Category Archives: media

links to where my stories are published

Why a dangerous police chief ban on announcing arrests will be an own goal for justice

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Suspects arrested already in former Elm Tree Guest House investigation Pic courtesy: Exaro

Suspects arrested already in former Elm Tree Guest House investigation Pic courtesy: Exaro

A furore has broken out rightly on  daft and dangerous proposals by the Association of  Chief Police Officers (Acpo) to refuse to release the names of people they arrest in the course of  criminal investigations. As the Mail on line reported this weekend (http://bit.ly/12BhfaN )  the proposal has been condemned as secret justice and produced angry responses from Index on Censorship and the Society of Editors. The police seem to be using Leveson as cover to do this.

But it smacks of the worst kind of justice where people disappear after being taken off the streets in countries like Russia, Zimbabwe and tinpot dictatorships.

But there is a practical aspect of this policy that has been completely overlooked. It is  because Acpo have taken the view that they are a news supplier which gives the media stories and  forgotten that it is two way traffic. The investigative media also uncover crooks and give the police grounds for prosecutions.

All this will fall  apart under this new directive from Acpo when both the police and the press are pursuing the same long term investigation and their paths cross. If the police don’t tell the press and the public who they have arrested they will be a very grave danger that when these people come to trial – the prosecution case will collapse because vital information to be revealed to the jury will already been published.

The reason is simple. At the moment if the police announce arrests have been made in a long term investigation – the media take a decision to no longer publish information about that individual which could prejudice their trial. But if the media don’t know or the police won’t tell them they have been arrested they can at the moment quite legitimately publish what they like within the libel laws.

Lord Justice Leveson: Used as excuse by ACPO Pic courtesy of Leveson inquiry website

Lord Justice Leveson: Used as excuse by ACPO Pic courtesy of Leveson inquiry website

The only way round this would be for the media to refer every story  that involves criminal activity to the police to check whether they thought of arresting anyone. This would amount to a police state – with the police telling editors what they could or could not publish.

This is not theoretical. At the  moment through Exaro News(http://www.exaronews.com)  a team of journalists we are involved in a very long and complicated investigation – over 40 stories so far – into an historic paedophile ring which operated partly through the London borough of Richmond and at Elm Guest House in the 1980s.

The police have arrested two people John Stingemore,  who ran Grafton Close children’s home in Richmond, and  Father Tony McSweeney, a Roman Catholic priest ,so far and are continuing investigations into other people, including highly placed VIPs, peers and MPs.

Anyone reading this blog or following Exaro  would have noticed there has been mighty little written about this two individuals since their arrest. It is not that we don’t know stuff about both of them. But we are not putting it on line because we KNOW from the police there have been arrested and we don’t want them to escape justice by wrecking a  fair trial.

But imagine we didn’t know. the whole police case  against them could collapse. No not too melodramatic.

What Acpo fail to appreciate is that investigative journalists  work like detectives. They gather information through painstaking inquiries, trace contacts from witnesses to victims and  often find out the same information  as the police about  suspects. Sometimes they are ahead, sometimes it is the police.

To decide not to announce the names of arrested suspects will in these cases be a spectacular own goal for the police. What we need is co-operation  and dialogue  not a wall of silence.

Politics of the madhouse:Lunatic law to regulate the blogosphere

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Lord Justice Leveson: Blog Regulation was outside his remit

Lord Justice Leveson: Blog Regulation was outside his remit Pic courtesy: Leveson Inquiry website

Rushed legislation is bad legislation.  Proposals in the current crime and courts bill  to extend regulation to the blogosphere at the switch of a clause without proper debate or consideration  is daft and dangerous.

I have seen the detailed clauses put down for debate when Parliament returns this month – and frankly the only use for them is to swell the already well lined pockets of m’ learned friends. Taken together they are neither use nor ornament and if they became law all they would do is spread confusion and clog the courts with hours of pointless legal argument.

The aim is to try to bring the completely unregulated blogosphere within the new  regulated press and media. The proposal was neither sought nor demanded by Lord Leveson, whose inquiry concentrated on big media. Leveson probably didn’t understand the blogosphere and as far as I know isn’t on Twitter.

The amendments tabled in the House of Lords just before the recess on March 27 can be seen here (http://bit.ly/14AyRHO). It looks as though it is in  response to a letter from a number of bloggers from Paul Staines and Tim Montgomerie to Laurance Durnan and Sunny Hundal  to the Guardian  who objected to even more drastic measures (see http://bit.ly/XTs84y ).

