shaping a campaigning narrative than about the ostensible target .
I was completely explicit when broadcasting , blogging and tweeting that stunts like the PM not signing the Brexit-delay request were all about how an Old Etonian Balliol man , advised by the son of a landed squire , wanted to get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the teeth of sabotage by metropolitan , privileged internationalists who wanted to stop Brexit .
Johnson as hero of the northern working class may be as counter intuitive as Trump draining the swamp .
But my goodness it worked .
And just because the message was not properly understood and counter-acted by Johnson ’ s opponents is no real reason to shoot the messenger .
Or at least that is what I beseech .
It is really not that long ago , within my working life , that prime ministers and governors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with newspaper editors and proprietors for the express purpose of making it harder for those secrets to enter the public domain .
Because once those editors and proprietors were sworn never to reveal those secrets , their hands were in the blood .
In the 90s and noughties , I attended many of these cover up lunches .
We all felt special that we knew important stuff the rest of the country did not .
But we were betraying our readers and knowingly colluding with the powerful .
As far as I am @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pas-devant-les-enfants ” stitch up happens only rarely now .
So here is the painful paradox .
In the era of Cudlipp ’ s and the Mirror ’ s pomp , when media owners and prime ministers colluded in cover ups , public respect for the institutions that underpin our freedoms and way of life was strong .
Unless we abandon democracy and adopt Chinese-style controls on what can be said on social media – and I am not suggesting that – we need news organisations whose primary function is to shine the brightest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , such that the rogues who are always drawn to power can not misbehave with impunity .
Impartial broadcasters , as much as a robust press , are not so much the plumbing as the sewers of a healthy democracy .
I say that in praise of sewers .
Because just imagine a United Kingdom in which all those “ S H one T ’ s ” who rise to the top aren ’ t eventually flushed away .
There is a dignity to working in these sewers .
It ’ s what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ * The Cudlipp Student Journalist Award 2020 was won by Tara O'Reilly for her report on sexual misconduct at Westminster which was published in Elle magazine .
The judges said her report had “ depth and structure , with personal experience , good observation plus several interviews .
It ’ s a real piece of journalism.
” Also awarded were Richard Assheton who won the Richard Lindley Award for his report in The Times about detention centres in India .
*The Hugh Cudlipp lecture and student awards was presented by the London Press @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sponsored by the Daily Mirror and Cision .

Robert Peston gave the annual Hugh Cudlipp lecture, which is sponsored by the Daily Mirror and held in honour of late Mirror Editorial Director Hugh Cudlipp, at City University on Friday. Read the full lecture here:
Global system breakdown has defined all our lives for 13 years, from the banking system’s boom and bust, to the rise of a new anti-globalisation and populist generation of politician and political leader, to the mounting cost of global warming, to the exponentially charged proliferation of a jumping-the-species virus.
There is definitely no sleep till Brooklyn, or for the wicked. And we have a choice, as people, as nations, as culture. We can try to understand what is happening in a balanced, calm, rational, scientific way. And rebuild some sense of control over our destiny.
Or we can continue shouting at each other, in social media’s Tower of Babel, and turn Call of Duty4: Modern Warfare into the model of our future. Or to put it another way, journalism we can trust, impartial journalism, matters more than it ever has, so that as citizens we have the information that allows us to make those reasoned choices.
Image: David Dyson) David Dyson)
Having been mugged by Roy Greenslade into giving this lecture in honour of the legendary Hugh Cudlipp, this will be performance catharsis for me, very public psychotherapy even – after 35 years as a journalist, living on the adrenalin of reporting on events and trends that are no respecters of a normal working day and that have shaken and changed our world.
But mostly what I want to do – with some trepidation – is talk about why we have to rescue impartial journalism from possible oblivion, and fight back against the pernicious ideas that impartial journalism either doesn’t matter, or is just what I or you happen to think it is, that there is no distinction between the objective and the subjective, and that to argue otherwise is a fatuous exercise in impossibilism.
Even our leaders, with their deeds as much as words, show contempt for the idea of impartial news. Trump disintermediates – goes round – established media every waking hour by communicating directly and tendentiously with the American people via Twitter .
Our own prime minister has shown a preference for being asked patsy questions by faceless and carefully selected citizens via Facebook rather than being interviewed by established television or print journalists. On Brexit day itself, 31 January, Johnson spoke directly to the nation through social media, not television.
Now for the avoidance of doubt, as someone who has tried to practice impartial journalism all my professional life, in newspapers as much as TV, let no one think I confuse a commitment to impartiality with some kind of belief that journalists like me have some kind of privileged relationship with the truth.
To use a term of art, I’ve fucked things up far too many times for comfort in 36 odd years as a hack. But what distinguishes the impartial news journalist from the propagator of fake news is the response to the embarrassing evidence of our incomplete knowledge.
During the general election , I notoriously made a mistake on Twitter when I said that the health secretary’s special adviser was whacked in a fracas outside Leeds general hospital. But to clear up a few things about this. I was not spun by Cummings or a Tory official about this.
Nor did I allege Labour ’s involvement in the fracas in my Tweet. Having read about the fracas on Twitter, I rang two people who were eye witnesses who both told me that the adviser had – in the words of one – been “lamped”. Subsequently a film emerged that showed that the adviser had been knocked not very hard in the face by accident, not deliberately. So I took down the tweet and then put up another tweet apologising for my mistake. I was not under pressure from ITV to make the correction. I simply said sorry because that is what I would always do, since I am well aware I do not have privileged access to the truth. This was a routine cockup, not a conspiracy – and it wasn’t the first or last such boo boo I’ll make.
What matters about this incident is that it was viewed by hundreds of thousands of people as a conspiracy to undermine Jeremy Corbyn . My tweet in which I said “I apologise for getting this wrong” was seen as confirmation that I am a Tory stooge.
Jeremy Corbyn himself – or whoever manages his account – tweeted a screenshot of my deleted original tweet, along with tweets by Laura Kuenssberg, my colleague Paul Brand, and Tom Newton Dunn of the Sun, and said “this is what media bias looks like”. Unsurprisingly I thought this was offensive and wrong.
The important point perhaps is that the correction was made instantaneously. This is both a trivial and important point. It reinforces the importance of sustaining and reinforcing a culture of impartiality and striving for truth in news.
But in today’s world of identity politics and argument based on who we think we are rather than what we think we know, saying sorry seems only to encourage the hate.
