Downing Street Says » Prime Minister

Asked if he would agree that the Prime Minister was creating his own ‘spin-cycle’ following his interview with the Independent today in which he had said he wouldn’t stand down and his indication to Guardian journalists recently that he would stand down if he became an electoral liability, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had answered questions about this matter in his constituency this morning. What he had said was what he believed – that the speculation was complete froth. Local people had told him that they wanted to see him getting on with the job. That was precisely what he was doing.

Asked if the Prime Minister believed that there should be changes in personnel at the Daily Mirror, the PMOS said that that was entirely a matter for the newspaper concerned and its proprietors. Asked if the issue would be referred to the PCC, the PMOS said that he was not aware of any such proposal.

Asked if Adam Ingram had been referring to serving soldiers or Mirror staff when talking about the possibility of criminal proceedings yesterday, the PMOS said he had no intention of commenting on the ongoing investigation and what its conclusions might be. It was a matter for the SIB. Put to him that the Government could release the evidence it had that the pictures were not genuine without prejudicing any trial because courts martial did not have a jury, the PMOS said that, without pre-empting the conclusions of the investigation, he would point out that despite the fact that no jury trials had worked under Diplock courts in Northern Ireland, for example, no evidence was ever produced in public there either for very good evidential reasons. Asked if that explained why the lorry in the pictures would not be produced for the media today, the PMOS said that as he had told journalists yesterday morning, the needs of the inquiry and the constraints of possible legal proceedings had to take precedence over everything else, despite our desire for clarity. Asked if the Mirror would be shown the evidence if it put in such a request, the PMOS said that any judgement would have to be made against the criteria he had already set out.

Asked if the investigation had been completed yet, the PMOS said no. As Adam Ingram had told the Commons yesterday, the inquiry was still ongoing. Questioned as to when it might conclude, the PMOS said that obviously we would want to it be completed as quickly as possible so that we could provide clarity. However, we had to respect the investigative process, just like everyone else. It would take as long as it takes.

No Comments »

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Post a public comment

Name (required)
E-mail (required)
(You must give an email address, but it will not be displayed to the public.)
Website
(You may give your website, and it will be displayed to the public.)

Comments:

This is not a way of contacting the Prime Minister. If you would like to contact the Prime Minister, go to the 10 Downing Street official site.

Privacy note: Shortly after posting, your name and comment will be displayed on the site. This means that people searching for your name on the Internet will be able to find and read your comment.

Original PMOS briefings are © Crown Copyright. Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of HMSO and the Queen's Printer for Scotland. Click-use licence number C02W0004089. Material is reproduced from the original 10 Downing Street source, but may not be the most up-to-date version of the briefings, which might be revised at the original source. Users should check with the original source in case of revisions. Comments are © Copyright contributors. Everything else is © Copyright Downing Street Says.

» Friday, May 14, 2004

Prime Minister

No Comments »

Post a public comment

Search

Supported by

Recent Briefings

Archives

Links

Syndicate (RSS/XML)

Credits

Enquiries