SAMIZDAT APPROACHES

Ever since the ‘expenses scandal’ MPs have been champing at the bit to bring retribution to the ‘gentlemen of the press’. Admittedly, the press are not perfect and yes, at times, they get things wrong. They sometimes attack the wrong people and for that they are punished. 

However, with the phone hacking and bribery accusations and the consequential criminal findings, it became clear that certain high profile media people sanctioned and presided over a regime of unforgivable intrusion and had inflicted untold harassment on vulnerable families and other individuals. That situation had to be stopped! Yes, press regulation need a major overhaul.

However, most of the things that the media did, and of which were quite rightly being complained about, were already offences under our current laws which simply weren’t enforced; which begs the question as to why the police were not enforcing the laws earlier and why the politicians were not asking the police to enforce those laws.

My only comments on the existing laws concerned the totally unbalanced rulings in respect of libel which for years have been stacked in favour of the well-heeled. This situation should have been addressed years ago, and should have been made more easily accessible to the ordinary person rather than being the preserve of the rich.

Nevertheless, for years ‘the freedom of the press’ has been a fundamental part of our freedom, and our freedom, through these political shenanigans, has now, in my mind, been diminished. All this political back biting and double-dealing which has dominated the news this week, is because of the frantic efforts to draw the Leveson proposals on press regulation to some kind of satisfactory conclusion that is satisfactory to all, including the ‘Hacked off’ brigade, who have their own reasons to get back at the press!

In my opinion, any legislation with the potential to inhibit freedom of speech is worrying. It evokes memories of Alexander Solzhenitsyn and the KGB.

It’s time Cameron, Clegg and young Wallace took a look across the pond and studied what the Americans call the ‘First Amendment to the US Constitution’ which says, ‘congress shall make no law abridging freedom of speech or of the press’ and if our political masters have forgotten that, then presumably, they’re also totally ignorant of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says in Article 19: "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

If Leveson has taught us anything it should be that we all should be prepared to suffer the occasional insult and upset in order to preserve a free market for the exchange of ideas, for it is from the resulting debate, that improvement results, and a better understanding of truth flows.

This so-called ‘Royal Charter’ is, in my opinion, yet another sinister development in the suppression of dissent and opinion, because it provides future politicians with the tools for control of the media.

Unfortunately, we appear to be governed by a generation of political pygmies and if they pass this Bill and invoke the underpinning of the charter with legislation, it's another nail in the coffin of freedom of a once great country.

Don't get me wrong, I was totally disgusted when I heard of some of the things that the press have done in the past; such as Hillsborough and the McCann's the Dowler's and Christopher Jefferies, to name but a few, however, a free press is and always will be needed. 

These are terrible times for British democracy and once again David Cameron proves that the answer is UKIP, who are the only party which opposes 'The State Regulation of the Press.'