Leveson Inquiry casting "shadow" over Britain's free press.

malena stool wrote:

Panda wrote:I agree, too much is made of Human Rights which has gone too far IMO.

I'm half watching the Andrew Marr show and when they were doing Press reviews, there was an article in the Centre Pages of the Observer being discussed. Would you believe it......there was a photo of Gerry and Kate hand in hand.!!!!!

I don't know if it was the same day that Kate had the meeting with Cameron, but in this photo she is wearing a double breasted black coat with a scarf tucked inside and Gerry had a suit on. If someone can find the photo of her meeting with Cameron and post it here I would be grateful.

Hugh Grant was a Guest and speaking by video to Hugh Whittingdale ( don't know who he is) and Hugh was very good and commented on the friendships between Politicians and the Media.

Panda, do you mean Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of River Cottage fame?

Yes, that must be him.......what's River Cottage ?

wow hair dyed etc and wheres gerry??





Found it, that's the same outfit........looks like they must have met up later because they were holding hands . Maybe Gerry was working and was going to air his views seperately. Anyway, looks like our presumption was wrong.

Panda wrote:

malena stool wrote:

Panda wrote:I agree, too much is made of Human Rights which has gone too far IMO.

I'm half watching the Andrew Marr show and when they were doing Press reviews, there was an article in the Centre Pages of the Observer being discussed. Would you believe it......there was a photo of Gerry and Kate hand in hand.!!!!!

I don't know if it was the same day that Kate had the meeting with Cameron, but in this photo she is wearing a double breasted black coat with a scarf tucked inside and Gerry had a suit on. If someone can find the photo of her meeting with Cameron and post it here I would be grateful.

Hugh Grant was a Guest and speaking by video to Hugh Whittingdale ( don't know who he is) and Hugh was very good and commented on the friendships between Politicians and the Media.

Panda, do you mean Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall of River Cottage fame?

Yes, that must be him.......what's River Cottage ?

River Cottage...A series on growing and cooking your own produce.....

I came across this recent photo which I'd not seen before

That photo is from 3 days ago - see the video on the right hand side of this link.

http://news.sky.com/story/1018425/kate-mccann-pm-should-act-swiftly-on-leveson

It gives the impression that the McCanns spoke then but the clip of them is from November 2011.

malena stool wrote:My thoughts on Shami Chakrabarti and other similar 'free thinking, do-gooding, human rights' type creatures would probably get me barred....

Chakrabarti's a nutter. End of.

malena, yes that looks like him, was he hacked then as well? Don't know why a cook would be of much interest.

I have watched Shami on a few occasions and and it's all very well having a Human Rights bill but she is quite extreme in her views . However, she was one of Leveson'a team so she must be a bit clued up. What a shambles this has been though, 8 months research , interviews etc costing God knows what and Cameron doesn't want to implement the suggestions. !!!!! What is wrong with taking away a Newspaper Licence if they constantly print untrue articles without first confirming the truth.?

Chris Jefferies Urges MPs To Back Leveson


The man held on suspicion of murdering Joanna Yeates says the Leveson recommendations on the press should be supported in full.


3:02am UK, Monday 03 December 2012

Mr Jefferies said the recommendations should not be misunderstood

• 
  
  Christopher Jefferies, who won libel damages after his arrest over the murder of a woman, has penned a letter to MPs asking them to support the Leveson recommendations on press regulation in full.
  
  Mr Jefferies, who was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Joanna Yeates in Bristol in December 2010 but released without charge, was vilified by some newspapers.
  
  He says in the letter: "I believe it must be implemented in full if we are ever to have a press that works in the public interest, and make sure the abuses we have seen never happen again.
  
  "Over the months that Leveson has been sitting it has become clear that the vast majority of the public do not want the present self-regulation of the press, by the press, to continue.
  Mr Jefferies was arrested over the murder of Joanna Yeates
  "I was pleased to see this echoed in the opinion polls published recently in which the public say they want complaints about the press to be dealt with by an independent regulator.
  
  "The latest YouGov poll, commissioned by the Media Standards Trust, confirmed that 79% of people are in favour of a press regulator established by law - and 82% say it is no longer acceptable for newspaper owners to control the press complaints system."
  
  Mr Jefferies, who let a flat in Bristol to Joanna Yeates and her boyfriend, was arrested after she was found dead in December 2010.
  
  Dutch national Vincent Tabak was later convicted of Ms Yeates's murder and Mr Jefferies won damages from eight newspapers.
  
