Neil Kinnock's most important point was that the application of Thatcherite principles would have sent The Times and the Sunday Times to the wall. At the very least, there ought to be a fairness requirement (which I have rather hilariously been told on here already existed, when it looked as if I might have been well enough to stand for Parliament) for the two newspapers that only exist because they are considered so important that the rules have been bent double in order to keep them going.
More broadly, most people probably assume that newspapers in this country are already subject to a statutory licensing system, and would be horrified to be told that that was not the case. In a sense, they are right. It is called the parliamentary lobby. In broadcast terms, Sky and the BBC now balance each other rather well, and no one can receive the BBC News Channel who cannot also receive Sky News.
Some requirement would be no bad thing at all, that the papers granted lobby access (which, after all, have always included even the Morning Star - another time for what that means, both for good and for ill) should be balanced among themselves, even if not necessarily within themselves. Set, of course, within the context of the restoration of the proper lobby system.
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If that was Kinnock's most important point...ot taught us that he doesn't make, or doesn't understand, the difference between the activity of the government and its public property and the activity of people and their private property. Come to think of it, that was always the problem. I wouldn't have thought it worth keeping The Times and the Sunday Times going, but then, it's none of my business.
ReplyDeleteIt was on Margaret Thatcher that the point was clearly lost.
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