Major stands by Mellor press role
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Your support makes all the difference.DOWNING STREET sought yesterday to stifle controversy over David Mellor's potential responsibility to introduce new laws on press intrusion - insisting that revelations about his alleged affair with an actress would pose no conflict of interest.
The Prime Minister, who telephoned Mr Mellor's wife Judith on Sunday to 'offer support', would stick with him 'through thick and thin', a No 10 source said.
John Major 'quite manifestly' disagreed that the ability of Mr Mellor, Secretary of State for National Heritage, to pilot new media legislation - if required - through Parliament had been compromised, Downing Street insisted. It emphatically ruled out further offers to resign from Mr Mellor, a personal friend of the Prime Minister.
But while Mr Mellor's suitability to take the lead in presenting any new laws was endorsed by the chairman of the Tory backbench media affairs committee, Roger Gale, other MPs across the political divides voiced misgivings, despite sympathy for Mr Mellor's personal predicament. Sir David Steel, the former Liberal leader, urged Mr Major to shift responsibility for press legislation to William Waldegrave's ministry.
Assessing the findings of the current inquiry into press regulation by Sir David Calcutt QC and placing them before the Cabinet will fall to Mr Mellor, 43, who on Sunday made a statement after the People published allegations that he had had a relationship with Antonia de Sancha, 31.
The Calcutt review will examine whether self-regulation by the Press Complaints Commission - which will discuss coverage of the weekend's allegations at a meeting tomorrow - is adequate to protect personal privacy. No 10 insisted that Mr Mellor would bring forward the 'collective government view' of the review.
But Sir David's stance was echoed across the other parties yesterday. Geoffrey Dickens, Tory MP for Littleborough & Saddleworth, suggested Mr Mellor be moved temporarily from press responsibilities, while Barry Sheerman, Labour's home affairs spokesman, told BBC Radio 4's The World at One that Labour would have reservations over Mr Mellor steering a privacy Bill through the Commons.
No 10 emphasised that Mr Mellor's dilemma was not at odds with the Government's avowed adherence to 'family' values. 'It is an ideal we strive to achieve,' a source said.
But Adrian Rogers, a member of the Conservative Party's Western Area executive, said the press needed to keep up surveillance against 'humbug and hypocrisy, and to expose private weaknesses of all public figures'.
Mr Mellor, who was working at the Department of National Heritage yesterday, said he was concerned for his two young sons, but it was 'business as usual'.
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