In fact, unlike Prufrock’s life measured in coffee spoons, mine sometimes feels measured out in Twitter stream hate – for allegedly destroying Northern Rock and the British economy 13 years ago, or not being quite excited enough about the joys of Brexit, or for expressing deep sadness that the party to which my Jewish dad had devoted his life had apparently become a haven for anti-Semites.
The hate felt most extreme this past autumn, before and during that nightmarish general election, when different halves of the country could not understand that my job was not to throw myself in front of the Boris Johnson bulldozer to prevent him winning the election, or to cheerlead for “getting Brexit done”, but to adjudicate on what all party leaders were saying – and evaluate which were more likely to make more of us safer, more prosperous, happier.
For gawd’s sake don’t feel sorry for me. I love what I do and unlike some colleagues or many in public life, I find it relatively easy to ignore the furious loons. It is simply that I know that in renewing the case for impartial news, I am preaching to the angry and the unpersuadable.
I confidently expect that those who already agree with me will nod in melancholy support. But far too many – some of them in positions of considerable power – will dismiss every word as simply the propaganda of the mistrusted and loathed MSM, the mainstream media, as the voice of a self-perpetuating oligarchy of vested interests, as an exercise in exhibitionist onanism (as the current PM might say).
Image: David Dyson) David Dyson)
So what is impartial journalism? Well it should not be bland. And it is not journalism devoid of views. It is journalism that expresses a view – that this or that is likely to happen, that this or that politician is more likely to be right about a certain important issue – based on evidence, but never on political affiliation, or religious leanings, or commercial interests or prejudice.
At times, I have been very passionate in the way I report, perhaps too passionate. At the BBC, I argued that the banks had been reckless and disgraceful borrowers and lenders who were jeopardising our livelihoods. I got away with it because I had worked in the saltmines of banking and markets journalism for years, and actually knew what I was talking about.
Which meant I redoubled my efforts when politicians, bankers, regulators tried to shut me up. MPs who should have known better argued that the equivalent of wartime style D Notices should have been issued to close me down. One of the reasons I love the BBC is it never blinked – and not only because there were times when my bosses didn’t have a clue what I was saying.
At ITV, in covering Brexit, I made my bosses anxious by insisting on saying what I believed to be true about the economics of Brexit, in the face of considerable resistance from our lawyers. I argued that leaving the EU would make us poorer, at least for a decade or so, because there is an inescapable cost from introducing friction into the UK’s trading relationship with its most important market. I have gone through these arguments so many times I won’t bore you with them again today.
But the important point is that I was being impartial – just as I was during the banking crisis – because I set out the evidence in explaining my conclusion, my view. That said, and unlike George Osborne, who had a politician’s skin in the game and could therefore never be impartial, I argued that the costs would be real but not catastrophic. I also said there could be reasons to leave the EU that had nothing to do with our prosperity, and everything to do with ideas about the importance of national self determination.
But even so the Brexiters alleged I was a Remainiac who should be locked in a sound proofed cell. The regulator Ofcom adjudicated in ITV’s favour when Vote Leave complained we were failing in our obligation to be duly impartial. But even though the bad penny of Brexit’s economic costs have of course turned up, Cummings and co had the last laugh. Because as a genius impartial journalist, I had assumed that the lessons of history – that citizens vote for what will make them richer or stop them getting poorer – would be the iron rule that determined the referendum outcome.
But I had under-estimated both the resonance of so-called “taking back control” and that vast numbers of voters on low incomes who were so disillusioned with the political establishment that when Cameron and Osborne said Brexit would be self-harm they saw the fear in their eyes and decided to punish them. So to repeat, impartiality is about fact or evidence-based journalism, but again please don’t confuse that with immaculate powers of foresight.
Here though is where it all gets bit messy. As someone who worked with immense pride for the BBC for a decade, I watched with disappointment the corporation’s coverage of the referendum. Because, as I’ve argued before it felt to me that the BBC was confusing balance with due impartiality. Balance, or hearing a range of competing views, is of course important. But the duty of the reporting journalist is to weigh up those competing views and say that on the weight of the evidence this or that view is more likely to be correct. It was no service to the BBC’s viewers and listeners to hear one business leader or economist say Brexit would make us poorer, and another say it would make us richer, and then not be given help by presenter or journalist in assessing which was more credible.
After the referendum, the Brexit-leaning Daily Mail heaped praise on the BBC for not giving any kind of view during this political battle of our age. Maybe that shows the BBC’s view of impartiality is right and I’m wrong. But I don’t think so. And when ministers attack the BBC, as they often do, for failing to appreciate the strength of pro Brexit feeling in the UK, that is absolutely not evidence the BBC is failing in its duty of impartiality. Brexit might absolutely be the best path for this country. But neither the BBC or ITV should argue that simply because a majority of the people see it that way.
Among the many things that I wish in life, I wish the BBC was more confident in its news coverage. As it happens, only once in my time at the BBC did its bosses stop me saying what I wanted to say. A couple of days before the Scottish independence referendum in 2014, and just ten minutes before going to air on the Ten O’Clock news, a piece I had made on the economic implications of Scottish independence was pulled, on the orders of the corporation’s most senior executives, who feared the ire of Alex Salmond.
The least edifying aspect of the incident is that the assorted bosses subsequently rang me to distance themselves from the decision, just in case it leaked and became a cause celebre. What this shows, of course, is why it is so hard for the BBC to stick its neck out and give a view. The backlash against it from politicians and media when it makes a mistake is so disproportionately great that sheer terror grips those who run it.
It is of course vital to repeat that impartial journalism is a standard that none of us as individual journalists can ever attain. It is what we aspire to. It conditions what we research, how we weigh the evidence, what we say and how we say it. It is why, when I was a business journalist, I chose not to invest in stocks and shares, because I did not want the perception of the impartiality of my reporting to be undermined by the idea that I might be favouring a company to get richer.
All serious business and financial journalists abjure direct investing. But it wasn’t always so. When I was a cub reporter in the 1980s, the Daily Mail tried to recruit me. And one of the perks of the job they offered was that they had close relationships with stockbroking firms who gave the Mail hacks privileged access to offerings and placings of new shares at the discounted flotation price – a reward for bullish coverage. I made my excuses and left, as they say. But that kind of incestuous relationship between hacks, brokers and bankers was rife at the time, and – thank goodness – has largely been swept away.
