British prime minister David Cameron has expressed full confidence in culture secretary John Whittingdale after it emerged that four newspapers knew he had been having a relationship with a sex worker but declined to publish the story.
Labour called on Mr Whittingdale to withdraw from his role in regulating the press because he might be perceived as being compromised and privacy campaigners suggested the newspapers' reticence was rooted in a desire to maintain leverage over the culture secretary.
Mr Whittingdale, who is divorced and single, confirmed on Tuesday night that, more than a year before he took up his current post, he began a six-month relationship with a woman who he subsequently discovered was working as a professional dominatrix in a studio in southwest London.
"Between August 2013 and February 2014, I had a relationship with someone who I first met through Match. com. She was a similar age and lived close to me. At no time did she give me any indication of her real occupation and I only discovered this when I was made aware that someone was trying to sell a story about me to tabloid newspapers. As soon as I discovered, I ended the relationship," he told BBC's Newsnight.
‘Old story’
“This is an old story which was a bit embarrassing at the time. The events occurred long before I took up my present position and it has never had any influence on the decisions I have made as culture secretary.”
Mr Whittingdale's disclosure followed a report in Private Eye that four newspapers had investigated the story but each in turn decided not to publish it. Some of the same newspapers have campaigned vigorously in recent days against a super-injunction which prevents them from naming a married celebrity who took part in a threesome some years ago.
The culture secretary is responsible for press regulation and the implementation of the Leveson Inquiry, which investigated phone hacking by British newspapers.
He has delayed the start of the second stage of the inquiry, which is due to look into links between journalists and the police. He has also declined to implement one of the inquiry’s recommendations, which would oblige newspapers to pay the full costs of libel actions, even if they won them, if they had failed to pursue more low-cost options for resolving them.
Shadow culture secretary Angela Eagle said the newspapers' knowledge of his relationship with the sex worker, which he did not disclose to the prime minister on his appointment as culture secretary, left Mr Whittingdale vulnerable to pressure.
“What we can’t have is a secretary of state who there’s a potential perception that he’s being influenced, overly influenced, by stories that the media may have on him and whether or not they should be printed. He needs to step back from these decisions,” she said.
Future use
The anti-privacy group Hacked Off claimed the newspapers had “stocked up” the story for future use and as a way of putting pressure on the culture secretary at some time in the future. But
Bob Satchwell
, executive director of the Society of Editors, dismissed as a “preposterous conspiracy theory too far” the idea that the newspapers had made a joint decision not to run the story.
“The idea that the newspapers and broadcasters could all get together and say ‘we are not running the story’ is just silly. This story seems to be more about the dangers of using dating websites. In effect a single man embarrassingly ended a relationship with a single woman after he discovered she was not all she appeared to be,” he said.
“Since the Leveson report and the establishment of a new and tougher press regulator, papers have become extremely careful about stories involving anyone in public life.”