  "The way I was treated by the newspapers in that period was without doubt the worst time of my life," he said in the letter, which was written on behalf of Hacked Off, campaigners for the victims of phone hacking and media intrusion.
  
  Cross-party talks on the report will resume later with Harriet Harman representing Labour and Culture Secretary Maria Miller for the Tories.
  
  They will take place before MPs debate the contents of the 2,000-page report, which was published last Thursday.
  
  Labour has started work on drafting its own Bill based on the Leveson recommendations for press regulation and will use it as the basis for a Commons vote if David Cameron blocks reform.
  
  :: More than a 123,000 people have now signed a petition by the Hacked Off campaign for an accountable press, calling for full implementation of the Leveson proposals
  

Leveson Report: So what happened to your defence of liberty, Harriet Harman?


Labour insider Dan Hodges says the party’s support for statutory press controls is driven by the desire for political revenge








Changing their tune: Ed Miliband and Harriet Harman after the Labour leader’s speech at the party conference Photo: Paul Grover





By Dan Hodges

7:55PM GMT 30 Nov 2012

462 Comments




In January, the Labour Party’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman, addressed the Oxford Media Convention. Much of her speech was devoted to the ongoing Leveson Inquiry. But those who had prepared themselves for a ritualistic assault on the venal corporate influence of News International, and the excesses of the feral press, were in for a surprise.


“I am standing up for press freedom,” Harman announced dramatically. “At the start of my professional life, I fought the cause of press freedom at Liberty. And because of my work there holding the government to account, I was charged with contempt by the then Attorney General who launched a prosecution against me in what became the landmark case of Home Office v Harman.”


And a landmark case it was. While serving as a solicitor for the National Council of Civil Liberties, Harman had shown restricted legal documents to a journalist, and been found in contempt of court. She appealed to the House of Lords and was defeated, before finally prevailing at the European Court of Human Rights.


But in their dissenting judgments, some of Britain’s most eloquent legal voices were raised in Harman’s defence. Lord Diplock – whose name is not always associated with the principle of liberty – said: “Publicity is the very soul of justice. It is the keenest spur to exertion, and the surest of all guards against improbity.” Lord Scarman said: “Whether or not judicial virtue needs such a spur, there is also another important public interest involved in justice done openly, namely, that the evidence and argument should be publicly known, so that society may judge for itself the quality of justice administered in its name.”


Those supporting words were not lost on Harman. “Because the press are now in the dock, it looks like special pleading from a vested interest when they make the case for press freedom. That’s why it is all the more important that politicians must insist on the freedom of the press,” she told her Oxford audience.



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Her suggestion was measured. “I think it would help Leveson if newspaper editors got together and came forward with a solution, and I challenge them to do that. We have had a good airing of concerns and scoping of the issues but it is time for editors to lay their cards on the table and come up with a solution that guarantees these principles. It cannot just be rhetoric. I would like to see them frame the solution rather than have one imposed upon them.”

Today Harman is no longer standing up for freedom of the press. Instead, she, her leader and many of those who consider themselves part of the liberal Left are demanding the imposition – by statute – of the Leveson recommendations in their entirety. The days when Labour’s deputy leader fought to keep the press from the clutches of bad law are over. Now she’s fighting to force that free press into the law’s malign embrace.

To understand why the Left is now the champion of statutory restraint of the press, you have to understand what the current debate regarding the Leveson Inquiry is really about. It is not – as is currently portrayed – about protecting “ordinary people” such as Milly Dowler’s parents or Chris Jefferies. The abuses that Leveson has exposed were propagated during Harman and Ed Miliband’s time in government, and both were perfectly content to turn a blind eye. They may not have known of the specifics of phone-hacking – but that’s because they weren’t inclined or encouraged to try to find out.

I remember a friend of mine who was working for a senior Labour cabinet minister regaling me with the tricks his press contacts used to obtain information. The bribes, the blagging, the blackmailing. Labour had no problem associating with the perpetrators of these supposed abuses, because at that time they were primarily being directed at our political opponents. Plus, it was fun. It was a naughty secret – and finally, after years in the wilderness, we were privy to it.

Today Labour has a line for dealing with accusations of former complicity, and it runs like this: “We had no choice. The press was too powerful. We had to play by their rules.” This is true, up to a point. In the never-ending strategic battle between politicians and the media, Tony Blair and his advisers chose to hug their enemy close.

But they loved it. Alastair Campbell, now furiously beating the drum for Leveson, never lost an opportunity to remind people what a great friend Rebekah Brooks was. Mr Blair formed such a firm friendship with Rupert Murdoch that he became godparent to one of his children after he left office. He didn’t do that because he was afraid of what Murdoch’s papers might do to his minimum-wage legislation.

