The Can Of Worms That Is Leveson
Shami Chakrabarti would not generally be considered a friend of newspapers and big business, as she is the director of Liberty.
But read this article on the BBC’s web site about her views on Leveson. She feels that any legislation on the press as posed by the enquiry could get entangled in the Human Rights Act.
The Anonymous Widower 
It’s a bit of a mess. Both Cameron and Milliband knee-jerked and gave their (opposite) opinions of the way forwards. Both I suspect are regretting what they said without looking in more detail at what is being proposed. I have read the detail of what is being proposed, but I believe that the press should be free to print whatever they want and that there should be laws that protect individuals and companies from actions by any person, company or organisation that are libellous, slanderous, defamatory, or an intrusion of privacy. Newspapers, journalists, radio & TV stations, internet sites, tweeters, bloggers, social network users, authors and individuals should all be subject to the same law. If these laws need strengthening, as they appear to, then they should be. The law should be accessible to all and so many of these illegal activities may need to be crimes prosecutable by the state.
Levenson should have produced a summary of his recommendations running to no more than 10 pages that we could all have read and understood. Without it he has managed to create some unlikely bedfellows.
Comment by John Wright | December 2, 2012 |