In a report on the leaks of intelligence data by Edward Snowden (Tory peer accuses UK media of 'lackadaisical' response to spying, 11 November), a spokesperson for Guardian News & Media is quoted as saying: "The loss of [this] classified data was not the responsibility of journalists but of the intelligence community itself. It is only the involvement of global newspapers that prevented this information from spilling out across the web and genuinely causing a catastrophic leak."

Really? Are we now to believe that the Guardian's decisions to give a wider audience to the product of Mr Snowden's theft of data have been motivated entirely by a selfless concern to protect the security of the nation?

Does this Orwellian explanation not come into the same bracket as the criminal who blames the householder for the burglary he's just committed?

Jack Straw MP

Labour, Blackburn