But I still have enormous problems with the amendment. It is still not clear whether this blog should be covered by the law or not. On the one hand  it is primarily a news blog ( should be covered then) but written by one person ( shouldn’t be covered then). It involves some editorial control – either pre moderation or post moderation of comments – depending on rules set  by WordPress.com not me.(could be covered or not depending on your view.)

I can just imagine the arguments in a courtroom between lawyers on this blog and others. What will be the definition of incidental news ( how many stories do have to have to qualify) – what happens when a subject -like the current police investigations into paedophiles becomes news (do sites that write this up become news when it is the headlines, and not news when it is not).

When is a blog like  Broken Barnet  by Mrs Angry considered a community asset (exempt) or a news blog (not exempt). What is the definition of a small blog – one of the weird Lords amendments ( is it the number of hits, unique visitors, blog followers? Or as one person has suggested is it registered for VAT and does it pass the threshold for VAT?)

The main proponents for these new controls appear to be the Media Reform Coalition who have written this blog ( see http://bit.ly/13Mgr7S ) . They appear to be a self-appointed group of academics and lawyers. Their  argument is that I  should be registered to save exemplary damages being awarded against me by the rich and powerful and to avoid paying my opponents’ legal costs.

Since this blog appeared the Media Reform Coalition have today (Thursday) launched an on line consultation and more detailed explanation of the proposed changes. Those interested can find this at http://fb.me/2z6xrP6qz 

Sunny Hundal of Liberal Conspiracy says this is not the case and there will be  three weeks of consultation to try and get un registered bloggers the same privileges as those who are registered and define properly what is a small blog. (See http://liberalconspiracy.org/2013/03/27/bloggers-to-get-three-week-consultation-on-regulation).

It remains to be seen how successgful this will be.

In the meantime  I am not swayed by the exemplary damages argument – it costs £1600 alone just to take out a libel writ at that level – so it would be beyond most people’s means. And also I suspect that many small bloggers caught in this trap wouldn’t employ lawyers – they would be become litigants in person – and clog up the courts just as the famous pair who took on Mcdonalds.  And they won’t have the money to pay the other sides legal costs anyway – so whoever took them would end up out-of-pocket themselves. The case would also become a cause celebre.

My gut feeling is to rely on the new Defamation Act – which will restrict libel cases against anyone – as the  rich and powerful will have to show the story has caused major damage – not just any damage.  I think all sides would benefit if any proposals to include blogs were dropped from the remit of the regulator – until at least there is a considered debate. As I said making law on the hoof is a disaster. You have only to look at the Dangerous Dogs Act to see this. This is the equivalent of the Dangerous Bloggers Act!

Eric Pickles: No privatisation of the fire service

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Eric Pickles: Amazing no to fire privatisation

Eric Pickles: Amazing no to fire privatisation

Eric Pickles, the communities secretary,thisweek made an extraordinary statement for a Tory Cabinet Minister. He categorically ruled out the privatisation of the fire service in England. This has not been reported in any national newspaper or TV network.

Even more extraordinarily he made this statement in a very public place in front of  some 80 journalists from the Westminster elite body of lobby hacks as guest speaker  at a Parliamentary Press Gallery lunch. And only one, the questioner, Rob Merrick, a freelance parliamentary correspondent who writes for the Northern Echo and other regionals, bothered to report it.

Evidently such a statement is not regarded as news by journalists.

Yet it is significant. Mr Merrick had spotted that the government was using some obscure measure to  amend an act passed by the Blair government in 2004 to allow the core of the fire service – the  full-time firefighters – to be privatised.

The reason they were doing it was that Cleveland fire authority wanted to become a mutual – a half way house to privatisation – but had found it was illegal. The Tories ever keen to end the state look like ready to oblige.

First Mr Pickles denied that the government was going to privatise the fire service only encourage mutuals. But Mr Merrick came back and said the same change in the law could permit privatisation as well as mutuals. The in an extraordinary statement Mr Pickles said: ” If this is the case we won’t go ahead with the change. I repeat there will no privatisation of the fire service.” So he seemed to suggest that even Cleveland’s mutual plan could be dead in the water.

