04922-24 Garfield v The National

Summary of Complaint

1. Joshua Garfield complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation that The National breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) and Clause 2 (Privacy) of the Editors’ Code of Practice in an article headlined “LABOUR'S MESSAGE AFTER VOTING FOR TWO-CHILD CAP”, published on 25 July 2024.

2. The article featured on the front page of the newspaper, and featured the following sub-heading: “’Celebration’ pictures posted in aftermath of vote sparks condemnation”. The front page also featured a photograph; taken as a selfie, it showed a group of people looking into a camera, with some holding drinks. The individual in the foreground, taking the photo, was the complainant – he was pictured from the shoulders upward, smiling into the camera.

3. The article then continued on page 5, under the headline: “Boyle joins cap condemnation”. It opened by reporting:

“SCOTTISH comedian Frankie Boyle has torn into a Labour MP who posted a picture “celebrating” keeping the two-child benefits cap in place – alongside multiple people giving the middle finger.

Labour MP […] shared an image of herself smiling alongside a group of Labour activists and politicians along with the caption ‘celebrating putting country before party’.

The image and caption was originally posted by Labour councillor [the complainant] late on Tuesday, just hours after his party voted down an SNP amendment to scrap the two-child benefit cap, which affects 1.6 million children in the UK and is seen as a key driver of child poverty.”

4. Further to this, the article reported on criticisms of the social media post and photograph from a number of sources, including a comedian, an editor of another newspaper and a historian.

5. It also reported criticism from a named contributor for the publication, who was quoted as having said: “This is the Labour leadership faction celebrating suspending MPs for voting to lift little kids out of squalor and misery”.

6. The article also appeared online, published on 24 July, under the headline: “Frankie Boyle condemns Labour MP 'celebrating' two-child benefit cap”. The online article featured the same image as the front page of the print article, captioned: “An image shared by a Labour MP showing party figures celebrating keeping the two-child cap in place, with people giving the middle finger (Image: Twitter/X)”. The version of the image in the online article was wider and showed some individuals making an offensive gesture toward the camera.

7. The online article also featured an image of the complainant’s X post. Showing the photograph in question, the post on the complainant’s social media account was captioned: “Celebrating putting country before party”.

8. Before the complainant approached IPSO on 25 July, the online article was updated to include the following, as part of the text of the article itself, at the bottom:

“As the photo continued to draw condemnation, Labour NEC member [a named individual] claimed the celebration had nothing to do with the vote on the two-child benefit cap that had happened just hours before.

[The complainant] also made the claim, writing: ‘This photo is of some friends after a summer reception celebrating the Labour victory three weeks ago. I haven't passed comment on parliamentary votes – this reception was long planned and unrelated.

People drawing their own conclusions are making a lot of assumptions’”.

9. The complainant was one of a number of individuals who raised concerns about the article. On 30 July, IPSO made the publication aware that it had received a number of complaints, and that these raised a possible breach of the Editors’ Code. On receipt of the complaints, the publication noted that they contained conflicting information about when the image was taken.

10. On 9 August, IPSO opened an investigation into the complaint. In line with IPSO’s usual procedures, the complainant was selected as IPSO’s lead complainant for the purpose of investigating the complaint.

11. The complainant said that the article was inaccurate in breach of Clause 1 because it inaccurately reported on the circumstances in which the photograph had been taken, and the nature of the pictured celebration. He said the celebration was not related to the two-child benefit cap vote; rather, it was a celebration of the then-recent election results, following a summer reception hosted by an organisation associated with the Labour party. The celebration in question had occurred on the same day as the vote.

12. The complainant also said the newspaper failed to do due diligence prior to the article’s publication. He said that a contributor for the newspaper – the one named and quoted in the article – had made inaccurate claims regarding the social media post on social media, which the complainant had publicly refuted prior to the article’s publication. He also said that the publication’s decision to not contact him, or anyone else pictured, prior to publication - either for comment or to verify that they were celebrating the benefit cap vote - had led to the inaccurate reporting, and also represented a breach of Clause 1. He said he wished for the publication to publish a correction and apologise.

13. Further, the complainant said that the photograph’s publication breached Clause 2. He had not provided permission for the publication to use his photograph.

14. The publication did not accept a breach of the Editors’ Code. With regard to Clause 1, it said that the timing of when the photograph was taken was not essential to the article. This was because the article reported on the criticism sparked by the timing of the photograph being shared to social media – on the same day as a highly controversial vote. It said that it did not consider that either its front-page, or the article, misrepresented the photograph – it stated that politics does not “happen in a vacuum”, and the timing that the image was posted was made clear, and was central to the criticism it then received.

15. The publication also said that it had, on the day of the online article’s publication, contacted the Labour Party’s press office for comment, but they had not responded. It provided a copy of the email which had been sent to the office; this included the following:

“Good morning,

Labour MP […] has shared the attached tweet, which shows her ‘celebrating’ voting to keep the two-child cap in place along with people giving the middle finger.

Will Labour take any action at all over this or are they happy with it?

There is strong criticism online, including from [comedian], which we will probably lead with […]

Can we get a comment ASAP please?”