Also, from the age of 24 I’ve not been a member of a political party, because I never wanted to be seen as a pamphleteer or propagandist. Building what used to be called in the City a Chinese Wall between my private political convictions and how I research and present my stories has been vital to my credibility. Though some of you will say I am kidding myself. There is an argument that in today’s climate of mistrust of the media, journalists like me should be more frank and open about our underlying convictions. I am not sure.
But although I can credibly claim not to show sympathies for any particular party, there are some facts about me that condition how I am seen and that I’ve chosen not to hide. In the current febrile political climate, it matters – and I say this with regret – that I am Jewish. Five years ago, the idea that I would ever have begun a report by saying “as a Jew” would have been unthinkable. But when reporting on the toxic question of antisemitism in the Labour Party, I feel I have to say it – because although I strive to be as impartial in covering this issue as I would be when covering a general election or reporting on a corporate takeover, I cannot shed my Jewish identity in the way that I can cease to be a member of a political party or can dispose of shares in a company. To be clear, this is not a matter of religion. I have never been a practising Jew.
I have always been a proud secular Jew. What matters to Jews like me is that if we had lived in Germany, Austria or Poland during the second world war, we would have been sent to the gas chambers, whether or not we thought of ourselves as Jews. It is a matter of birth. And it matters that all my life I’ve encountered antisemitism, and also that antisemitism has become much more prevalent in recent years. There is an argument, I suppose, that because antisemitism is a personal issue for me, I should not report on it, that as someone who believes in the importance of impartial journalism I should always stand aside when a story about antisemitism and Labour needs to be covered.
Possibly that is what Seumas Milne, Jeremy Corbyn’s director of strategy and communications, believes. When I pointed out to him during the general election that Corbyn had refused to be interviewed by me – even though Johnson, Sturgeon and Swinson had each been interviewed by me twice – he said, and I quote from a text he sent, “your reporting on Labour has not been remotely fair or balanced and included a high degree of slanted editorialising, reaching a low point in your broadcast on the 10 on 26/11”. He was referring to a two-way I did on the unprecedented decision of the chief rabbi Ephraim Mirvis to write an editorial in the Times Newspaper in which he explicitly raised the question, on behalf of the orthodox part of the Jewish community, to question whether Corbyn was fit for high office, given Corbyn’s failure to root out antisemitism from Labour over the previous two and a bit years.
I reviewed that two-way. It was impartial, both in respect of Ofcom’s rules and as a matter of common sense. The point I made was how shocking it was that the leader of an important section of the Jewish community should feel obliged to speak out during a general election, and that he was moved to do so by the deep hurt and fear felt by many of his congregation.
This alienation of an important part of a British community could not be ignored, which is why I was surprised – to put it mildly – that Milne cited it when disqualifying me as a suitable interviewer of his boss. Would Milne or any of us have qualms about a woman journalist reporting on gender pay inequality or a gay journalist covering gay marriage in the church? I doubt it. In a way it is extraordinary any of this needs saying. But it may do in this era of identity politics trumping the politics of economic distribution.
I am not so naïve as to believe that impartial journalists like myself are free from bias. Deep in my psyche are prejudices I can’t see – even though I am especially privileged to have a partner who has an unusual ability to expose my capacity to confuse myth with fact. I was reminded of how really hideous prejudices can persist in institutions we think of as liberal when I read Cudlipp’s history of the Mirror, written in 1953: Cudlipp pointed out that the trust deeds of the Observer newspaper at that time stipulated that neither a Jew or a Catholic could be its editor.
My point is that if no individual journalist or media institution has a monopoly on truth, the only way to provide citizens with the truths they need to run their lives and make rational decisions about who should lead us is through the intermediation of a rich ecosystem of news organisations that are consciously diverse employers and which are very different each from the other.
Impartial news cannot depend for its survival on a single or small number of champions. There is an enormous amount of attention being paid – rightly – to the determination of Dominic Cummings to force through wholesale financial and cultural reform at the BBC. If this were to weaken the BBC, if this were to lead to it abandoning impartial journalism, that would be bad.
Image: Getty) Getty)
So I gulped slightly when the newish culture secretary Oliver Dowden yesterday put the BBC on warning to guard “its unique selling point of impartiality”, suggested it was too narrow and urban in its outlook and then said the government would be taking “a proper look at our public service broadcasting system and the BBC’s central role” to ascertain whether it reflects and is close to the British people. If this or any government is the arbiter of impartiality, we are in deep trouble.
All that said, for all the importance of the BBC, it is not the sole guarantor of a healthy news media capable of holding power to account. The BBC contributes to the ecosystem that holds power to account. But it is only part of it. And if you will indulge me for a second, I cannot resist sharing with you Ofcom’s findings that ITV is seen by viewers as more trustworthy than the BBC, and that on perceptions of impartiality the BBC is quite a long way behind Sky and CNN.
But then I thought yuck, because declining trust in any provider of impartial news, especially declining trust in the BBC, is bad for our collective mission. Those who supply it – ITV, the BBC, Channels 4 and 5, Sky – thrive or fail together. Even when competing, the taint of one can infect the others, the triumph of one can lift up all boats. Each of us needs competition from the others, to keep us honest, on our toes, striving for the truth, fastidious.
This is why Ofcom’s review of how to reinvigorate public service broadcasting in this new age of digital streaming is so important. It matters that all of us resolve there is a commercial interest in remaining as public service broadcasters. Because if we don’t, then we would no longer take on the licence condition of committing to provide impartial news. And that, in my view, would be deleterious to democracy.
If each or any of us decided to remodel ourselves as Netflix -style streaming services, freed from the obligation to provide impartial news, the providers of fake and toxic news would be the only winners. By the way, my clear understanding is that ITV wants to and will remain a public service broadcaster for years to come, even though providing national and regional news, and my show, isn’t cheap – unless that is Ofcom does something utterly barmy and refuses to compel makers of Smart TVs and the likes of Sky to make it incredibly easy to find and tune in to us and the other public service broadcasters. Due prominence is what we all want and I think merit, an ecosystem in which virtue in broadcasting counts for something against the bottomless purses of Netflix, Apple and Amazon. Here speaks the not very impartial journalist.
Finally I want to return to the issue of trust, a virtue that is becoming more and more defined by its absence from the public’s view of our important institutions, including journalists. I want to link this to the related imperative of holding this government – like any government – to account. First, it is not a party political point to wish that Labour would get its act together and behave as an effective opposition. But whoever wins the contest to lead Labour will have their work cut out. In a parliament where Johnson has an effective majority of 87 and has purged most dissenters from his own ranks, the opposition will struggle for some time to seem relevant.
