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Letter from the Editor of The Guardian
to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards
Many thanks for your letter of 30 January,
together with its enclosures from Mr Hamilton. I would very much
like to take you up on your offer of coming to give oral evidence
next Monday.
Since this is likely to be our only opportunity
to address you, it is probably helpful if I am accompanied by
all the main players, so that we can be as thorough as possible
in our evidence. Accordingly I should like to bring with me Peter
Preston, my predecessor; Geoffrey Robertson and Geraldine Proudler,
the two lawyers with the most comprehensive knowledge of the
case; and David Leigh and David Hencke, the two reporters with
the best grasp of the case.
While I am writing I thought I would enclose
for your information a letter which I sent to the Sunday Telegraph,
which they chose not to publish. I also enclose a copy of Mr Hamilton's
latest newsletter, together with the reply that the Wilmslow
Express has printed in its current edition:[18]
I think all this material goes to the issue of Mr Hamilton's
regard for the truth. I can confirm that the editor of the Wilmslow
Express, Michael Quilley, is entirely right to say that there
has never been any pressure on the Wilmslow Express regarding
anything to do with Mr Hamilton (the same is incidentally true
of the Manchester Evening News). For Mr Hamilton to produce
a special edition of the Conservative newsletter and to distribute
it to every constituent in Tatton, smearing local journalists
as part of a left-wing campaign alleging that they had been coerced
by the Guardian, is not only libellous in the extreme,
but plain fantasy.
Do let me know if I can supply you with any
further information before we meet. I look forward to seeing
you on the 10th.
Alan Rusbridger
3 February 1997
18 Not printed. Back
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