Jemima Khan - the freedom fighter

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10 April 2012

There was a time when Jemima Khan was the archetypal society page beauty, seen but not heard.

Now 37, the daughter of the billionaire Sir James Goldsmith and ex-wife of the Pakistani politician Imran Khan, who once described herself as "manically private, undemonstrative and a blusher", is finding her voice as a defender of free speech.

Last year, she earned headlines as she became one of the first celebrities to publicly defend the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange when he was threatened with extradition and accused of rape.

She has used her Twitter feed to draw attention to human rights issues (as well as Kate Middleton's weight and the behaviour of her two sons, Sulaiman and Kasim) for the benefit of almost 50,000 followers.

So perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised to find the comely heiress guest-editing the venerable Left-wing magazine the New Statesman, producing a "Freedom of Information Special" at the invitation of editor Jason Cowley. Though you wonder what the late Sir Jimmy, who spent much of his life suing Private Eye on a freedom of information theme, would have made of it. ("I imagine it would have made him smile", she concedes.)

I meet Khan in the New Statesman boardroom, shortly before her issue goes to press. Dressed for work in cardigan and jeans, blushingly attractive, soft and sure of tone, she immediately announces that she hates interviews: she is by nature a "blabbermouth" but "I've been a politician's wife, so I'm aware of what gets you into trouble," she says. (She has the habit, I have noticed, of deleting her tweets shortly after posting - her head reconsidering what the heart has poured out.)

When we turn to politics, those shy eyes light up and she becomes engaged, eloquent, even rather funny. She does a wicked impression of Imran trying to get her to conquer her fear of burning effigies and lead a march in Pakistan: "Come on, Jem, you don't understand politics here. What's an effigy?!" Apparently you're no one in Pakistan until someone has burned an effigy of you.

The names she has brought to the magazine, including Tim Robbins (on the death of journalism), Simon Pegg (on Twitter) and Russell Brand (proving God exists) - with cover art by Anish Kapoor - speak of her powers of persuasion.

She did not know most of them and cold-called them herself. "It's not like I only asked my mates to contribute."

Perhaps the most surprising piece is "an unexpected scoop" from Hugh Grant himself, whom Khan dated for two years when she returned from Pakistan in 2004 after her marriage to Imran ended. Grant went undercover to hack Paul McMullan, a former News of the World journalist, who had been involved in hacking as a reporter.

"I went to the spy shop and bought him a pen with a recording device in it!" Khan says, mischievously. "He was going to do a book review, but he was so unforthcoming It got right to the last day and I said, 'oh God, I can't badger you any more, it's like being in a relationship with you still' - and then he came up with this idea."

Grant managed to capture McMullan - a dubious source at best - claiming that Rebekah Brooks (née Wade), the paper's former editor, "absolutely knew" about the illegal phone hacking - an allegation she categorically denies.

When McMullan was asked if Brooks knew about phone-hacking, he replied: "Absolutely. Not only did she know but (David) Cameron must have known - that's the bigger scandal. He had to jump into bed with Murdoch as everyone had, starting with Margaret Thatcher in the Seventies ... Tony Blair ... so when Cameron, when it came his turn to go to Murdoch (he went) via Rebekah Wade."

McMullan also told Grant the Guardian newspaper paid him to hide in bushes near Wade's Oxfordshire home before last year's General Election to see if Cameron visited the News International chief.

"Cameron went horse riding regularly with Rebekah ... (I was) hiding in the bushes waiting for her to come past with Cameron on a horse ... before the election to show that - you know - Murdoch was backing Cameron."

The story is well timed. This week former head of news Ian Edmondson, 42, and current chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck, 50, were arrested after they were implicated in documents seized from the home of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, who worked for the News of the World and was jailed with Royal Editor Clive Goodman in 2007.

Scotland Yard has faced criticism for its timid investigation of the scandal. However, McMullan, a former member of the News of the World's investigations team, told Grant he was not surprised that detectives were hesitant.

He said: "Twenty per cent of the Met has taken backhanders from tabloid hacks. So why would they want to open that can of worms?"

Grant decided to target Mr McMullan after he "turned him over" last year. The actor broke down in his car in Kent and McMullan - who had been following Grant in a bid to land a lucrative photograph, offered him a lift.

When they arrived at McMullan's pub, the Castle Inn in Dover, the ex-hack asked him to pose for a photograph, saying: "It's not for publication, just for the wall of the pub." Grant agreed and McMullan sold it to a Sunday newspaper for £3,000.

After the revenge sting, Grant wrote in the New Statesman: "I wanted to hear more about phone hacking and the whole business of tabloid journalism. It occurred to me just to interview him straight, as he has, after all, been a whistleblower. But then I thought I might possibly get more, and it might be more fun, if I secretly taped him. The bugger bugged, as it were. As I drove home past the white cliffs, I thought it was interesting - apart from the fact that Paul hates people like me and I hate people like him, we got on quite well."

Khan's own interview with Nick Clegg, in which he reveals his sensitive side, also caused a bit of a stink. Was it her revelation that Cameron beat Clegg at tennis that annoyed Clegg's people, I wonder? Clearly they underestimated her, though she comes across as firm but fair with the Deputy Prime Minister in print: "I think he's a decent man trapped in a nightmare of his own creation," she says now - and reveals that she voted Lib-Dem in the election: "I have some Left- and some Right-wing views. I wouldn't describe myself as a Tory. I suppose I'd describe myself as a liberal," she says.)