I remember interviewing William Hague shortly after he become Tory leader, following Blair’s 1997 landslide victory, and thinking “nice bright chap, shame nothing he is saying will make a blind bit of difference to anything”. The point is that for Boris Johnson right now, only the media can effectively hold him and his administration to account. And this matters all the more because the plans of this government are radical and go to the heart of the way in which fundamental decisions are made about how this nation lives and breathes – including a significant institutional and constitutional reform programme going well beyond the inevitable changes that flow from Brexit. It is a very big deal how Cummings and Johnson want to remake Whitehall, change the law for the protection of human rights, reduce the power of the courts to over-rule the prime minister, alter the scope and role of the BBC – and suspend our precious civil liberties to combat this horrible virus.
My own current obsession is that our vitally important future trade and security relationship with the EU is being negotiated not by a Whitehall official accountable to the Whitehall hierarchy, or a minister who can be grilled at the Commons dispatch box, but by an unelected political adviser, David Frost. He is accountable only to the prime minister. Someone has to keep a close eye on all this, and who else if not the media? By the way, the internal contradictions in this government were captured by Frost himself when in a recent speech he prayed in aid the eighteenth century philosopher of cautious Conservatism Edmund Burke for the underlying justification of Brexit, but whose own job is the very definition of institutional upheaval that would be a Burkean anathema.
If the media’s role in shining a light on government is more important today than ever, then it was wholly predictable that one of the first actions of Cummings and his director of communications Lee Cain after the December election was to attempt to show that they – not lobby journalists – are in charge. They have done this by moving the twice-daily lobby briefings out of parliament, where journalists feel at home, to their own territory in Downing Street.
Image: Jonathan Hordle/REX) Jonathan Hordle/REX)
This is important symbolism. And they have also tried to ban some news organisations from important briefings. There has been a bit of public outrage about this – far more than I would have expected, given the relatively low esteem in which the media is held.
But let’s not be naïve about this, all prime ministers try to tame and control the news media, either through seduction or coercion. In Cudlipp’s time, when the Mirror was the best selling and therefore probably most powerful newspaper, Harold Wilson gave no fewer than six peerages to Mirror executives, including one to the great Hugh himself.
In James Margach’s compelling 1979 account of his relationship with 11 serving prime ministers, the Abuse of Power, the former Sunday Times political correspondent wrote that “prime ministers are men who may be in a job one day and out the next, and so, having pursued power and seized it, they proceed to use and abuse it in order to dominate the press in an apparently paranoid pursuance of survival”.
Image: Daily Mirror) Daily Mirror)
As I said, that was written in 1979. Cudlipp’s own history of the Mirror, “Publish and be damned!” recounts how Churchill and his war Cabinet tried to silence and even suppress the Mirror during the War, because the Mirror was an unusual and influential critic of his conduct of the struggle with Hitler. In fact Johnson seems to have at least one big thing in common with his hero Churchill: both earned big bucks writing for newspapers and then when in the highest office saw the media as the enemy.
I was first a political editor in the 1990s, in the years before and after Tony Blair ’s landslide victory in 1979. In the dying days of John Major’s administration, when he was subject to constant criticism and revolt from his own MPs, the press had a clear advantage in its war with Downing Street. Back then Lobby hacks were unashamedly collusive. Late afternoon every day, the political editors of what were then known as the “white” newspapers would go into a huddle to agree the latest attack line against Major. I was political editor of the pink ‘un, the FT, and sanctimoniously stood to one side. The press was a galloping herd that destroyed Major under its hooves. Which is why when Blair’s most devoted aide, Alistair Campbell, became Downing Street director of communications, he got his revenge in first – by explicitly treating most political journalists as the opposition, co-opting a small number of journalists he trusted as the recipients of useful insider briefings, and turning the daily scheduled briefing of the lobby into an exercise in ritual humiliation, of the hacks. I had a volatile relationship with him, which veered from him once giving me a scoop on something of genuine significance – Blair’s overt courting of Rupert Murdoch – to him shouting across the press gallery floor “you cunt Peston, still working for the Tories”.
Image: PA) PA)
So an important question is whether the continued existence of a cadre of political lobby journalists – endowed with privileges by parliament, living cheek by jowl with each other in a rook’s nest at the top of the Palace of Westminster – helps or hinders trust in the media, in this era of institutional mistrust. To be clear, there is no longer explicit collusion between hacks, and there is much less hole-and-corner secrecy. When I first became a lobby member in 1994, it was against the rules to even tell your girlfriend about the twice daily meetings with the prime minister’s spokesman, let alone discuss it in a public forum. And the room in which we interrogated the PM’s spokesman was also used by the lobby branch of the freemasons. It was an era where ministers divulged tidbits to their journalistic chums on the golf course. And where ministers, especially Tory ones, assumed that they could order a bottle of champagne on the FT’s account before I even arrived. None of this was healthy.
One of Campbell’s positive reforms was to end the veil of total secrecy around the daily lobby briefings. Whereas hitherto there had been no attribution of what we were told by the PM’s spokesman, and then for a brief few years attribution was to nebulous Downing Street sources, Campbell came up with the reportable phrase “the prime minister’s official spokesman says” – which is the formulation that is still deployed today. In theory, this puts the prime minister and government on the hook for whatever is conveyed in those lobby briefings. It is much harder than it was for an unscrupulous PM to deny what is said by his or her spokesman than was the case before the Campbell reform, but I wonder whether in this age of mistrust there is a need to go further – and livestream the briefings as they happen, to provide reassurance to the wider public that there aren’t insidious masonic practices extant?
There could be a paradoxical and insidious paradox of course about increasing the transparency of these lobby briefings. Which is that they could become devoid of materially interesting information, and become occasions for simply the transmission of diary schedules and the like. And this would deliver an incentive to ministers and officials to do more briefing of selected journalists offline and in secret, which could provide more rather than fewer opportunities for the government to fly kites and test out possible policies with impunity.
It is tricky and delicate setting the calibration in a relationship between media and government or power that forces government to take responsibility for its words and yet doesn’t turn off the taps of useful information. For any individual journalist there is never a dilemma about publishing what a powerful person has said about what the PM or government is planning to do, unless what is being said is palpable nonsense.