Labour and the Left’s stance on Leveson isn’t motivated by high principle; it’s motivated by a desire for political retribution. Yes, it’s about the victims. But in this instance the victims are Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot and the lost dreams of the centre-Left.

Miliband and Harman have been deeply moved by their meetings with the parents of Milly Dowler and Madeleine McCann – they are politicians, not monsters. But their agenda is the product of political calculation, not high moral purpose.

First, it’s a chance for payback. It may not have been the Sun wot won it in 1992, but many on the Left believe it to have been.

Second, it’s a chance for control. The Left wants the press, especially the Right-wing papers, to feel fear. The knock on the door, the phone call late at night. The same fear that Labour politicians and supporters felt when they found themselves under scrutiny. They want the tables turned. Or, at a minimum, they want the press to know that the tables could be turned if the Left chose to do so.

But, ironically, there’s a third factor to the Left’s response to Leveson. This is how it does its business now. When Ed Miliband was first elected, he pledged to turn the page on Blairism and New Labour. But in fact the reverse is true.

Those aspects of New Labour that first attracted me, the singularity of purpose, the benign authoritarianism, the belief that the ends justified the means, have – unwittingly – seeped into the broader Left’s psyche. The politics may have changed, but the techniques are the same. In pursuit of the new politics, anything goes. No principle is sacrosanct. No ideal immutable. For the revolution to succeed, there will have to be sacrifices. And if three centuries of press independence are the price of that victory, so be it.

I can empathise with that thinking. When I worked for the Labour Party, I read plenty of headlines that had me dreaming my own dreams of divine retribution.

But the problem is that the pendulum always swings back. This is what the Left is forgetting. Yes, for the moment it has its enemy where it wants it. But eventually the enemy will break free from its grasp. If Miliband and Harman force through statutory regulation now, they will have their moment of triumph. But it will not last.

Because the reactionary political forces will rise again. And when they come, they will be in disguise. Now they will be posing as the protectors of liberty. The guardians of “ordinary people” like the McCanns. And the tools they unfurl will be the very tools handed to them by the liberal Left. A small tweak of the press statutes here. A minor change to the regulations there.

One day another Harriet Harman will find herself in the dock for defending the right of a free press to hold the judiciary or the executive to account. She’ll turn to see who is prepared to speak up for her. And she will be met by silence.

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1. 
   David Cameron orders newspapers to reform rapidly
   

Newspaper bosses must "rapidly" meet Lord Justice Leveson's demands for new regulation, David Cameron said after a meeting in Downing Street.








David Cameron is under pressure over his opposition to Lord Justice Leveson's key proposal Photo: Getty Images





By Rowena Mason, Political Correspondent

1:46PM GMT 04 Dec 2012




The Prime Minister addressed editors of national newspapers at Number 10, after the judge's report recommended a new press watchdog backed by laws.


Mr Cameron told the editors they must devise a new independent regime of regulation within days if they want to avoid new legislation to keep them in check.


Around 20 editors were summoned to Downing Street to discuss reforms, although Paul Dacre, the Daily Mail editor, was absent, and Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian editor, turned up slightly late.


Following the meeting, Mr Cameron said he had told the group the "clock is ticking" and they have to "produce a tough, independent regulatory system, rapidly".


"They’ve got to do it in a way that absolutely meets the requirement of Lord Justice Leveson’s report," he said. "That means million pound fines, proper investigation of complaints, prominent apologies, a tough, independent regulatory system."



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The meeting was hosted by Maria Miller, the Culture and Media Secretary, who said editors had "responded positively".

"There was unanimous agreement that what we need now is for the press to go forward with developing a tough independent self-regulatory body," she said.

"The challenge has been thrown down to them, they’ve responded positively and it’s now for them to go away and develop those plans."

She also reminded the editors that an initial set of proposals put forward by Lord Hunt, the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission, will not be sufficient.

Speaking in the House of Commons last night, Mrs Miller said the Government has not ruled out new regulation under law if editors do not come up with a tough new system.

Sarah Sands, the editor of the London Evening Standard, said those at the meeting understood the urgency of the situation.

"Newspaper editors, who are going to meet again tomorrow, are going to try and work out something which is true to the spirit and a lot of the letter of Leveson, just avoiding the dreaded word of statutory underpinning so that you genuinely know that what exists can't at a later stage become something else, become control by the state," she told BBC Radio 4's The World At One.

