Kate Middleton's Pregnancy Expertly Shoehorned Into Leveson Debate By Tom Watson

Kate Middleton's Pregnancy Shoehorned Into Leveson Debate By Tom Watson

As MPs debated the Leveson report and its implications for the freedom of the press on Monday, word reached Westminster that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge were expecting a baby.

The news triggered a race in the Commons among MPs to become the first to manage to shoe-horn the royal baby into the debate. The winner? Phone hacking campaigner Tom Watson who brought up the "extreme" treatment suffered by prince Diana at the hands of the press.

"We will all welcome the news that the Duchess of Cambridge has announced that she and Prince William are expecting their first child," Watson continued.

"Do we also think that the press should observe their recent conversion, and give the couple the privacy that they deserve in the early days of the pregnancy?"

Unfortunately his inspired plan to bring up the hounding of princess Diana by the media as an excuse to mention the baby did not go down too well with his Labour colleague Jim Dowd.

"I am hardly likely to disagree, am I?" Dowd said after Watson's intervention. "Good luck to them, and so say all of us."

He added: "I am taken aback by the sheer irrelevance of the question. If I may, I will get back on track, and return to the subject of the conduct of the press."

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