So I was surprised to find myself under attack, along with a small group of other journalists, a few months ago for publishing what Dominic Cummings had allegedly told us (I choose my words with care) about – as one example – how the PM hoped to get round the provisions of the Benn Act that made a no-deal Brexit at the end of October nigh on impossible. Peter Oborne accused me and a few others of being captured by Downing Street, in a long article for Open Democracy that attracted attention. The background is that I had published a series of tweets on this and related issues, such as the prorogation of parliament, that I attributed to a senior Downing Street source rather than to a named individual.
Now obviously under the normal convention, I can’t name that source, even today. But let’s conduct a thought experiment. Let’s contend that Dominic Cummings was the source and that he told me – for example – that the PM would rather break the law than sign a letter to Brussels asking for a Brexit delay, under the terms of the Benn Act, and that he would also send a side letter along with the main letter, which he hoped would render the Benn Act request null and void. Which I duly tweeted. You might say this was just a stunt – because in the event although the PM did everything I said he would, the EU ignored him, the issue never went to court (though some lawyers and MPs were nervous this would happen) and Brexit was delayed from the end of October to the end of January. The question is whether journalists should ignore stunts, or rather – as I believe – we should put such posturing into the appropriate context so that it can be properly understood and scrutinised. As a journalist, I always want to name those I am quoting. It is frustrating when I can’t. But the tag “Downing Street source” gives a big clue to whom I’ve been talking.
As an ex Chancellor said recently, it’s all clear from the comings and goings. And in the end the question is whether democratic debate is enhanced by knowing what Johnson and Cummings want to do, even when those ambitions are often more about shaping a campaigning narrative than about the ostensible target. I was completely explicit when broadcasting, blogging and tweeting that stunts like the PM not signing the Brexit-delay request were all about how an Old Etonian Balliol man, advised by the son of a landed squire, wanted to get Brexit done “for the people” in the teeth of sabotage by metropolitan, privileged internationalists who wanted to stop Brexit. Johnson as hero of the northern working class may be as counter intuitive as Trump draining the swamp. But my goodness it worked. And just because the message was not properly understood and counter-acted by Johnson’s opponents is no real reason to shoot the messenger. Or at least that is what I beseech.
It is really not that long ago, within my working life, that prime ministers and governors of the Bank of England shared secrets with newspaper editors and proprietors for the express purpose of making it harder for those secrets to enter the public domain. Because once those editors and proprietors were sworn never to reveal those secrets, their hands were in the blood. In the 90s and noughties, I attended many of these cover up lunches. We all felt special that we knew important stuff the rest of the country did not. But we were betraying our readers and knowingly colluding with the powerful. As far as I am aware, that kind of establishment “pas-devant-les-enfants” stitch up happens only rarely now.
So here is the painful paradox. In the era of Cudlipp’s and the Mirror’s pomp, when media owners and prime ministers colluded in cover ups, public respect for the institutions that underpin our freedoms and way of life was strong. Unless we abandon democracy and adopt Chinese-style controls on what can be said on social media – and I am not suggesting that – we need news organisations whose primary function is to shine the brightest light on big government and big business, such that the rogues who are always drawn to power cannot misbehave with impunity. Impartial broadcasters, as much as a robust press, are not so much the plumbing as the sewers of a healthy democracy. I say that in praise of sewers. Because just imagine a United Kingdom in which all those “S H one T’s” who rise to the top aren’t eventually flushed away. There is a dignity to working in these sewers. It’s what keeps me going. Thank you.
* The Cudlipp Student Journalist Award 2020 was won by Tara O'Reilly for her report on sexual misconduct at Westminster which was published in Elle magazine. The judges said her report had “depth and structure, with personal experience, good observation plus several interviews. It’s a real piece of journalism.”
Also awarded were Richard Assheton who won the Richard Lindley Award for his report in The Times about detention centres in India.
Highly commended were Rohini Jaswal and Sam Doak.
*The Hugh Cudlipp lecture and student awards was presented by the London Press Club, hosted at City University and sponsored by the Daily Mirror and Cision.


thedailymirror--2020-03-08--7 talking points from rugby league weekend as Wigan open up two-point gap at top

Wigan opened up a two-point gap at the top of Super League with victory over Hull KR .
There were three tight finishes in the jostle for places as Toronto remain rooted to the foot of the table following a heavy defeat at Leeds .
Huddersfield sprung the shock of the round by edging out Saints at Langtree Park while Hull needed golden point to see off Wakefield at Belle Vue .
Warrington got back to winning ways in dramatic fashion against Castleford and Catalans got the better of struggling Salford in the south of France .
Our man Nigel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ action , runs the rule over Shaun Wane ’ s first England squad and reaches for the sick bucket .
When Adrian Lam signed Bevan French his first thoughts nailed why the Australian full-back is lighting up Super League this season .
Wigan coach Lam said : “ Bevan is an entertainer .
He will get people up from their seat.
” French was at it again against Hull KR with a game highlight electric break from inside his own 20 to set up Jackson Hastings for a try in Wigan ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ side to score three tries against the Warriors this season but were already without seven first-team players and lost three more through injury .
They play Leigh Centurions next Sunday in the Challenge Cup , hardly a reprieve from the rigours of Super League .
There were four potential England half-backs on show in Warrington ’ s nail-biting 9-8 win over Castleford .
On the evidence shown you wouldn ’ t have the greatest confidence in any of them against the Kangaroos later this year .
Danny Richardson and Jake Trueman were playing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the go-forward of prop Liam Watts .
Trueman was largely anonymous with Richardson blowing a couple of late drop goal chances that could have won the game .
Gareth Widdop looked skittish for the Wolves and his infant partnership with Blake Austin is still a work in progress .
Austin , sporting a dazzling blond barnet , looked the liveliest and did come up with the winning one-pointer .
But If you had to choose one player on the park who might be the classiest and most likely to change the game , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and he ’ s been moved to full-back .
After the shockingly one-sided Thursday game you ’ d have had long odds on the three Friday night matches having a winning margin of just four points between them .
Marc Sneyd copied Austin ’ s lead and showed how to definitively close out a game , much to the relief of under pressure coach Lee Bradford , in Hull ’ s 27-26 golden point win over Wakefield .
Sneyd ’ s weekend was capped when he and wife Sabrina celebrated the birth of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ came from behind to down champions St Helens 12-10 in the performance of the round .
We ’ ve not seen much of the Giants on TV , in fact we haven ’ t seen anything .
Sky ’ s game planners have been blindsided as much as pundits and not shown them yet .
They make their bow on Thursday , March 19 at home to Hull FC .
