Privacy and Injunctions - Evidence - Parliament

Max Mosley, Steve Coogan, Zac Goldsmith MP and Hugh Grant—Oral evidence (QQ 697–
753)
were younger and a bit more desperate to get into the media? Is there a difference in where
you are in the cycle?
Hugh Grant: I understand what you are saying, but I still think it does not make any
difference. Four Weddings and a Funeral made me successful in a flash, not because of
anything in The Sun or Daily Mirror but because people really liked the film.
Q719 Nadhim Zahawi: But before Four Weddings and a Funeral, you would have
reacted differently to press requests, would you not?
Steve Coogan: He would not have got any press requests.
Hugh Grant: I did not really get anyway.
Steve Coogan: You do not get them until you have become successful.
Hugh Grant: There are some desperate folk who will chase the press a bit without
having any work to hang it on. It has never has worked, nor will it ever. Well, there is
Jordan. We can have a separate conversation about Jordan, but for most people all that
matters is the work. The Sun or News of the World will say, “We made Hugh Grant, so how
can he complain now?” but did they make me or make Four Weddings in Venezuela, Japan,
America or Germany? The hubris is astonishing, almost demented.
Steve Coogan: I agree.
Q720 Nadhim Zahawi: My next question is for the whole panel. How
hypocritical do you think someone has to be before it is in the public interest to expose
them?
Zac Goldsmith: I think it depends on the profession and person. If you have a
position of authority, like an MP, or newspaper editor or owner—anyone in a position to
have a real impact—you have to accept that the bar is higher. That does not mean carte
blanche and the press have an absolute right to delve into every aspect of your life, your
children’s lives and the life of your partner or wife and so on; but it means you have to
expect to be scrutinised very closely and regularly to ensure you are not engaging in
hypocrisy, fraud or abusing your position of power. For example, if an MP were to campaign
on a ticket that was incredibly homophobic and it then emerged that that MP was gay, the
newspapers would have an absolute right to rip that person to pieces. I think it would not
be enough; they should be barred from office, but I do not believe those kinds of exposés
should happen unless there is an element of hypocrisy. It very much depends on who you
are, what you are doing and what position you occupy in society.
Max Mosley: The basic reasoning is that, if you are allowing the public to do
something to its detriment by concealing something, or if they are voting for you or buying
your product and they would not do so if they knew what you were trying to conceal, it
should be exposed, but if it is merely something that titillates or interests, in my view it
should not be exposed.
To go back to the earlier question about whether there should be editors on the
Press Complaints Commission, if one divides the whole concept of the Press Complaints
Commission into two parts, the one that makes the rules and the other that enforces them,
there is no objection to an editor being on the part that makes the rules, but the part that
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