The unfortunate resurrection of Leveson
The Labour and Lib-Dem manifestos have resurrected the follies of Leveson – and with it the threat to freedom of expression.
Compared with the future of the Britain’s EU membership, the funding of the NHS and the rise of the Scottish Nationalists, the political polices for the future of the media are hardly going to reach centre-stage.
Yet just when you thought it was safe to go out again, two of the major parties have threatened to bring Leveson back to life.
You would have thought that Sir Brian’s 1,000 page whopper with its couple of paragraphs on the effect of the internet on newspapers had been safely packaged and deposited where such tomes rest in peace forever.
It was the result of a knee-jerk reaction to a crisis by David Cameron and just grew and grew. The process stimulated debate about the rights and responsibilities of journalists, was to some extent cathartic and led to a new form of self-regulation.
It also stimulated multi-million pound police witch-hunts of journalists, complete with farcical dawn raids and lives and careers put on hold by unacceptably long periods on bail.
Few would complain about the law being applied vigorously to phone-hackers, though that law should, perhaps, be applied more evenly to generals as well as foot-soldiers.
The equal vigour and cost directed at payments by journalists to public officials for information has, as we have seen, been ripped apart at the seams, calling into question the wisdom of using a virtually unheard of piece of 13th century common law to mount criminal prosecutions rather than relying on civil action.
David Cameron has wisely decided he has had his pound of flesh, probably rather more than he either expected or wanted.”
The new self-regulatory body set up by the vast majority of the press, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO), is getting on with the job, putting down robust roots and gradually establishing itself under the chairmanship of Sir Alan Moses.
We have also had in a parallel universe the Press Recognition Panel, actually recognised by no newspaper and with absolutely nothing to do, a body aptly described by the outgoing editor-in-chief of The Guardian as “a medieval pantomime horse.”
The fundamentalist campaigning group Hacked Off is of course still with us and probably always will be.
There you have it. The world has moved on and the storm has stilled and with the exception of a few doctoral students picking over the bones of the Leveson Report that should surely have been that.
Then along comes the Labour and Lib-Dem manifestos, resurrecting the follies of Leveson and the threat to freedom of expression the proposals entail.
David Cameron has wisely decided he has had his pound of flesh, probably rather more than he either expected or wanted. The Conservatives support “the new watchdog”, and have avoided any threats to impose Leveson solutions while also promising to stop police accessing the phone records of journalists without judicial approval.
Alas, Labour and the Lib-Dems have learned none of the lessons of the post-Leveson debacles.
Labour has declared itself strongly committed to implementing the recommendations of the Leveson inquiry, or at least the variant set out in the Royal Charter option.
At least Labour has had the sense to back away from trying to impose a percentage cap on national newspaper ownership set out in Ed Miliband’s evidence to Leveson.
Then Ed said there should be a cap and that no one person should be able to own 34 per cent of the national newspaper market – quite forgetting the much higher percentages racked up by the likes of Google – or the declining nature of newspaper market.
On Leveson the Lib-Dems are equally extreme. If after 12 months “the medieval pantomime horse” judges there is significant non-cooperation by newspapers publishers – you can rely on it – then Parliament would have to act.
The legislative steps would range from imposing the Royal Charter option to making Ofcom the back-stop regulator, a task that Ofcom is not exactly enthusiastic about.
As for the BBC, the main threat could come from a minority Conservative government.”
What would happen next is anyone’s guess. A stand-off between press and politicians. Newspaper owners being hauled into court to be fined for non-compliance with the wishes of the pantomime horse?
Keeping the hands of politicians as far away as possible from statutory controls on the press remains a cause worth fighting for. In the age of the internet trying to impose statutory regulation would come into King Canute territory and bring politicians into even more public disrepute than they have managed to achieve already.
Luckily manifestos have a particular life span – in this case a couple of weeks. They then have a natural tendency to self-destruct and become of mere historic interest.
A Labour minority government trying to manage the expectations of Nicola Sturgeon might have little time to worry about picking yet another fight with the press over Leveson.
What is left of the Lib-Dems could equally have other priorities and could easily be too much of a rump to be able to create a meaningful Lab/Lib-Dem pact.
As for the BBC, the main threat could come from a minority Conservative government. For now the promise is to freeze the licence fee but that could be overturned by the promised inquiry into the Corporation in advance of a new Royal Charter.
Here the Labour approach is more benign – praising the BBC’s “vital contribution” to the country’s cultural life while insisting on value for money.
The most interesting developments on the media front in the next few months could come from the courts. Is there any serious prospects of further prosecutions of journalists who have paid for information when juries steadfastly refuse to convict? Those already found guilty will be already preparing appeals.
The police do seem to be going ahead with phone hacking inquiries as can be seen from the recent interview, under caution, of former Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan.
Spare a final thought for one almost forgotten group of people: the 30 or so public servants jailed for receiving money from newspapers and badly betrayed by the then News Corporation, which handed over their details. Aren’t sources supposed to be protected?
If the journalists who paid the money are legally innocent then those who accepted should not be in jail – though of course that should be a matter for civil breach of contract procedures rather than 13th century criminal law.
The really good news is that the election will soon be over and the real game can get under way.