To me this was extraordinary . First one of the big privatisers in government had actually ruled out full-scale privatisation – not a normal statement from the Tory right.

Second the press -even on the old man bites dog scenario – thought this didn’t  merit any attention.

I know that no privatisation does not equate to no cuts – see what is happening in London and elsewhere now- and it does not stop some of the services being run by private companies. But it seemed that a very senior Tory had decided that they could not turn the whole system over to the private sector. Perhaps the Assetco scandal in London has made its mark. Perhaps they have decided that it is not worth a full-scale dispute between them and the Fire Brigades Union, led by Matt Wrack. But whatever a Rubicon was crossed and nobody reported it. But now he can held to account.

Huhne and Pryce: Eastenders for the chattering classes

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Chris Huhne: Picture courtesy telegraph blogs

Chris Huhne: Picture courtesy telegraph blogs

The  fall out from the jailing of former Cabinet minister Chris Huhne and his ex-wife government economist Vicky Pryce is almost too absurd to behold.

Acres of press coverage is being given to the plight of the pair with Fleet Street’s finest excelling themselves on the unfair treatment of the unfortunate duo now residing at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in Wandsworth and Holloway gaols.

In my view this sad and tragic affair had a just and proportionate outcome. Yes, it is wrong for someone to be jailed for taking someone else’s penalty points. But it is not wrong to be jailed, whoever you are, for perverting the course of justice to try to cover it up.

Chris Huhne who lied from the outset and cost the taxpayer a lot of wasted money knew the consequences. And Vicky Pryce, the woman scorned, who tried to revive an outdated medieval defence as a  “clever, clever ” device to exact revenge on her  husband.

Both are highly intelligent people and  it is a tragedy for politics and Whitehall that we have  lost two capable people who do contribute, whatever your views, to public life. It looks like a personal and public tragedy for their children.

But some of the comments have been off the wall. Simon Jenkins piece in The Guardian yesterday. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/12/huhne-pryce-jailing-inability-punish-public-failings)  where he described the jailing as a sort of mob rule revenge to appease the working classes was almost off the Richter scale in its perversity. If you don’t like Huhne’s grasp of politics, you punish him at the ballot box not in the courts. Then there was last night’s Evening Standard article – a portrait of Vicky Pryce (http://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/friends-of-vicky-pryce-fear-for-her-health-shes-not-a-hardbitten-monster-prison-could-break-her-8532385.html) where the author quoted people saying the judge was a misogynist for suggesting that Vicky Pryce had been manipulative in organising her revenge through the Sunday Times.

Then they were the Guardian and Channel Four ” mea culpa” interviews with Chris Huhne  – one given according to the Standard to the journalist best man at his wedding. What next?  The creation of a Huhne concerto by piano playing Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger to commemorate the event or an Anna Wintour fashion show to raise cash for Vicky Pryce’s convalescence.

Vicky Pryce: picture courtesy Guardian

Vicky Pryce: picture courtesy Guardian

Obviously there is a craving among the chattering classes  to follow this soap opera. May I suggest that some budding dramatist puts all this to rest.  Perhaps Nicholas Hytner should get the National Theatre to commission a contemporary play contrasting the hubris of Westminster life with the downfall over a speeding ticket. It is has got everything – sex, power, a scorned woman, and macho driving.. It would be better than putting all this energy into a brilliant production of a revived 1930s German comedy, Captain Kopenik, which is rather irrelevant to modern British society. And Anthony Sher might make a good Chris Huhne.

No matter. My main point is that this is a distraction. While all these goes on thousands of people are being forced to move house because of cruel government policies, there is an epidemic of unsolved child abuse cases and the NHS appears to have let patients die unnecessarily on an epic scale.

Literally While Huhne fiddles Britain burns.

Child abuse investigation propels site to over 200,000 hits in 3 years

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Just a service note to say the number of hits on this website has exceeded 200,000 since it was launched just over three years ago.

The recent momentum has been propelled by the investigation into child abuse at the Elm Guest House in Richmond,London where a team of reporters based at Exaro News (http://www.exaronews.com) have been starting to unravel this enormous historic scandal. Most of the stories into the child abuse have attracted between 1500 and 3000 hits. The only higher ones include some of the investigations into the privatisation of the London fire brigade, Brian Coleman, the demise of NHS Direct, and the very disturbing report into strip searching of women and bad treatment of gays at Gatwick Airport.

