Plenty of grandstanding and showboating by people who at least affect to have a treasonable allegiance to Rupert Murdoch over and above any to the Crown in Parliament.
But they will still fall into line. They will not resist.
After all, resist what, exactly? The real question is ownership, and that is not addressed.
Do they want to abolish the registration of newspapers at the Post Office? Nor do I. And that is State licensing.
Do they want to abolish the Parliamentary Press Gallery? Nor do I. And that is the State licensing of individual journalists.
It is certainly a very long way from nonsense about being just "citizens with keyboards", and that in a world in which "the Internet has turned everyone into a journalist". In that case, they ought to have to apply for tickets to the Public Gallery, like everyone else.
I do not want that any more than they do. Precisely because they are not just citizens with keyboards, and precisely because the Internet has not turned everyone into a journalist.
But how that State licensing of individual journalists is done does need to be opened up. Membership should be by the nomination of any seat-taking member of either House, and the access privileges enjoyed by those thus nominated ought not to be greater than those enjoyed by parliamentarians' own staff.
After all, who is in charge here? Where does sovereignty reside? In the Crown in Parliament? Or in Rupert Murdoch and the BBC?
"Where does sovereignty reside"
ReplyDeleteIf politicians have "sovereignty" over the press, then we "reside" in an embryonic totalitarian state.
That goes without saying for anyone who understands the function of newspapers in a free society-which is precisely to hold those politicians to account, when nobody else will.
Its pitiful (and shows your alarming ignorance of what liberty entails) that I need to explain such a concept.
Is it really only people like Peter Hitchens, who are old enough to have actually lived in the Soviet Union, who still understand this?
If so, what a sad day for freedom-loving peoples everywhere.
Good to have your answer: an Australian-American who has never made any bones bout hating Britain is sovereign over the Crown in Parliament of the United Kingdom, according to you.
ReplyDeleteYour talking out of your backside.Ownership isn't even up for discussion here.
ReplyDeleteThe regulations under discussion won't affect one media group-they will threaten (and be used against) any and all of our remaining, relatively unchained, press.
If you think the state should be "sovereign" over newspapers, you'd be a good fit in North Korea or at least Soviet-era Russia.
Give me a choice betwen a Government without newspapers and newspapers without a government and I'll pick the latter every single time, as a wise man once said.
You are just baselessly ignorant on this subject.
Ownership isn't even up for discussion here.
ReplyDeleteExactly. That is why I struggle to care, to be honest. But the opponents are worse than the proponents, in a tough call.
Favourably quoting one of the greatest ever enemies both of Britain and of Christianity? Well, there you are, then.