A great line has just been uttered by Jonathan Reynolds MP: "No one
wants State control of the media, but what we have long had in this country has
been closer to media control of the State."
Not before time, parliamentary sovereignty is being reasserted. More,
please. Next up, the City.
Let the message go out loud and clear to the media moguls and the money men,
to the EU and the US, to Israel and the Gulf monarchs, to China and the Russian
oligarchs, to separatists and communalists, to the Executive and the Judiciary.
The Spectator ought to be
delighted. Why isn't it?
"noone wants state control of the media"
ReplyDeleteThat has to be the biggest lie in politics.
OF COURSE THEY WANT STATE CONTROL OF THE MEDIA.
All the more reason that freedom-loving people should deny it to them.
Great Peter Hitchens piece today reveals that a hidden clause in Leveson which lets "groups" as well as individuals make submissions to the regulator, will be a lobbyists dream and allow powerful PR lobbies to hold the media to ransom.
You are SO wrong about Leveson!
And SO going to win. The debate that is still going on has made the Commons majority obvious.
ReplyDeleteThe days of the (foreign and criminal) media-controlled State are numbered.
You dont seem interested in discussing the actual issues here.
ReplyDeleteI repeat-a clause in Leveson will allow lobby groups to control what gets printed in the press. That doesnt concern you?
Being a social conservative, I'm used to losing.
The point is whether society suffers as a result.
It would worry me if it were true. Or if it represented any change from the present state of affairs, depending on how you look at it.
ReplyDeleteEvery single Fleet Street title is already subject to essentially the Leveson system, due to being published in the Irish Republic. They seem to survive.
Then it should worry you because it is true. That clause allows groups to make representations over any issue over anything they feel the media has misreported. Every vested interest, from Big Pharma to Stonewall, will jump all over that clause.
ReplyDeleteThe media, for all their faults, have relentlessly and continuously exposed the horrific corruption of the political classes, from John Major's sleaze-riddled Government to MP's expenses cheating.
That would all be lost, due to Leveson.
Every Fleet Street title is not currently subject to state control over what they can print. If Ofcome regulate them, they will be
Hysterical nonsense.
ReplyDeleteEvery single Fleet Street title is already subject to essentially the Leveson system, due to being published in the Irish Republic. They seem to survive.
The Irish Government doesn't have an interest in surpressing stories about the British government.
ReplyDeleteThe British Government does.
Deary me. I thought even you would get that.
It is always fun to hear from the losers.
ReplyDeleteThe losers on an enormous scale in this case: the split between Tories and anarcho-capitalist Parliament-haters has been a long time coming, as has that between the corresponding tendencies within the Labour Party.
Here, we have at last the presenting issue. And everyone can see which side is going to win on the floor of the House, in the Labour Party immediately, and in the Conservative Party (or whatever replaces it) very rapidly as a result of the Commons victory.
I am glad the Labour Party can make this the latest defining issue they have been on the wrong side of.
ReplyDeleteAfter ruining our economy and turning us into Greece what next?
They've been wrong about everything for 50 years-why change now?
Labour is a corpse kept alive by David Cameron's generous life-support machine (and the Thatcher bogey-man)).
Even Alex Salmond can beat them in their natural homeland, the giant mountainous welfare state up north.
Labour will be finished soon
If three terms in Government is your definition of being "finished", then so be it.
ReplyDeleteRemind me, when did Labour last come fifth, never mind eighth, in a parliamentary by-election? It has didn't come first at one.
And there is a Commons majority for Leveson. Cameron is either going to back down, or he is going to be defeated. Which is it to be?
Labour's by-election drubbing in 2009 was one of the most embarassing in history.
ReplyDeleteEven more embarassing than losing Scotland to the SNP.
Labour had over a million members in 1952-it now has fewer than 190'000.
That looks pretty finished to me.
They have to grovel to trades unions for donations-they couldn't collect a brass farthing from normal people.
Your definition of normal people being Rupert Murdoch and the dodgy global megarich who keep the fifth-placed Conservative Party afloat. Rather than the six million British working taxpayers of the trade union movement who fund the first-placed Labour Party.
ReplyDelete