I was really unimpressed by the dismissive bollocks coming from Ian Hislop that government action forcing the press to self-regulate would be a such terrible outcome. The Private Eye editor was ranting on the box last night about how all the awful things done by News of the World and others was illegal and that it was the lack of will by police and courts to crack down on such practices which was the root of the problem.
Maybe so, but it is not the first inclination for the rest of us who lack his educated and erudite qualities to run off to the courts if we feel that press coverage has been unfair or intrusive. We simply want an independently-appointed and independently-run body of people to act on our behalf.
The idea of legislation is not to enforce state control but make sure that editors & proprietors don't slip back into their old ways when they think no-one is watching. I don't believe for a moment that Hislop and company don't get this. Their agenda is that they don't want to see our freedom of privacy extended at the expense of their freedom to invade it.
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