Leveson

The long awaited Leveson report is now out. Not unsurprisingly, it has caused come controversy. Some of this has been cause by (deliberate?) misreadings of it.

I think it is worth pointing out that the enquiry looked at all sides of the various arguments, heard a lot of evidence form various people, and drew conclusions and proposals on the basis of this evidence. This is good scientific process, and it means that if you want to argue against the conclusions or recommendations, then it should be done by re-visiting the evidence, assessing it differently, and putting other arguments from the evidence.

It should not be argued against because "It doesn't seem like the right way forward".

What is more, David Cameron did state that as long as the recommendations were not "bonkers", he would implement them. The recommendations are not bonkers, so he should implement them - although that was a rather naive promise to make.

I was also interested by comments from Ian Hislop on "Have I got news for you", where he argues - not unsurprisingly - against any more regulation of the press. He makes two point, quite good ones, that a) the activities were already illegal, and so there is already legal recourse against what they did and b) if you break the law, you should expect to pay the consequences. As he has done on numerous occasions.

I think it is worth mentioning that nobody wants a state controlled press. That is a bad situation all around, and in this country, we have a long tradition of the media as a whole playing the fool to the authorities. It is an important aspect of our culture that those in authority can do stupid things, but they should expect to be pilloried in public by our comedians and have questions raised by our journalists. That is one of the core balances in our system, and it is critical to keep this, to ensure that those who have power are also subject to ridicule and challenge. State controlled media would kill that, and would be a disaster for everyone.

On the other hand, self regulation is not working and has not worked. The "hands off" approach had meant that serious abuses have been endemic in the industry. I heard Ruth Gledhill at Greenbelt this year explaining that she had no idea about phone hacking from within the business, implying that it was not as widespread as suggested. My suspicion is that Ruth may have been unaware because those around her knew she would have a problem with it - something that is not uncommon in work environments - and because she was not working on areas where this would have been used. But I don't know, and Ruth is quite welcome to respond on this. I suspect that it was widespread enough that it was considered a tool available for use by those journalists who would do anything for a story.

What I understand Lord Leveson to be suggesting (and I have not read the entire report, nor do I intend to) if for an independent body to oversee the press. That seems a good idea, someone to watch over the self-regulation to make sure it works. And that this is underpinned by statute seems to be a necessity, otherwise it has no teeth. The report could have been a whole lot harsher. the job now is to implement it, to put the British press back on the road to being trusted, at least to a greater extent than currently.

If  not, then clearly government control of the press is already happening, and we should all be scared.