Konrad Hurrell came to Super League with a big reputation as a player and an even bigger frame The Leeds Rhinos centre has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
When he rampaged through a demoralised Toronto defence for the final try in the dying stages of Thursday ’ s 66-12 hammering , nothing was going to stop him .
After the match there ’ s footage of him high-fiving young fans as he circuits the pitch then later , black suit on , merrily dancing with a bunch of young women .
Some fans are saying they ’ ve never seen a player so happy to pull on the club ’ s shirt and one so happy to interact so well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reason for Leeds fans to have a smile on their face right now .
The 1978 Great Britain team which faced the Kangaroos were labelled ‘ Dad ’ s Army ’ thanks largely to an ageing front row .
There ’ s a definite air of Captain Mainwaring about England coach Shaun Wane if his early candidates for an Ashes jersey are anything to go by .
Make no mistake , Wane hasn ’ t even got one eye on next year ’ s World Cup .
This is a blinkered assault on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ series starting in October .
There are 19 of his 31-name squad who will be 30 or over when the tournament kicks off at St James ’ s Park in 2021 .
Some names baffle - Tom Burgess , Chris Hill , Dan Sarginson .
The absence of others - Jackson Hastings , foremost - is equally perplexing .
If Wane had coached Hastings when he was at Wigan , you suspect he would be in .
It ’ s short term thinking , something nobody will quibble about if Australia are beaten @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Dad ’ s Army to go in front of a firing squad if we lose .
Viewers of a sensitive disposition would have been sensible turning away during the latest episode of Rugby AM .
We were treated to the sight of Huddersfield ’ s likeable teenage prop Oliver Wilson throwing up after an England Knights training session .
If that wasn ’ t enough puke , studio guest Paul Sculthorpe revealed former teammate Keiron Cunningham would always chuck up before a game .
Many St Helens fans felt the same way @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he was coach .
Sculthorpe was good value on a show which has come on leaps and bounds and contained several nuggets .
Sculthorpe ’ s comment saying Shaun Wane was “ up to date with our players in our game ” is as near to a dig at predecessor Wayne Bennett as you ’ ll get .
Former St Helens and Melbourne Storm prop Keith Mason was a larger than life figure when he played the game .
A mad night out with Hollywood hellraiser Mickey Rourke in Stringfellows sticks in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the boundaries for the sport with his ground-breaking comic Rugby Blood .
The second instalment of the graphic novel series is due out next month and will include a host of top NRL stars including Kalyn Ponga and Joseph Addo-Carr .
Also in there will be Mason ’ s mate , boxer Joe Calzaghe , plus potentially league-loving and PDRL-playing comedian Adam Hills .
Mason , who has been open about his own mental health problems after retiring , is also in talks over a documentary speaking to high profile sports stars about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Calzaghe among the first to agree to take part .
Last week he launched a new playing kit for the Rugby Blood series , with Super League stars Liam Watts , Jermaine McGillvary and Zak Hardaker modelling the O ’ Neill ’ s shirts .
Mason never stood still on the field and certainly isn ’ t doing post career .

Wigan got the better of Hull KR in a hard-fought clash on Sunday while there were a trio of thrillers on Friday night on another pulsating weekend of action
7 talking points from rugby league weekend as Wigan open up two-point gap at top
Wigan opened up a two-point gap at the top of Super League with victory over Hull KR.
There were three tight finishes in the jostle for places as Toronto remain rooted to the foot of the table following a heavy defeat at Leeds.
Huddersfield sprung the shock of the round by edging out Saints at Langtree Park while Hull needed golden point to see off Wakefield at Belle Vue.
Warrington got back to winning ways in dramatic fashion against Castleford and Catalans got the better of struggling Salford in the south of France.
Our man Nigel Wiskar takes his regular look at the action, runs the rule over Shaun Wane’s first England squad and reaches for the sick bucket.
1. Bevan’s the game breaker
Image: PA) PA)
When Adrian Lam signed Bevan French his first thoughts nailed why the Australian full-back is lighting up Super League this season.
Wigan coach Lam said: “Bevan is an entertainer. He will get people up from their seat.”
French was at it again against Hull KR with a game highlight electric break from inside his own 20 to set up Jackson Hastings for a try in Wigan’s 30-16 win.
Rovers were the first side to score three tries against the Warriors this season but were already without seven first-team players and lost three more through injury.
They play Leigh Centurions next Sunday in the Challenge Cup, hardly a reprieve from the rigours of Super League.
2. Austin powers Wolves home
Image: Action Images) Action Images)
There were four potential England half-backs on show in Warrington’s nail-biting 9-8 win over Castleford.
On the evidence shown you wouldn’t have the greatest confidence in any of them against the Kangaroos later this year.
Danny Richardson and Jake Trueman were playing behind a Tigers pack that desperately missed the go-forward of prop Liam Watts.
Trueman was largely anonymous with Richardson blowing a couple of late drop goal chances that could have won the game.
Gareth Widdop looked skittish for the Wolves and his infant partnership with Blake Austin is still a work in progress.
Austin, sporting a dazzling blond barnet, looked the liveliest and did come up with the winning one-pointer.
But If you had to choose one player on the park who might be the classiest and most likely to change the game, it would have been Stefan Ratchford - and he’s been moved to full-back.
3. Giant strides for Huddersfield
Image: PA) PA)
After the shockingly one-sided Thursday game you’d have had long odds on the three Friday night matches having a winning margin of just four points between them.
Marc Sneyd copied Austin’s lead and showed how to definitively close out a game, much to the relief of under pressure coach Lee Bradford, in Hull’s 27-26 golden point win over Wakefield.
Sneyd’s weekend was capped when he and wife Sabrina celebrated the birth of daughter Phoenix Eve on Sunday.
Huddersfield came from behind to down champions St Helens 12-10 in the performance of the round.
We’ve not seen much of the Giants on TV, in fact we haven’t seen anything. Sky’s game planners have been blindsided as much as pundits and not shown them yet.
They make their bow on Thursday, March 19 at home to Hull FC.
4. Konrad king of Headingley
Image: Getty Images) Getty Images)
Konrad Hurrell came to Super League with a big reputation as a player and an even bigger frame
The Leeds Rhinos centre has at times lived up to the hype.
When he rampaged through a demoralised Toronto defence for the final try in the dying stages of Thursday’s 66-12 hammering, nothing was going to stop him.
After the match there’s footage of him high-fiving young fans as he circuits the pitch then later, black suit on, merrily dancing with a bunch of young women.
