While Douglas Hurd, when Foreign Secretary, met Salman Rushdie behind tightly closed doors, the novelist yesterday sat next to Robin Cook as the minister pledged to put pressure on Iran to withdraw the death sentence on him. The meeting came nine years after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued the fatwa against Mr Rushdie over his book The Satanic Verses.Following the signal from the Prime Minister, who welcomed Mr Rushdie to dinner at Chequers on Saturday, the anniversary of the fatwa, Mr Cook made clear his personal sense of outrage and his determination to act."I have given [Mr Rushdie] an assurance that working to remove the threat to his life will be a central priority of this Government's policy in relation to Iran and I'll be working to get the maximum support for that from our European partners," Mr Cook said.The Government is to ask for a written assurance from the current more moderate Iranian government that it, unlike its predecessor, would not further the fatwa against the novelist.And it is to encourage European support to secure the removal of the $2.5m (pounds 1.6m) bounty upon Mr Rushdie's head.Standing beside Mr Cook and beneath a painting of St Cecilia, martyred for refusing to renounce her Christian faith, Mr Rushdie, 50, contrasted the action with that of the previous Conservative administration."I do have a real sense of a new drive behind this issue. But the Bill - which enshrines the European Convention on Human Rights into British law, "bringing rights home" from Strasbourg to the domestic courts - will give teeth to the Press Complaints Commission's self-regulatory code of conduct. A government source said that officials were in discussion with the commission to see whether the code could be strengthened, with the possibility of fines being built into the system of self-regulation.The deal to change the balance of the Bill more firmly in favour of the press was struck at a meeting last Friday between Mr Straw and Lord Wakeham, the commission chairman.Mr Straw told the House: "We have repeatedly stated our support for the freedom of the media and our opposition to a statutory privacy law."But he recognised press concerns, and saw it as the duty of government and Parliament "to assuage those anxieties if we possibly can." To fulfil that duty, a framework of amendments to the Bill had been agreed with Lord Wakeham, a former Tory minister.Under the European Convention on Human Rights, there were two articles of particular concern: "The Article 10 right to freedom of expression, and the Article 8 right to respect for private and family life."The Home Secretary said it was worth pointing out that in practice, the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights had extensively used the convention "to buttress and uphold the freedom of the press against efforts by the state to restrict it."Those European judgments, would have to be taken into account by the judges in this country he said, but Mr Straw accepted that there was the need for further reassurance.He had agreed to an amendment to the Bill, containing "an explicit provision on the face of the Bill that, in any case in which a person applies for relief or a remedy on Article 8 grounds related to respect for private life, and the granting of a remedy would raise issues concerning an Article 10 convention right, the court must have particular regard to freedom of expression."Mr Straw said the amendments would "constitute a useful signal and reminder to the United Kingdom courts" that the balance was tilted against privacy and in favour of media freedom.Leading article, page 16. He said he trusted Mr Blair's words.Ulster's toll of violenceLOYALISTS were responsible for killing 13 people, and Republicans two people, between 20 July and 25 January, the Government said last night. The figures do not include the two murders in Belfast last week which police have linked to the IRA.
The figures say loyalists were also responsible for 51 shootings, six bombings and 36 assaults; Republicans were said to be behind 20 bombings, 21 shootings, and 26 assaults.. Opening a Commons debate on the Human Rights Bill, Mr Straw gave the strongest possible assurance to press critics that the legislation would not be used to introduce a backdoor privacy law. THE balance between individual privacy and press freedom was tilted firmly in favour of the media by Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, last night. It's just not a particular source of joy." Actually, I say, now I think about it, you're not so great. Probably, you should take what you can get which reminds me, it's Valentine's Day tomorrow and, strangely enough, I seem to be free in the evening. "Me, too!," cries Nicola, the photographer, who may be quite a bit blonder and thinner than me Nicola, don't you have another job you need to rush to NOW "No Why?" Jonathan Cake, 30, was a member of RSC.
Then he was the black polo-necked Cadbury Milk Tray Man in the telly ads. Now, he's Oswald Mosley in the Channel 4 four-part drama that began last week There's been a lot of fuss about this series. It's a revisionist, glamorised account, many Jews have claimed. It concentrates on Mosley as a dashing, charismatic womaniser (...
