Well done, Dave, your country is proud of you!

Well, maybe not all of them but I am, at any rate!  The oozing sentimentality over the Dowler and McCann families makes me feel ill and when it dribbles from the unctious mouths of politicians I feel positively nauseated.  I notice 'Edenoidal' Ed made mention of both of them in his Commons' speech, barely able to resist the flourish of holding his hankie to his eyes.  But not a mention of Nazi flaggelants, or thesps with a taste for LA hookers, and certainly no mention of Labour MPs posing on homosexual websites in their Y-fronts as they tout for a shag!

Look, freedom is freedom and when you come to the scavengers of Canary Wharf you take the rough with the smooth, as you have to do with all freedoms, it's part of the price.  Like parliamentary democracy, for example, in which we have the freedom to vote despite the fact that most of the people we have to vote for are not fit to run a parish council let alone a country.  Even the possibility of that gang of  expenses cheats and thieves, to say nothing of the swivel-eyed political fanatics amongst them, having even a finger-hold control over press activity fills me with dread.

So, I say again - and somehow I don't think I will be saying it very often - well done, Dave.  If you stick to your principle you may live to regret it but if your government falls on this then it is an honourable sword upon which to be impaled.  As of this moment I do not know what the leader of the mis-named Liberal Democrats - they should be sued under the Trade Descriptions Act! - has to say but the word is that he, too, is all for statutory regulation of the press.  However, if, and it's a big 'if', he sticks to his guns it could bring down the government and that would lead to the virtual elimination of his party in Parliament.  Good riddance, I say!

 

Comments

[Sam]

Cracking stuff Duff! Let's hope your shiny-faced new best friend can triumph against all those sanctimonious thieves and fornicators who want to keep their grubby little doings secret. My old Dad had a pithy word or two for the likes of them: Bible in one hand, p***k in the other.

[David Duff]

I think these days their expenses sheet has taken over from the Bible, Sam!

[Whyaxye]

Yes, I agree. It is a strange "liberal" party who would vote for state controls of the press. I don't think Dave is doing it for the "right" reasons (i.e. principles). I think he is worried about pissing off Murdoch and Brooks who would then have nothing to lose by dishing the dirt on what actually happens at a "country supper". But all this will be good for Dave. It will help him to develop some slightly thicker slime, which might then develop into cartilege, and then a backbone.

[rogerh]

Dave is a politician to the fingertips and I reckon he is boxing clever on this one.

'Oh no not me' says Dave, while Parliament does come up with legislation that does not seem to have anyone's fingerprints on it. A prediction - legislation will help conceal more than it helps reveal.

[David Duff]

'Slime to cartilege to backbone' - superb, 'W'!

I do think, Roger, that the newspapers need to move quickly and pre-empt parliamentary action. All that is needed is a fast and reasonably cheap method by which complainants can quickly seek redress from a patently independent body for what they think is wrongful action by the press. Mind you, it could all be a waste of time because the newspaper industry is disappearing faster than horse-drawn carriages in the 19th century! At which point, the blogging fraternity will come under fire!

[Andrew]

http://theplastichippo.wordpress.com/2012/11/30/bonkers-2/

This is interesting

[David Duff]

Yes, a good article but the writer concentrates on the here and now. What he should attempt is an effort to imagine the future when politicians having achieved the objective of putting a statutory foot over the toes of the editors will attempt to shift it to their throats!