Thanks to all the people reading this non-profit making site and for supporting genuine investigative journalism.

Discovered: The idyllic St Lucia hideaway of Amy Winehouse

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Moonrise at Cas en Bas beach, Cotton Bay

Moonrise at Cas en Bas beach, Cotton Bay

If you want some peace and quiet, sun, sand and some luxury, I can recommend a week on the island of St Lucia.

I have just returned from a stay there ( No I did not disappear, Dan Hodges,  into a nineteenth century opium den,(see http://bit.ly/XM83jx).  But digesting the horrors of Leveson and midway through a long disturbing investigation into a historic paedophile scandal requires a break.

The hotel chosen by my wife, Margaret, from a Sovereign holiday brochure, proved to be a great find –  remarkable oasis of calm and privacy – and yet extraordinary spacious and comfortable – and by no means the most expensive venue there.

While many hotels are crammed into massive noisy resorts – this one was tucked away alongside a wild and semi deserted public beach where horses cantered along the shore with the local youth  demonstrating their bareback riding skills on Sundays.

Cotton bay; The main pool

Cotton bay; The main pool

The Cotton Bay hotel (http://www.cottonbayvillage.com) consists entirely of villas and apartments,  two restaurants, one attached to a bar on the beach and the other, Piano,Piano, an up market one with a resident pianist; a superb pool, good facilities for kids, a spa, and for the very energetic (unlike me) kite surfing. Built next to a mangrove swamp, part of this had been preserved with the result that the night resounded to myriad frogs calling their mates.

It's a dogs life on holiday

It’s a dogs life on holiday

But its charm was that this piece of unashamed 21st century luxury was alongside  the rest of the  Cas en Bas beach – a very public place where families drove the odd car down for a beach party, dogs were welcome to roam (unlike England) following you on hikes and anyone could bathe in the warm Atlantic ocean.

What caught me off guard was when a local driver taking tourists on a trip to see the remnants of  St Lucia’s rainforest (the colonial Brits chopped down rather a lot of it) and I mentioned Cotton Bay and he said ” You’re staying with the celebs then”.

As I knew neither Dan Hodges, Rupert Murdoch or even Barnet’s local celeb Mrs Angry had been staying there, I wondered who.

It turned out that Amy Winehouse had rented a rather large villa there for six months ( being a journo I checked this out with the hotel manager) and had also committed a remarkable feat of generosity by giving £4000 to a local coconut seller so he could have a hernia operation. See the tale in The Mirror (http://bit.ly/Y7gXUF ) and it appears to be true and happened on the beach! The good news -from another  taxi driver – is that the Chinese are building a new public hospital at Castres, the capital.

The hotel had many plus points. we were on half board and could dine at either restaurant and if we had  three meals, they only charged us for the cheapest one. We had one complimentary spa treatment  between us and they did not charge us for the most expensive treatment.

The ground floor apartment was more than spacious with its own kitchen, sitting room and two bathrooms ( we appear to have been upgraded!)

Cas-en-Bas beach looking towards the bar

Cas-en-Bas beach looking towards the bar

Bad points – if you were going self catering, the shop had only limited supplies, though they did run a complimentary bus service three times a week to a local shopping mall. Also it was a long way from the main road where there are cheap bus services and it would have been far too hot to walk there. Taxis, car hire  and tourist trips are expensive though the rain forest trip on an aerial tram was breathtaking.

Probably the most bizarre story there was that at one stage the forest was occupied by Zimbabwean refugee Rastafarians, who started chopping down parts of it for firewood and introduced a new species, cannabis sativa, into the forest. Our tour guide, a trained lawyer, said they had been moved and some Norfolk pines had been imported from Cuba to fill the gaps. Anything can happen in the Caribbean.

My Blog in 2012

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

This blog was viewed about 82,000 times in 2012. This modest jump takes the total number of hits to over 167,000 since it was launched three years ago – meaning the number of hits increased by nearly a quarter in a year. As revealed in the full report from WordPress the most heavily read blog was the one disclosing that NHS Direct was facing near oblivion after losing out to GP’s co-operatives and private profit making companies. This has attracted 5400 views – 3560 on one day – just 44 short of  an all time time record for this site.

The second biggest hit was the official inspector’s report disclosing strip searching of women at Gatwick Airport and the humiliation of gay people by border and customs staffs. this attracted 3839 hits and is still regularly getting traffic.