Some fans are saying they’ve never seen a player so happy to pull on the club’s shirt and one so happy to interact so well with kids.
It’s another reason for Leeds fans to have a smile on their face right now.
5. Wane picks his Dad’s Army
Image: PA) PA)
The 1978 Great Britain team which faced the Kangaroos were labelled ‘Dad’s Army’ thanks largely to an ageing front row.
There’s a definite air of Captain Mainwaring about England coach Shaun Wane if his early candidates for an Ashes jersey are anything to go by.
Make no mistake, Wane hasn’t even got one eye on next year’s World Cup. This is a blinkered assault on beating the Aussies in the three Test series starting in October.
There are 19 of his 31-name squad who will be 30 or over when the tournament kicks off at St James’s Park in 2021.
Some names baffle - Tom Burgess, Chris Hill, Dan Sarginson. The absence of others - Jackson Hastings, foremost - is equally perplexing.
If Wane had coached Hastings when he was at Wigan, you suspect he would be in.
It’s short term thinking, something nobody will quibble about if Australia are beaten.
But there will be calls for the Dad’s Army to go in front of a firing squad if we lose.
6. Oliver’s thunder pressure
Image: PA) PA)
Viewers of a sensitive disposition would have been sensible turning away during the latest episode of Rugby AM.
We were treated to the sight of Huddersfield’s likeable teenage prop Oliver Wilson throwing up after an England Knights training session.
If that wasn’t enough puke, studio guest Paul Sculthorpe revealed former teammate Keiron Cunningham would always chuck up before a game.
Many St Helens fans felt the same way watching Cunningham’s team play when he was coach.
Sculthorpe was good value on a show which has come on leaps and bounds and contained several nuggets.
Sculthorpe’s comment saying Shaun Wane was “up to date with our players in our game” is as near to a dig at predecessor Wayne Bennett as you’ll get.
7. Comic book Keith
Image: PA) PA)
Former St Helens and Melbourne Storm prop Keith Mason was a larger than life figure when he played the game.
A mad night out with Hollywood hellraiser Mickey Rourke in Stringfellows sticks in the mind.
Nowadays he continues to push the boundaries for the sport with his ground-breaking comic Rugby Blood.
The second instalment of the graphic novel series is due out next month and will include a host of top NRL stars including Kalyn Ponga and Joseph Addo-Carr.
Also in there will be Mason’s mate, boxer Joe Calzaghe, plus potentially league-loving and PDRL-playing comedian Adam Hills.
Mason, who has been open about his own mental health problems after retiring, is also in talks over a documentary speaking to high profile sports stars about the issue, with John Hartson and Calzaghe among the first to agree to take part.
Last week he launched a new playing kit for the Rugby Blood series, with Super League stars Liam Watts, Jermaine McGillvary and Zak Hardaker modelling the O’Neill’s shirts.
Mason never stood still on the field and certainly isn’t doing post career.


thedailymirror--2020-03-09--Classic Doctor Who episodes on BritBox spark race row due to 'yellowface' and racial slurs

BBC and ITV streaming service BritBox has sparked a race row with its classic episodes of sci-fi favourite Doctor Who .
The streaming service has already rejected a number of shows from its library due to its content failing to suit a diverse modern audience .
Shows that do n't appear on BritBox include BBC 1965 show Death Us Do Part , which featured scenes of bigotry , and 1970s sitcom Love Thy Neighbour , which featured a black West Indian couple living next door to a white English couple .
However , the entire available back catalogue of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the service , despite concerns regarding the racist content in the 1977 serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang .
The episode , which stars Tom Baker as The Fourth Doctor and Louise Jameson as companion Leela , features a white actor portraying an Asian character , with British thespian John Bennett playing villain Li H'sen Chang , and also sees the use of the slur word `` ch**k '' .
Emma Ko , a screenwriter spokeswoman for the British East Asians in Theatre & on Screen , told The Times about the impact the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : `` It is really hard to watch because yellowface is so unacceptable now . ''
She added : `` When you are somebody who was called a `` ch**k '' in your childhood , as I have been , it is so hard to hear that word and not feel immediately a trigger reaction of how wrong it is . ''
The episode now displays a content warning for each episode , while other potentially offensive scenes in classic sitcoms such as Fawlty Towers and Only Fools and Horses also contain a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the time and upsetting scenes . ''
According to Mail Online , BritBox has said they are reviewing content consistently to `` re-comply everything that goes on to BritBox with modern TV viewing standards . ''
Meanwhile , the latest season of Doctor Who saw the show break boundaries with a whole new milestone which saw the first black female Doctor revealed in the form of Jo Martin .
The sci-fi series will return for a festive special to welcome in 2021 , entitled Revolution of the Daleks , which follows on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Doctor is the source of the Time Lords ' ability to regenerate .
Meanwhile , Doctor Who companion Bradley Walsh is set to bow out in the special in a major TARDIS shake-up .
BritBox is available for £5.99 a month .
What do you think of the debate ?
Let us know in the comments below .

BBC and ITV streaming service BritBox has boasted the entire classic run of long-running sci-fi series Doctor Who - but some episodes have not aged well
Classic Doctor Who episodes on BritBox spark race row due to 'yellowface' and racial slurs
BBC and ITV streaming service BritBox has sparked a race row with its classic episodes of sci-fi favourite Doctor Who.
The streaming service has already rejected a number of shows from its library due to its content failing to suit a diverse modern audience.
Shows that don't appear on BritBox include BBC 1965 show Death Us Do Part, which featured scenes of bigotry, and 1970s sitcom Love Thy Neighbour, which featured a black West Indian couple living next door to a white English couple.
However, the entire available back catalogue of the classic run of Doctor Who remains on the service, despite concerns regarding the racist content in the 1977 serial The Talons of Weng-Chiang.
Image: BBC) BBC)
The episode, which stars Tom Baker as The Fourth Doctor and Louise Jameson as companion Leela, features a white actor portraying an Asian character, with British thespian John Bennett playing villain Li H'sen Chang, and also sees the use of the slur word "ch**k".
Emma Ko, a screenwriter spokeswoman for the British East Asians in Theatre & on Screen, told The Times about the impact the episode had on her.
Ko said: "It is really hard to watch because yellowface is so unacceptable now."
Image: BBC) BBC)
Image: Mirrorpix via Getty Images) Mirrorpix via Getty Images)
She added: "When you are somebody who was called a "ch**k" in your childhood, as I have been, it is so hard to hear that word and not feel immediately a trigger reaction of how wrong it is."