16. Notwithstanding this, on 14 August - during IPSO’s investigation - it amended the image caption on the online article to read: “An image shared by a Labour MP showing party figures celebrating, with people giving the middle finger”. It also added a footnote correction, which read as follows:

The National would like to make clear that this event was arranged prior to the two-child cap vote as a celebration of Labour’s electoral results – the caption has been amended to reflect that.

17. It also proposed publishing the following correction in print, in its clarifications and corrections column:

“The National’s front page on July 25 read: ‘Labour’s message after voting for two-child cap’ and reported on criticism of Labour politicians and activists for sharing an image showing celebrations after the party backed the two-child cap. We would like to make clear the event was pre-arranged as a celebration of Labour’s election results.”

18. The complainant disputed the publication’s updated caption. He said that passing individuals unrelated to the celebration “photobombed” the photograph, and posed showing their middle fingers to the camera. He said that the publication’s caption “muddie[d] the waters”. He also objected to the proposed print correction. He said it did not clarify that the celebration was unrelated to the benefit cap vote, and it reiterated the original claim that the photograph could justifiably draw criticism – which he did not consider to be the case.

19. The complainant also detailed his correspondence with the contributor on social media prior to the article’s publication. He said that the backlash reported on by the publication was largely generated by the contributor’s inaccurate posts, and the publication could not separate the story’s origin from the contributor’s accusations.

20. The complainant also said that, since the article’s publication, he had received abusive messages from a number of members of the public which he considered to be a result of the article. He supplied examples of this to IPSO. He also said that he had had to “lock” his social media account as a result of the volume of abuse he had received.

21. In response, the publication said that its article was not based on its contributor’s social media posts, as made clear by the range of individuals quoted in it. It said the “newsworthiness instead came from the volume of people seeing the timing of the tweet as tasteless”. It also said that it did not have control over what the contributor posted online.

22. On 22 October, during IPSO’s investigation, the publication further amended the online correction to ensure clarity. It updated it to read:

“Clarification: The National would like to make clear that this event was arranged prior to the two-child cap vote as a celebration of Labour’s electoral results – the caption has been amended to reflect that, having originally suggested that the celebration was directly linked to the vote”.

Relevant Clause Provisions

Clause 1 (Accuracy)

i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information or images, including headlines not supported by the text.

ii) A significant inaccuracy, misleading statement or distortion must be corrected, promptly and with due prominence, and — where appropriate — an apology published. In cases involving IPSO, due prominence should be as required by the regulator.

iii) A fair opportunity to reply to significant inaccuracies should be given, when reasonably called for.

iv) The Press, while free to editorialise and campaign, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.

Clause 2 (Privacy)*

i) Everyone is entitled to respect for their private and family life, home, physical and mental health, and correspondence, including digital communications.

ii) Editors will be expected to justify intrusions into any individual's private life without consent. In considering an individual's reasonable expectation of privacy, account will be taken of the complainant's own public disclosures of information and the extent to which the material complained about is already in the public domain or will become so.

iii) It is unacceptable to photograph individuals, without their consent, in public or private places where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Findings of the Committee

23. The complainant had said that the celebrations pictured were unrelated to the two-child benefit cap vote - they were for a pre-arranged event celebrating the election results – and the article was therefore inaccurate. Given the complainant’s position that the entire article was inaccurate, the Committee began by considering the article, and the front page, as a whole. It emphasised that, particularly when considering matters of accuracy, it is important to consider articles in their entirety – statements can take on different meanings in isolation, and the wider context of an article is often therefore important in determining whether it includes inaccurate or misleading information.

24. The Committee noted, firstly, that the front-page headline referred to “Labour’s message after voting for two-child cap” – it did not explicitly state that the image, and the celebrations pictured, were in celebration of the vote. Rather, the point being made was that this was the party’s “message” – the public image an elected party official had chosen to share in the immediate aftermath of the vote. This was demonstrated by the sub-headline, which reported: “picture posted in aftermath of vote sparks condemnation”. This made clear that the decision to post the photograph, and the timing of the post following the vote, had drawn criticism.

25. The text of the following article then went on to detail the specific circumstances in which the image was posted: “Labour MP […] shared an image of herself smiling alongside a group of Labour activists and politicians along with the caption “celebrating putting country before party’”. The image and caption was originally posted by Labour councillor [the complainant] late on Tuesday, just hours after his party voted down an SNP amendment to scrap the two-child benefit cap”. The article also then reported on the criticism the social media post had drawn.

26. In light of these factors, the Committee did not consider the article, as a whole, was inaccurate or misleading in the manner contended by the complainant. It was not in dispute that on the day of the two-child benefit cap vote, the complainant had posted a photograph showing what appeared to be a celebratory event, captioned “celebrating putting country before party”, which had then been reposted by a Labour MP. The posting of the image had then drawn criticism from multiple sources, in light of the two child-benefit cap vote held that same day. Where the article as a whole made this clear, and did not report that the event pictured was a celebration of the vote specifically, the Committee was satisfied that it was not inaccurate or misleading in the manner alleged by the complainant on this point. There was no breach of Clause 1 on this point.

