Dominic comments: “Elon Musk’s recent interventions into UK politics have been staggering. It was striking to me that he should be calling for a UK public inquiry. As a media lawyer, I am reminded of the Leveson inquiry, formed in 2011 after the phone-hacking scandal, which investigated the connection between press and politicians.
Leveson found “the evidence clearly demonstrates that over the last 30-35 years and probably much longer, the political parties of UK national government and of the UK official opposition, have had or developed too close a relationship with the press in a way that has not been in the public interest”.
He found that the connection created a perception of a conflict of interest (in both directions: the responsibility of the press to hold politicians to account, and politicians’ responsibility to hold the press to account on issues such as regulation and media policy). He recommended steps to impose transparency on these relationships.
Musk’s role in Donald Trump’s team and his intervention into UK politics makes the discreet kitchen-supper relationships of UK editors and politicians of the early 2000s seem beyond innocent. But painful lessons were learned when those relationships were exposed. The media landscape has changed dramatically since then and is under new control. We are now witnessing what it looks like when political leadership and media ownership combine on a dramatic scale. In the UK, we must use our experience to oppose Musk’s interventions, irrespective of the political, financial and diplomatic risks that brings.”
Click here to read the full article, which has been listed with kind permission:
The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/09/british-politics-are-not-elon-musks-to-toy-with
The i Paper: https://archive.ph/qSJjA