"We are talking about a couple of weeks to try to come up with a solution that really satisfies everybody."

If he can get agreement from all newspaper editors, the Prime Minister may avoid having to bring in a new watchdog backed by legislation.

This was recommended by Lord Justice Leveson and supported by Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, and Nick Clegg, the deputy Prime Minister.

However, Mr Cameron still hopes to persuade the other leaders that new laws are not needed, as cross-party talks on the controversial issue continue.

All three major political parties are split over the issue. Around 40 Conservative MPs are pushing for new laws, while more than 40 are fighting against any restrictions to freedom of the press.

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1. 
   Lord Justice Leveson calls for new laws to curb 'mob rule' on the internet
   

Lord Justice Leveson has called for new laws to curb the rise of "mob rule" on the internet and says he is keenly watching the aftermath of his report into media ethics.








Lord Justice Leveson said he was "concerned" about the debate that had followed his 2000-page report Photo: AFP





By Jonathan Pearlman in Sydney

4:57AM GMT 07 Dec 2012




Launching a series of warnings about the dangers of an unfettered internet and "trial by Twitter", Lord Justice Leveson said he believed politicians would eventually find ways to restrain the "wilder excesses" of online behaviour.


Citing the publication of topless photos of the Duchess of Cambridge and this week's prank call to her hospital by two Australian radio hosts, he said the history of the media showed the need for measures to protect people's privacy.


Appearing at a conference on privacy in Sydney run by the University of Technology, Sydney, Lord Justice Leveson said he was "concerned" about the debate that had followed his 2000-page report but would not comment on the response of the government or the media.


"I am watching developments in the UK with interest," he said.


"I treat the report as a judgment and judges simply do not enter into discussion about judgments they have given. They do not respond to comment, however misconceived, neither do they seek to correct error."


However, he launched a strong call for the government to consider taking action to protect privacy on the internet, which has become a "global megaphone for gossip".

He warned that bloggers and social media users are less motivated by profit than traditional media and therefore less likely to worry about the consequences of unlawful publications. For example, he said, the BBC Newsnight affair - in which a peer was wrongly linked to a child abuse scandal – involved the naming of the man by social media users rather than the BBC.

"The established media broadly conforms to the law and, when they do not, they are potentially liable under the law," he said.

"In so far as the internet is concerned, there has been, and for many, there remains a perception that actions do not have legal consequences.

"There is not only a danger of trial by Twitter, but also of an unending punishment, and no prospect of rehabilitation, by Google," he said.

However, he said, the "shadow of the law" falls on the internet and would eventually prevent abuses of freedom of expression, though new creative legal solutions may be required.

"Just as it took time for the wilder excesses of the early penny press to be civilised, it will take time to civilise the internet," he said.

"[The internet] does not trade in gossip. It simply publishes it online, conveys it on Facebook, uploads it onto Youtube, tweets and re-tweets it. It is likely that new [legal norms] and new laws will need to be developed

I certainly agree Lord Justice Leveson, just as new laws need to be developed to ensure prosecution of those parents who neglect their children to the point that they are allegedly, 'taken'.

malena stool wrote:I certainly agree Lord Justice Leveson, just as new laws need to be developed to ensure prosecution of those parents who neglect their children to the point that they are allegedly, 'taken'.

Don't you think malena that the British Tabloids have reached rock bottom when they print nonsensical sightings issued by CM to keep the McCanns in the limelight? They KNOW these sightings are rubbish but have no regard for morality and I think it's time some of the Dailies were called to account . A German couple I met on holiday were amazed at the number of Daily Papers published for such a small Country.

Panda wrote:

malena stool wrote:I certainly agree Lord Justice Leveson, just as new laws need to be developed to ensure prosecution of those parents who neglect their children to the point that they are allegedly, 'taken'.

Don't you think malena that the British Tabloids have reached rock bottom when they print nonsensical sightings issued by CM to keep the McCanns in the limelight? They KNOW these sightings are rubbish but have no regard for morality and I think it's time some of the Dailies were called to account . A German couple I met on holiday were amazed at the number of Daily Papers published for such a small Country.

Panda I think our media, is far from being independent and is freely used by our leaders to promote whatever line they consider appropriate at any given time. How else can blatant admissions of child abandonment in the national press and tv be ignored by the police and accepted as being 'well within the bounds of reasonable parenting'? Did any child protection agency or any in the judiciary stand up and question any of Mitchell's statements which were regularly paraded in the media?
Even after 5 years the media still promote and sanctify the mother who refused to answer police questions which might possibly have led to her daughter's recovery.
The entire population has been and still is being treated as mushrooms and but for the existence of the internet Madeleine's disappearance would have been forgotten and those who failed in their parenting duties would have slipped into the background.

