[The Red Arrow]

Tuesday, 1 November 2016
Karen Bradley - Murdoch Patsy

And so it came to pass that Karen Bradley, an MP manifestly unsuited to any ministry, let alone the one dealing with the press establishment, came to the Commons today to make a statement on press regulation. Given that her only Special Advisor, Craig Woodhouse, arrived straight from the Sun, where he was senior political correspondent, the content of her statement was all too predictable...

http://zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk/2016/ ... patsy.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Kreuzberger]

Leveson Two, where is the tipping point? At what state do these vipers go so far that they need to called to heel, once and for all?

Twice in a week, young Windsor and then three High Court judges, their behaviour has been appalling, In particular, the mail and The Sun but neither Desmond nor the Barclays could be seen as behaving acceptably.

If the Supreme Court judgement in early January goes against them and upholds the rule of law, the meltdown will be of Chernobylian proportions.

That will then force May's hand. She will need to chose between her cheerleaders on one side, and, on the other, the massed ranks of her one-nation tories, the House of Lords and the judiciary.

She would do well to spring Leveson Two on them and take her chances. Otherwise she is toast. The question, of course, is whether her long silences during consultations at the Home Office were her struggling to understand.

[D.C. Harrison]

Otherwise she is toast.

Does make me wonder: what odds we have three Prime Ministers in a single term? Would that be some kind of record?

[Bones McCoy]

Leveson Two, where is the tipping point? At what state do these vipers go so far that they need to called to heel, once and for all?

Twice in a week, young Windsor and then three High Court judges, their behaviour has been appalling, In particular, the mail and The Sun but neither Desmond nor the Barclays could be seen as behaving acceptably.

If the Supreme Court judgement in early January goes against them and upholds the rule of law, the meltdown will be of Chernobylian proportions.

That will then force May's hand. She will need to chose between her cheerleaders on one side, and, on the other, the massed ranks of her one-nation tories, the House of Lords and the judiciary.

She would do well to spring Leveson Two on them and take her chances. Otherwise she is toast. The question, of course, is whether her long silences during consultations at the Home Office were her struggling to understand.

I'm starting to fear she's being kept on a a stalking horse (is that the correct term?) and a coup is already being prepared.
With Rupert's bought a paid for Barmy Brexit Army just waiting to affix their proverbial bayonets.

[mr angry manchester]

Interesting theory, presumably Gove being lined up as he's Murdoch,s lackey? The fact that he's a twat and no one can stand him won't matter because Labour have gone into meltdown?

[The Red Arrow]

If I might be so bold as to paraphrase, we've had enough of twats.

[Messianic Trees]

Mail staff urged to counter Hacked Off lobbying by contributing to Section 40 libel costs consultation

Journalists on the Mail titles have been urged to "help defend" against the "threat to freedom of expression" posed by the implementation of the section 40 cost provisions law.

In an email, seen by Press Gazette, editor emeritus Peter Wright tells staff they can do their bit by contributing to a Government consultation seeking views on the issue, set to close on 10 January.

Former Mail on Sunday editor Wright also warns that press reform campaign group Hacked Off are "lobbying very hard" in favour of section 40 and the start of part two of the Leveson Inquiry.

He said: "Section 40 is the punitive measure intended to force newspapers and their websites into state-approved regulation under the government's Royal Charter.

"Not a single mainstream newspaper or website has agreed to be regulated under the Royal Charter – believing it to be incompatible with freedom of expression, and one step away from state control.

"Under section 40, newspapers and websites which are not members of a Royal Charter approved regulator – which means Max Mosley's Impress – can be forced to pay the other side's costs in libel and privacy cases, even if the newspaper or website wins its case [Wright’s emphasis]."

"It goes without saying that any legal regime under which claimants can win damages at virtually no risk to themselves is wide open to abuse, both from compensation-seekers and their ambulance-chasing lawyers, and from unscrupulous individuals using Robert Maxwell-style gagging law suits to chill investigations by journalists. The cost of section 40 will be crippling.

"Leveson Two will look into relations between journalists and the police and politicians.

"We have already seen 67 journalists arrested and/or charged in relation to phone-hacking and payments to public officials, of whom just 10 were eventually convicted, at a cost to the tax-payer of £41 million.

"It is difficult to see what would be achieved by a further raking over of old coals."

[Catkins]

Peter Wright currently sits on the complaints committee of IPSO. He concealed the extent of hacking when he was on the PCC. Talk about a conflict of interest.

[Safe_Timber_Man]

They've really had to go quite far back here to find an example of them doing something good:






Don't let politicians destroy Press freedom: Act NOW if you want to help defend the right to read a website like MailOnline
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... eedom.html

[youngian]

This starts off as a thoughtful analysis opposing press regulation. Who is the sturdy anti-authoritarian concerned about civil liberties and press freedom? David Blunkett. The Blunkett I'm used to is one that closes down any dissent by telling us what the people on estates in Sheffield are thinking and anyone who disagrees with him is a woolly out-of-touch liberal.

This threat to Press freedom is so wrong - and I speak as a victim of hacking

The judicial inquiry into the conduct of the Press, set up in 2011 and chaired by Sir Brian Leveson, was a key part of that push for greater official oversight.
But now, as we approach the New Year, the pressure for greater restrictions appears to be reaching a new level of intensity.