Two of the other big hits are about scandals in the privatisation of the London fire services  and the Whitehall tax scam which  earned me Political Journalist of the Year this year.

Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude turned out to be the sixth most popular read in 2012 at 2,549 on the tale of how he was always late paying his utility bills and  service charges on his Kennington flat – even though the taxpayer was picking up the tab.

Finally thanks to Twitter, Guido Fawkes,Facebook, the London FBU and Liberal Conspiracy as top referrers to this site. and also to the indefatigable Mrs Angry from Barnet for making the most comments, always noisy and always right!

Click here to see the complete report.

Exclusive: Police re-open investigation into London political paedo ring

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Elm-Guest-House (1)

ELm House Guest House,Barnes as it is now : Picture courtesy: Exaro News

Exaro News ( http://www.exaronews.com) today reveals that for the last two months the police have secretly been scoping a new investigation into senior politicians and their involvement in a paedophile ring, involving  under age boys, that took place in the 1980s.

This is separate to the current Operation Yewtree  investigation into Jimmy Savile and other celebrities, which mainly involves under age girls.

They are looking again at a raid that took place in 1982 on a  guest house in Barnes, south London, which appeared to be being used as a gay brothel and was frequented by prominent figures including, I am told, ministers, Tory MPs, a Liberal MP and two Labour Mps. Under age boys in  the care  of Richmond council and other local authorities were  visiting or staying at the guest house.

The inquiry-under the title Operation Fairbank – will also examine whether there was a cover up which meant that the Met Police at the time and when complaints about it resurfaced twenty years later  never followed up the investigation. Nobody was ever charged with any offence, even though the place had been raided and people bundled into police cars.

The place – 27, Rocks Lane  in Barnes – is now a very respectable and none of the people living there now having to do with events when it was the Elm House guest house between 1979 and 1982.

Exaro News was put on to this inquiry by a former Richmond Council official and trade unionist and we took him to give evidence to the police who were already investigating similar allegations passed to Tom Watson, the Labour MP. He raised the issue of the 1980s paedo ring in the Commons.

Exaro News will be covering this scandal over the next few days, starting today, and are still investigating, these, and other more serious allegations in other parts of the country. I shall be blogging in more   detail about the difficulties facing the police in handling such a difficult and fraught investigation.

Suffice to say anybody who believes that Tom Watson has raised this issue for pure political gain and this is  a fabricated story better  think again very carefully. I know it has very wide ramifications and could  lead to a scandal even bigger than the hacking inquiry.

My Political Journalist of the Year Award: Praise be the Whitehall moles

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Revealed: My secret source in Whitehall Pic Credit:BBC

Revealed: My secret source in Whitehall Pic Credit:BBC

Today I am really thrilled to win Political Journalist of  the Year Press Gazette awards for Exaro News -award  last night.

But the real tribute should go to a couple of fearless Whitehall moles who put me on the trail of the story  of massive tax avoidance at the heart of Whitehall.

While journalists must never reveal  their sources, there is at least one good tip from this for journos pursuing questionable deals done in Whitehall.

And it came from first source. He was the originator of the suggestion that senior people in Whitehall had set up  highly complicated arrangements to avoid paying any tax and national insurance. And he had heard a rumour  that one of the most grotesque examples was a recent appointment to the top job at the Students Loan Company. A left of centre character who firmly believed in the ethos of public service  he was worried that Whitehall was being corrupted by the widespread tax avoidance. We now know it is rife.

But rather than leak information which breaks the Whitehall rules we devised a different strategy. Between us we drafted a targeted freedom of information request to the Student loans Company and Vince Cable’s Department for Business  which would make it very difficult for either department to deny. During our meetings at various hostelries across London – I won’t divulge his favourite malt  in case the Whitehall thought police try to trace him- we developed the story.

Sure enough after a suitable interval back came some 60 pages of complicated e-mail traffic between Bis, the Student Loans Company, the Cabinet Office and more surprising, the outside advice from private management consultants – one paper was volunteered because they were worried we would distort their opinions – and even letters from Revenue and Customs approving the arrangement. We spent further hours  at certain hostelries analysing the results which were far worse than he thought. We spent much more time chasing up every conceivable angle before Exaro and BBC Newsnight  were ready to go with the tale.