The episode now displays a content warning for each episode, while other potentially offensive scenes in classic sitcoms such as Fawlty Towers and Only Fools and Horses also contain a warning, noting "some offensive language of the time and upsetting scenes."
According to Mail Online , BritBox has said they are reviewing content consistently to "re-comply everything that goes on to BritBox with modern TV viewing standards."
Meanwhile, the latest season of Doctor Who saw the show break boundaries with a whole new milestone which saw the first black female Doctor revealed in the form of Jo Martin.
The sci-fi series will return for a festive special to welcome in 2021, entitled Revolution of the Daleks, which follows on from the season 12 finale that revealed the Doctor is the source of the Time Lords' ability to regenerate.
Meanwhile, Doctor Who companion Bradley Walsh is set to bow out in the special in a major TARDIS shake-up.
BritBox is available for £5.99 a month.
What do you think of the debate? Let us know in the comments below.


thedailymirror--2020-03-09--Coronavirus: More than 100 Brits to start leaving Grand Princess cruise ship today

More than 100 Britons trapped on a coronavirus-hit cruise ship off the coast of California will be allowed to leave the vessel .
Passengers will disembark the Grand Princess from Monday - a process the liner 's operator said will take a number of days .
Britons who are stuck onboard have described feeling tired and `` fed up '' , and they have complained about a lack of information , having been confined to their cabins since Thursday The Princess Cruises-owned ship , which is carrying 21 people who have tested positive for Covid-19 , will dock in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for days .
Are you onboard the ship ?
Email webnews @ mirror.co.uk .
A spokeswoman for Princess Cruises said : `` Disembarkation will commence in order of priority , as defined and directed by both state and local authorities .
It is expected to be a multiple-day process . ''
There are 142 British nationals on board - both guests and crew members .
The crew will remain on board the ship as it departs from San Francisco Bay once all guests are off , a spokeswoman added .
`` Plans for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , '' she said .
Passengers will be tested for the virus once they arrive at their onward destination , the spokeswoman added .
The Government said it has been in contact with all Britons on the ship and is `` working intensively '' to arrange a repatriation flight .
A spokesman said : `` We are working intensively with the US authorities on arrangements for a flight for British nationals who are currently on the Grand Princess cruise ship off the coast of California .
`` We are in contact with all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as well as local authorities and staff on board the ship . ''
Neil and Victoria Hanlon , from Bridgwater in Somerset , said they are eager to get home .
Speaking before news of the planned disembarkation was announced , Mr Hanlon said he felt `` gutted '' that they might have to stay on the ship for another few days .
He told BBC Breakfast : `` ( We 're feeling ) very suppressed , very tired , fed up .
Just want to get home . ''
Mr Hanlon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Mrs Hanlon added : `` We just want to get back to Britain , really . ''
Justine Griffin , from Coventry but living in Leicestershire , is travelling with her husband Dave and friends , and renewed her wedding vows on board the ship to mark her 25th wedding anniversary .
She previously said she feared they would be `` at the bottom of the list '' to get off the vessel .
The couple have not been tested for the coronavirus but believe they will have to enter quarantine in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ when they return home .
The Grand Princess has been in a holding pattern about 25 miles off the coast of San Francisco .
Princess Cruises also owns the Diamond Princess , which was placed into quarantine in Japan last month .
More than 700 people on that vessel tested positive for the flu-like illness , including a British man who later died .
Passengers David and Sally Abel , from Northamptonshire , remain in hospital in Japan after being diagnosed with Covid-19 .

More than 100 Brits have been stranded on the Grand Princess cruise ship off the coast of California, including a couple who renewed their wedding vows, with food supplies starting to run out
More than 100 Britons trapped on a coronavirus-hit cruise ship off the coast of California will soon be allowed to leave the vessel.
Passengers will disembark the Grand Princess from Monday - a process the liner's operator said will take a number of days.
Britons who are stuck on board have described feeling tired and "fed up", and they have complained about a lack of information, having been confined to their cabins since Thursday
The Princess Cruises-owned ship, which is carrying 21 people who have tested positive for Covid-19, will dock in the port of Oakland after idling at sea for days.
Are you on board the ship? Email webnews@mirror.co.uk.
Image: PA) PA)
A spokeswoman for Princess Cruises said: "Disembarkation will commence in order of priority, as defined and directed by both state and local authorities. It is expected to be a multiple-day process."
There are 142 British nationals on the vessel - both guests and crew members, including several dancers who feature in on board entertainment.
The crew will remain on the ship as it departs from San Francisco Bay once all guests are off, a spokeswoman added.
"Plans for a crew quarantine are still being determined," she said.
Video Loading Video Unavailable Click to play Tap to play The video will auto-play soon 8 Cancel Play now
Image: AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images)
Passengers will be tested for the virus once they arrive at their onward destination, the spokeswoman added.
The Government said it has been in contact with all Britons on the ship and is "working intensively" to arrange a repatriation flight.
A spokesman said: "We are working intensively with the US authorities on arrangements for a flight for British nationals who are currently on the Grand Princess cruise ship off the coast of California.
"We are in contact with all British nationals on board to offer assistance, as well as local authorities and staff on board the ship."
Neil and Victoria Hanlon, from Bridgwater in Somerset, said they are eager to get home.
Speaking before news of the planned disembarkation was announced, Mr Hanlon said he felt "gutted" that they might have to stay on the ship for another few days.
He told BBC Breakfast: "(We're feeling) very suppressed, very tired, fed up. Just want to get home."
Mr Hanlon said food is now being limited, and Mrs Hanlon added: "We just want to get back to Britain, really."
Image: Sky News) Sky News) Image: AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images)
Justine Griffin, from Coventry but living in Leicestershire, is travelling with her husband Dave and friends, and renewed her wedding vows on board the ship to mark her 25th wedding anniversary.
She previously said she feared they would be "at the bottom of the list" to get off the vessel.
The couple have not been tested for the coronavirus but believe they will have to enter quarantine in the UK for a further two weeks when they return home.
The Grand Princess has been in a holding pattern about 25 miles off the coast of San Francisco.
Princess Cruises also owns the Diamond Princess, which was placed into quarantine in Japan last month.
More than 700 people on that vessel tested positive for the flu-like illness, including a British man who later died.
Passengers David and Sally Abel, from Northamptonshire, remain in hospital in Japan after being diagnosed with Covid-19.