So what is wrong with that? Well, take a look at the organisation that will carry out the regulatory role. Blunkett doesn't seem to like people with money standing up to the press or people without a pot to piss in doing it
It is none other than a self-appointed lobby group called Impress filled with anti-Press campaigners and almost entirely bankrolled — to the tune of £3.8 million — by the multi-millionaire Max Mosley, a man with a clear vendetta against popular newspapers. You couldn’t make this up.

Now it might be expected that I would be in favour of some curtailment of Press freedom, given that my family was one of the high-profile victims of the hacking scandal when elements of the Press decided to investigate my personal life. It was a harrowing time, which culminated in my providing evidence for the prosecution in one of the criminal hacking trials.

But my own experience, however painful it was, does not prevent me from recognising the real dangers of taking a regulatory and financial sledgehammer to the British Press, which is already under severe strain because of ferocious competition from social media on the internet.

Yes, we must respect the rights of those who have been unfairly treated by the Press. There have to be mechanisms to provide them with redress.
For their part, Impress and its anti-Press ally Hacked Off, a hardline advocate of tough State regulation, like to pose the question: ‘Whose side are you on: the victims or the Press?’

But it should not be a simplistic, binary choice. We can support victims of Press intrusion without seeking to crush basic liberties that stretch back to the end of the 17th century, not least at this moment when it is the print media and properly moderated and edited information which is under the cosh. No redress exists for what is put out by unregulated bloggers on the internet.

At the heart of the new threat to Press freedom is Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. This measure, which has yet to be implemented, is a form of coercion that aims, by using the threat of crippling financial penalties, to force newspapers into accepting what has been described as ‘State direction’. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... cking.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A few of the investigations; I think that's about it.

WHO WILL EXPOSE INJUSTICE? Most of our greatest injustices are exposed not by MPs or the police, but by the Press. The MPs' expenses scandal; the Rotherham sex grooming cover-up; the monumental failures over the murder of Stephen Lawrence — just a few of the investigations that would never have been possible if Section 40 was in force.

Replacing the libel circus with a streamlined small claims court type system that's affordable for litigants has had wide support from journalists long before Leveson. Blunkett doesn't appear to like millionaires standing up to the press or people without a pot to piss in doing it either

Under Section 40, a news publication which fails to join the newly established official regulator will have to bear the entire costs of both sides in any libel action brought against it, no matter what the outcome.
So a newspaper could conduct an investigation into corruption by an individual, receive a libel suit, win the case, and still end up having to fork out for the failed litigant.

Meanwhile, the wrongdoer has not had to risk a penny. Effectively, the newspaper would have been fined for telling the truth. This is wrong on so many levels. If Section 40 is put into operation, the courts could be filled with frivolous and vexatious libel actions, while proper investigative journalism will be seriously undermined, since a newspaper would struggle to afford the consequences of a claim.

The effect on local newspapers, with fewer resources than the nationals, would be especially damaging — even though they were never in the firing line during the Leveson Inquiry.

[The Red Arrow]

proper investigative journalism

Oh, and if you can't trust Kate Hoey, who can you trust....eh?

Sunday, 1 January 2017
Kate Hoey Sells The Press Pass
http://zelo-street.blogspot.co.uk/2017/ ... -pass.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's as if there's some sort of desperate, concerted effort going on.

[Daley Mayle]

Interesting coverage of the Leveson 2 story on the leftie biased BBC Today's programme this morning. In the blue corner was (I think) the Sun's editor and in the red a woman who had been hacked by the NoW. The Sun's take was self-serving of course and repeated many of the half-truths and downright lies picked up by Tim Fenton's blogs on the matter. He talked about the independence of IPSO and how it worked for those who were wronged by the press. It was pointed out by the BBC interviewer that it wasn't working very well and cited the case of the Muslim family who were libeled by Katie Hopkins in the Mail, how it took a year before there was a mealy mouthed and very brief appearance of an apology. The Sun man blustered about and said nuffink do do wiv me guv, that's the Mail's that is and, anyway, they got compo.

[PaulOnBooks]

IPSO has rejected a complaint about a Delingpole Spectator article under the headline “Ocean acidification: yet another wobbly pillar of climate alarmism”.

Phillip Williamson, whose research programme was derided in the article, complained to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (Ipso), arguing the piece contained many inaccuracies. But Ipso rejected the complaint, telling Williamson: “The article was clearly a comment piece.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... s-watchdog" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And so the world gets a little stupider.

[Messianic Trees]

Roll up, roll up, for the Mail's latest attack on press regulation:

Why plans to hobble UK newspapers are a tyrant's charter: Foreign Reporter of the Year IAN BIRRELL, who has reported from brutal regimes around the world, on the true cost of a shackled press

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/artic ... press.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Messianic Trees]

And not to be outdone:

Help us prevent the elites silencing journalists and YOUR free press

Read more: http://www.express.co.uk/comment/expres ... Max-Mosley" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

SUBJECT to the strictest libel laws in the world and threatened with fines of up to £1million for getting it wrong, the British press has never been able to publish with impunity – and rightly so.

Yet newspapers like the Sunday Express are now facing the extraordinary injustice of being penalised for telling the truth.

Impress and the equally self-serving zealots at Hacked Off not only want Section 40 to become law but also for there to be a second Leveson inquiry – despite it originally costing £50million and resulting in Fleet Street cleaning up its act.