27. The Committee welcomed, however, the actions the publication had taken to attempt to resolve the complainant’s concerns.

28. The Committee then turned to the online article, which appeared in much the same format. The Committee noted the caption on the image within the online article originally reported: “An image shared by a Labour MP showing party figures celebrating keeping the twochild cap in place, with people giving the middle finger (Image: Twitter/X)”.

29. While articles should be read as a whole, it does not follow that this allows for inaccurate information to be published. In this case, the photograph caption was plainly inaccurate even when read in context with the article as a whole – it reported that the image showed individuals celebrating the benefit cap vote, which both parties accepted was not the case. Given this, the Committee turned to the questions of whether the inaccuracy had come about due to a lack of care on the part of the publication, and whether it was significantly inaccurate.

30. The publication had approached the Labour Press Office and requested a comment on the fact that a photograph shared to the Labour MP’s account “show[ed] her ‘celebrating’ voting to keep the two-child cap in place along with people giving the middle finger”. This request for comment nearly precisely mirrored the inaccurate claim which appeared in the photograph caption, and the Committee considered that putting the precise claim to the press office represented due care under Clause 1 (i) – albeit no response had been received. While the Committee understood that the complainant was concerned that neither he nor anyone else who had been pictured had been contacted directly, the Committee considered that the party’s press office was an appropriate avenue to which the publication could direct its enquiries, as it could reasonably be expected to act on behalf of its party members, and elected officials, in matters relating to the press. In such circumstances, there was no failure to take care – and no breach of Clause 1 (i).

31. The Committee then turned to the significance of the inaccuracy. The inaccurate caption suggested that the complainant and others had been celebrating the vote, which could have reputational implications, and concerned a vote which had drawn much criticism and debate. It also had regard for the inherent public importance in accurately reporting on the actions of elected representatives. In light of these factors, the Committee considered the inaccuracy to be significant, and in need of correction as per the terms of Clause 1 (ii).

32. On 14 August, fifteen days after IPSO made the publication aware that the complaint raised a possible breach of the Editors’ Code, the publication had amended the online caption to remove the inaccurate reference to the pictured individuals “celebrating keeping the two-child cap in place”. The Committee noted that the publication had received multiple complaints, which contained conflicting information as to the timing of the event – and therefore, there was initial difficulty in establishing the correct position. Once the complainant had been selected as the lead complainant, and his concerns put to the publication during the investigation, the correction had been published five days later. In these circumstances, and where the correction clearly set out the correct position regarding the timing of the photo, the Committee was satisfied that the publication of the correction was sufficiently prompt. The correction appeared as a footnote which, given the inaccuracy appeared in the text of the article and had been removed when the correction was published, represented due prominence.

33. During the course of IPSO’s investigation, the publication had amended the wording of the correction. This was sixty-nine days after the publication of the initial correction. However, the Committee recognised that the update was to more clearly set out the original inaccuracy– the first correction, on 14 August, had already put the correct position on record, clarifying that the “event was arranged prior to the two-child cap vote as a celebration of Labour’s electoral results”. Additionally, the Committee considered that there wasn’t a need for an apology in this case, given: the breach arose from a single photograph caption; the publication had taken clear and prompt steps to address the complainant’s concerns; the article had been amended prior to the complainant approaching IPSO to include his position; and it was not in dispute that the photograph had been shared in the immediate aftermath of the vote – albeit the pictured celebration was pre-planned.

34. In these circumstances, and where, in the Committee’s view, the publication had clearly taken prompt action to amend its error, it was satisfied that the publication had fulfilled its obligations under Clause 1 (ii), and there was no breach of this Clause.

35. The Committee also considered the complainant’s complaint under Clause 1 that the article had been based on criticism originally generated by inaccurate claims from one of its contributors. This was not an inaccuracy within the article which the Committee could consider under Clause 1. The Committee also noted that the contributor’s posts were not within the publication’s control, and that the article reported on criticisms of the complainant’s social media post - that criticism of the post had occurred was not in dispute, and the newspaper was entitled to report upon this, irrespective of the origins of the criticism. In these circumstances, the Committee did not consider that the complainant’s concerns on this point engaged Clause 1.

36. The Committee then turned to Clause 2. When considering when the publication of material represents a possible breach of Clause 2, the Code is clear that the Committee will consider the extent to which the material complained about is already in the public domain. It was not in dispute that the photograph was in the public domain, given it had been posted to X by the complainant - and it was not in dispute that the complainant’s X account was open at the time the post was shared, given that he said he locked it following the publication of the article. The Committee also noted that the image showed the complainant in a public place, which was clearly not private – indeed, the image had been “photobombed” by passing members of the public. In these circumstances, while the Committee was sorry to hear of the difficulties the complainant had had following the article’s publication, it did not consider that the use of the image represented an intrusion into the complainant’s private life. There was no breach of Clause 2.

Conclusions

37. The complaint was not upheld.

Remedial action required

38. N/A

Date complaint received: 25/07/2024

Date complaint concluded by IPSO: 07/02/2025