BY SARAH JONES
The Queen has a right to express her views on political matters in private.
It is the responsibility of anyone who hears her views not to take them to the media. Those so called ”impeccable sources” of The Sun Newspapers are not so impeccable in character for them to disclose so openly a matter they claim to have been discussed in private. Whilst the Queen may have political and constitutional obligations not to involve herself in political matters, those obligations necessarily relate to doing so in public.
The right to freedom of expression and freedom of opinion enshrined in the Human Rights Act 1998, applies to all individuals and does not exempt the Queen. She is human after all, and entitled to a view on any matter. It is rather irresponsible for anyone to take such a story to a national newspaper, and in an ideal world, The Sun Newspaper would be expected to reprimand the source in question for breaching expected standards of conduct. The ethical saving grace for the paper is their right to freedom of expression, though it even such freedom should be used responsibly not recklessly. This is no suggestion that the revelation by The Sun Newspaper was reckless, because this is a matter of opinion that has no clear right and wrong. If the Queen was indeed scathing about The EU, it will be unsurprising for The Sun to want to make this public since it supports the position they have on The EU. Equally, it is also possible that a paper may still choose to reveal inside knowledge they have about The Queens views on a topic even where those views are different from their official stance on the topic.
DEFIANCE
Today, The Sun’s editor, Tony Gallagher, widened the goal posts in defiance of The complaint made by Buckingham Palace over its report about the Queen’s alleged Euro skepticism, claiming to know more than it has published. He insisted that the Queen expressed her anger during a lunch at Windsor Castle in 2011, and suggested she had voiced similar views on at least one other occasion.
MORE KNOWLEDGE
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday, the editor implicitly undermined the denial and complaint made by Buckingham Palace by saying:“We knew much more than we published, and that remains the case. There is not just one occasion when these views were aired. There was a second occasion when she expressed similarly scathing views about the EU at Buckingham Palace.” Cameron ruled out a public inquiry, telling the BBC: “The palace has made a very clear statement, the former deputy prime minister has made a very clear statement saying that this didn’t happen and I think we should leave it at that. “There is obviously a proper investigation now being held by the press complaint commission and I think we should let them do their work.” Exactly how the press complaint will get to the bottom of the facts is anybody’s guess, though the most obvious process expected will be to complete to substantiate their claim my naming their source, so that the sources in question can be interrogated. The finding of the investigation will be interesting to hear, though her Royal highness will still come out looking good whatever the conclusion. Any proper analysis should really conclude the informers of this story, if true, to have acted unethically.
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