"Madeleine's disappearance would have been forgotten and those who failed in their parenting duties would have slipped into the background."

AH, but they didn't want to malena, they have used the last 5 years to become Celebrities and make a small fortune,

It's incredible to think that the Internet has only been around for 20 years and accessible to most people for maybe half that time.

If it didn't exist now, I don't think that the McCanns would have disappeared into obscurity. There would be far fewer people knowing that their version of events just didn't add up and I think that they would have far greater support than they have now amongst the general public.

However, who needs public approval when you know a few like-minded people in high places who will defend your interests?

Panda wrote:"Madeleine's disappearance would have been forgotten and those who failed in their parenting duties would have slipped into the background."

AH, but they didn't want to malena, they have used the last 5 years to become Celebrities and make a small fortune,

You are perhaps correct Panda, but did they expect the reaction to Madeleine's disappearance to take off the way it did?
I think their rise to innocent superstar status only began once Mitchell stepped into post as spokesperson dictating the direction reporting took, with the backing of Blair then Brown and what seems to be the entire commons. Strangely not one voice was ever raised in protest at the media abuse of the Portuguese Police or the Portuguese people, nor did anyone question the blatant biased misreporting and elevation to sainthood of self confessed child neglectors.

Great and the good lined up for new press regulator under Royal Charter


Ministers are preparing to announce that senior judicial and establishment figures will oversee the new system of press regulation being drawn up in the wake of the Leveson Inquiry.








Oliver Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister Photo: PAUL GROVER






By Gordon Rayner, Chief Reporter

10:00PM GMT 13 Dec 2012





The former president of the Supreme Court, a former Labour cabinet minister and the presidents of the Royal Society and Royal Academy are expected to be involved in the system.


Oliver Letwin, the Cabinet Office minister, is understood to be preparing to unveil that a Royal Charter will be used to establish formally the new independent press watchdog. The same mechanism was used to set up the BBC and the Bank of England.


A high-level panel of three people including the presidents of the Royal Society and Royal Academy will ensure every three years that the watchdog is fulfilling the terms of the charter.


A panel of verifiers is also expected to be established which will appoint executives at the press watchdog – a move designed to ensure that newspapers cannot influence the appointment process. Ministers hope to appoint Baron Phillips of Worth Matravers, a former Lord Chief Justice and President of the Supreme Court, and Baron Smith of Finsbury, a former Labour cabinet minister, to the panel. Two figures with knowledge of the newspaper industry, but not current editors, will also serve as verifiers.


The Daily Telegraph disclosed earlier this month that the Government was considering using a Royal Charter to ensure both the independence and rigour of the new watchdog. A Royal Charter cannot be changed without government approval and newspapers would therefore not be able unilaterally to alter the terms of the watchdog in the future.



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In his review of media ethics, Lord Justice Leveson said that statute was necessary to oversee the new watchdog. Ofcom, the broadcasting and telecom regulator, would ensure that the press body was independent and fulfilling its objectives.

The proposal to use a Royal Charter means that politicians would be excluded from the operation of the watchdog. Royal Charters, which date from medieval times, have also been used to establish other independent institutions such as universities and the Royal Colleges. It allows a body to be recognised as a legal entity.

Labour has published draft plans for new press laws – a proposal initially supported by the Liberal Democrats. However, senior Conservatives are hopeful that the Royal Charter system may be backed by Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister.

Yesterday, a meeting between the main parties broke up without agreement on the use of statute to set up the new watchdog.

A Department for Culture, Media and Sport spokeswoman said: “The Prime Minister and the Culture Secretary have been clear that they do not feel that statutory underpinning is necessary to achieve a tough independent self-regulator as outlined by the Leveson principles.”

Key differences also remain over the data protection reforms recommended by Lord Justice Leveson in his 2,000-page report on press ethics.

A Department for Culture, Media and Sport spokeswoman said: “The Prime Minister and the Culture Secretary have been clear that they do not feel that statutory underpinning is necessary to achieve a tough independent self-regulator as outlined by the Leveson principles"



Is this coincidence or what???? the Culture Secretary is none other than Maria Miller, currently accused of fiddling expenses who Cameron is supporting. Talk about you scratch my back...........

There must be something about Culture Secretaries, Jeremy Hunt, the last one, was moved to the health Dept. because of his too friendly approach regarding the Murdochs attempt to buy the rest of BskyB shares.