{"id":5732,"date":"2026-03-06T12:23:24","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T12:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/?p=5732"},"modified":"2026-03-20T11:50:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T11:50:29","slug":"media-freedom-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/?p=5732","title":{"rendered":"UK Media Freedom"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t<div data-elementor-type=\"wp-post\" data-elementor-id=\"5732\" class=\"elementor elementor-5732\" data-elementor-post-type=\"post\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-4365e1a e-flex e-con-boxed e-con e-parent\" data-id=\"4365e1a\" data-element_type=\"container\" data-e-type=\"container\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"e-con-inner\">\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-9d053f9 elementor-widget elementor-widget-text-editor\" data-id=\"9d053f9\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-widget_type=\"text-editor.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p><span style=\"font-weight: bolder;\">John Whittingdale Conservative, Maldon<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The Chief Secretary to the&nbsp;Prime Minister&nbsp;may be aware that at the end of this week the UK takes on the chair of the global Media Freedom Coalition\u2014a partnership of 51 countries pledged to protect journalists and the freedom of the press. How could the UK have any credibility in that role, given the revelations of the behaviour of a member of this Government, which are more akin to that of the worst authoritarian states?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Darren Jones Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I think that the right hon. Member talks down the country. The UK is rightly proud of the freedom of the press and its role in our democracy, and I know that both his party and mine support those principles. He has referred to allegations being made, and that is why an independent process is looking at the veracity of those allegations and any denial that is put. As soon as its advice has been made available, it will be put to the Prime Minister to make a call on it.<\/p><p><span style=\"font-weight: bolder;\">To watch the full clip of Sir John\u2019s speech please click on the video link below:<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-element elementor-element-0a10f16 elementor-widget elementor-widget-video\" data-id=\"0a10f16\" data-element_type=\"widget\" data-e-type=\"widget\" data-settings=\"{&quot;youtube_url&quot;:&quot;https:\\\/\\\/www.youtube.com\\\/watch?v=W34W2cuVUEk&amp;list=PLyhgo3LGCnG0PkmF93IknAQrONUW_J-vn&amp;index=56&quot;,&quot;video_type&quot;:&quot;youtube&quot;,&quot;controls&quot;:&quot;yes&quot;}\" data-widget_type=\"video.default\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-wrapper elementor-open-inline\">\n\t\t\t<div class=\"elementor-video\"><\/div>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Parliamentary Question challenging the Chief Secretary about media freedom, and the UK&#8217;s upcoming role as chair of the global Media Freedom Coalition, in light of allegations against Labour Together. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4704,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speeches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5732"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5888,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5732\/revisions\/5888"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4704"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}