The result was immediate. Ed Lester, the head of the Student Loans Company, had his tax arrangement stopped and Danny Alexander, chief secretary to the Treasury who had personally approved his salary had to admit he didn’t even spot the tax avoidance. He ordered a Whitehall wide inquiry.

But it was not all over.  The inquiry identified 2500 civil servants on similar deals. But had they gone too far? Enter a new mole from another part of Whitehall.  Seeing Danny Alexander’s letter to George Osborne he was furious. He felt Alexander had caught too many in his net, including genuine freelances  having bona fide reasons for working this way. This guy, a mischievous right of centre social libertarian character who enjoy’s Guido Fawkes blog, decided the world should know before Danny had a chance. Hence another story for Exaro News and BBC Newsnight.

One might feel sorry for Danny – damned if he doesn’t, damned if he does. Except of course while we all suffer his cuts  paradoxically he has never been so wealthy in his life as a Cabinet minister. And he has lots of  dinners with his chum. George Osborne.

Good for him though in ordering the inquiry. But the greatest thing of all is that he couldn’t cover this up even if he wanted to – thanks to the use of freedom of information. No wonder Jack Straw and Tony Blair now regret giving the public and journos the chance to find out what is really going on government.

The bonkers logic of “Life of Brian” Leveson

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Lord Justice Leveson: Bonkers logic

Lord Justice Leveson: Bonkers logic

Now I have been given carte blanche by the Leveson inquiry to write what I want on blogs without any regulation I am going to take full advantage with some tough words for this judge on his lack of logic.

Like Lord Hutton before him who exonerated Labour over Iraq his report exonerates the current great and good in government and the media bosses from blame for the current crisis. Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, is cleared of bias over Murdoch;  News International’s Rebekah Brooks of undue lobbying of Cameron over the McCann inquiry or anything else; Cameron and his government of any  favours deal with the  Murdochs and the police of widespread corruption. Cameron can be trusted to introduce reforms to make sure  public perception is changed.

But go further into this report – see http://www.exaronews.com today.  Go to Volume Four and Appendix Five – and get one of the most devastating critiques of the incestuous relationship between top politicians and the media I have ever read from a High Court judge in my 26 years of political journalism.

Unlike Hutton he really puts the boot in. Here and I quote he attacks what he calls the ” inappropriate  closeness” between media bosses and successive governments not just now – but for over 35 years. Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown and Cameron are all indicted in a damning charge sheet.

He baldly states “ politicians have conducted themselves in a way that I do consider has not served the public interest”.

He accuses them of being vulnerable to unaccountable interests, missing clear opportunities to address  public concern about the culture, practices and ethics of the press and  seeking “ to control ( if not manipulate) the supply of news and information to the public in return for expected or hoped-for favourable treatment by sections of the press.”

He concluded that all this gave rise to “legitimate perceptions and concerns that politicians and the press have traded power and influence in ways which are contrary to the public interest and out of public sight. These perceptions and concerns are inevitably particularly acute in relation to the conduct by politicians of public policy issues in relations to the press itself.”

Now where does he get that view. By page 1971  as a good judge he cites his sources. And guess who gets reams of footnotes, one, Rebekah Brooks, from the McCann inquiry to Brown ,Blair and Cameron – the very person in the main part of the report is absolved from dirty deals!

Perhaps I have misread this million word treatise –  Brian Leveson is  actually auditioning for a Monty Python script or to help revive Bremner, Bird and Fortune for Channel Four.

His other glaring lack of logic is the treatment of the internet as of no consequence. I have a sneaking suspicion he thinks the internet is tun by techy teenage geeks playing war games and mad loud mouths. In fact it is now becoming a powerful antidote and rival to the dead tree press as a forum for discussion and breaking news. The battle for future generation politics is being fought  between Owen Jones and Harry Cole  on-line every day.  And there would be no way this small one man blog would get 158,000 plus hits in less than three years if the internet has been ineffectual.

On the main issue of  regulation or no regulation, I am reserving judgement. My heart is with those who argue that a free press is just that, a free press. My head is revolted by the despicable practices of some of the tabloid bosses who may well now go to prison. I applaud  the idea of a journalist’s conscience clause and his views on treatment of women and people from ethnic minorities and a new  arbitration service that will give justice to Joe Public as well multi-millionaires. But I want to see what this new press act will look like before going down the road to statutory backing. Let debate begin.