Khan's enthusiastic interactions with the New Statesman staff suggest the exercise has been mutually enjoyable - Cowley says he would like to have her back - albeit stressful (just before the issue went to press, she tweeted the deputy editor apologising for her "raging OCD"). Editing is clearly a role that Khan both relishes and takes seriously (her involvement ran to organising the budgets). She is a contributing editor of Vogue, but admits there's a limit to how many political interviews they want in Vogue.

"I'm forcing myself to do more things that make me nervous," she says. "It's not that I've changed, it's just that what I am is perhaps more visible, or more evident than it was before."

I draw her attention to a tweet by Kevin Maguire, the New Statesman's regular political columnist: "Errant MPs may breathe easier, Socialite @Jemima_Khan guest editing New Statesman so I'm stood down this week."
"I saw that too," she says, quietly.
Does it bother you?

She emits a sigh, which turns into a nervous laugh. "Honestly, yes, it bothers me." She pleads patience. "Jason [Cowley] keeps telling me not to be defensive and pre-emptive. But I do worry for him. I hope that the issue will speak for itself - but I do understand that New Statesman readers may be a bit irked."

Most of Khan's critics make use of that word "socialite" (do males ever get called socialites, incidentally?). It annoys her, understandably.

She has clearly made efforts to move beyond the circles in which she was born and points out that she rarely goes to parties now and did not go to any in her twenties when she was a young mother in Pakistan. "I maybe went a bit nuts for a couple of years when I came back but that's very relative I'd lived quite a responsible life up until then." (She currently lives in Fulham with her sons and is in a relationship with American literary agent Luke Janklow.)
Politics, by contrast, has always been a preoccupation - her late father was a French MEP and founded the anti-European Referendum Party, and her brother Zac Goldsmith is an eco-friendly Conservative MP - and it remains the principal source of arguments around the Goldsmith Sunday dinner table.

Her experiences in Pakistan have left a still deeper impression. She continues to receive death threats from both Jews and Muslims angry at her marriage to Imran. When I ask why she was so taken with the WikiLeaks affair, she says it was lived experience that convinced her that the issue was one worth standing up for.

"Having lived in a country like Pakistan - where you have very corrupt, dishonest governments, a country that thrives on conspiracy theories - I just have a real hatred for lies. What WikiLeaks has done is to reveal government lies and corporate lies in order to conceal human rights abuses, torture, illegal wars."

That is understandable, I say. But did she not question whether all of this information was safe in the public domain?

"I take issue with their decision to release Sarah Palin's private emails and family photographs. That's what's interesting about these issues. I'm not saying freedom of information with no caveats. Whatever I think about Sarah Palin's politics, that wasn't in the public interest in my opinion."

This is a point on which the tabloids have taken Khan up with some glee, finding a contradiction in her defence of her own privacy and her support for freedom of speech. The articles she has commissioned suggest an anti-press streak that's ironic if you consider that her main paid work has been as a journalist. She believes her pieces tackle journalism motivated by "profit not principle". "The tabloids tend to conflate privacy and free speech, particularly with me," she says. "I just don't see belief in both as being mutually exclusive. I think reasonable people can see there is a difference between government or corporate transparency and personal privacy."

I wonder whether she worried about her support for Assange, whose own personality has loomed large in the WikiLeaks affair.

"My support has been for the principle and for WikiLeaks - not necessarily for the individual," she says. "I went to court never having met him. I've still only met him twice outside of court today, so it's not a personal thing "

Did you not worry that the allegations against him might be true? To put your name on the line for an accused rapist is quite risky, no? "Well, he hasn't been charged yet. Everyone has to believe in the presumption of innocence."

So you formed a hunch about a man you'd never met?
"I hadn't really formed any kind of hunch about him," she stresses, a little annoyed. "I had no idea of what he was like at all."

Nonetheless, she describes Assange as "highly intelligent" and "obsessed by what he does". When I point out his tendency to alienate his former allies, she says: "You have to ask yourself what kind of person lives the kind of life that Assange leads and devotes themselves to that kind of cause. It takes a very particular type of personality."

An unexpected side of that personality will be on view in the New Statesman: Khan has persuaded him to pose with a lookalike Hillary Clinton in a poker scene staged by the spoof photographer, Alison Jackson. "He's written a very serious piece and I thought it would be very nice to show a bit of sense of humour, to show that he is able to laugh at himself a bit."

Do you see why people sometimes find celebrity involvement in causes a little wearying, I wonder?
"It's annoying isn't it?" she says, softly. "I can see that." However, she does not see WikiLeaks as a "trendy" cause. "I've never thought of it like that."

Does she believes her sons will grow up in a better world? She says "not necessarily, no", but qualifies it. "I'm not naturally an optimist. But this year has given me cause for optimism, given what's happening in the Middle East. I hope that will motivate changes in Pakistan as well. I think it's actually quite an exciting time at the moment. I always used to think that we were living in the wrong era - and actually for the first time ever, I feel that this is exactly where I want to be."

The New Statesman is out today

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