Nice, decently-argued answer Cyclops. Pleasure to deal with you mate.
And too long a fucking answer from me. Late at night, that's why.
I'm only nitpicking through this to try and pin down exactly what we might agree/disagree on, not to try and catch you out or anything.
I agree, the fact it's 'statute' is irrelevant - the fact that, rather than attempting to apply laws that already exist more effectively, the possibility is that the government will have a body responsible for enforcing specific practices is what scares me. You're right, there is no reason we should fear it more than any other sort of regulation of the press, and I fear all kinds equally.
First bold: remember that it's not just criminal law, but also civil law that is is play here. And there's rarely any legal aid for civil cases. If someone gets all run over by the newspapers for whatever (let's assume it's a bad) reason then they have to identify there's a problem, seek advice, pay for it, chase the case, put themselves even more in the public eye for doing so, go through all the pretrial stuff, witness statements, court appearances, all his stuff running on for maybe years - they might have already lost their jobs/wives/property because of newspaper reporting and are more-or-less powerless to protect themselves. Sure, the rich can afford to sue for libel, but the libel law isn't that great here and now and even if it gets improved it's probably not going to get improved enough for the average Joe to take on the Sun.
Key question - If you were Chris Jeffries (or in the olden days, Timothy Evans) - what the fuck could you have done about it? Nothing, that's what. And your name is still all over Google. Even now.
Now part of the argument is that the police (which I rather hope is in the control of somebody sensible, but it often seems not) should not have released this to the press. But another part is that the press, being given it should not have drawn four-page-splash conclusions and conducted their own 'investigation'. There are plenty of good and acceptable arguments that the press should feed the police. There are not very many the other way round. And whatever regulation is in place needs to ensure the Bribery Act stuff is properly controlled in the press.
Second bold: It's not a matter of whether the "government will have" a body responsible etc etc. Well, except for what the Act actually says. Whatever body it is doesn't have to be responsible to the Government. It certainly shouldn't be responsible to a committee of newspaper editors IMHO, but it might as well be responsible to an executive agency (too expensive, too pressurisable), to a judicial appointment (maybe too cosy, or even costly), to an independent elected body, to anything APART from Parliamentary select committees. For example, you could rotate supervision around the Magistrates Courts of the country on a 6-monthly basis and still have something way more sensible than now even without more regulation.
Third bold: I don't. I've seen quite enough of newspapers shaking up the private lives of ordinary citizens without suitable justification or recompense (yeah right, your name and photo splatted all over page 1 in the local editions when accused of something, you lose your job, get remembered by everyone locally you apply for a job to) and your acquittal is mentioned briefly at the bottom of page 5 once on a Wednesday - that's sure going to work, thanks PCC).
That the 'establishment' (I don't like that term, it sounds way too tin-hattish, but I think it's appropriate here) have repeatedly had their noses bent out of shape by the press but have not quite had the gaul to try and regulate them before means very little to whether I'd support regulation of the press now. There's a great deal wrong with what the press does now - and it's almost all illegal already. All these attempts to 'fix' the problem ignore the fact that the police not only turned a blind eye to it all, but were actively complicit in the whole shebang. The people that are meant to uphold the law failed abysmally to do so - I do not feel that the solution to that is simply trying to regulate the body that broke the law.
First bold: "gall"
Second bold: It's almost all illegal, but it is not almost all legally addressible - again we are talking two things here: (1) criminal law, which should be done by the police but is probably not going to be if it were the police that were suborned (there's a political tactic here - do you criminalise the corrupt policeman or the corrupting pressman? The answer should be both, the answer in practice is neither because each has protection that the rest of us do not have). And that's wrong too. (2) Civil law, where the rich and influential and sponsored and insured have resources that the rest of us do not have. And that's wrong too.
One law for them, whoever they are. One for us, whoever we are (and we know whoever we are only when it happens).
You're putting a somewhat alarming degree of faith in an institution that routinely fucks up everything from IT systems to defence procurement. The path to hell is paved with good intentions, and you don't have to be a cheerleader of hacking into murder victims phones to believe that, of the two evils, having a press with even the smallest chance of not being allowed a voice when it's really needed is worse by some degree than the exploits presented at Leveson.
Well, to start with (as you know) it's the
content, rather than the fact of any legislation that makes the difference.
But given that. Our governments have of course routinely mucked up on defence procurement (since probably the 1550s) and on IT procurement (probably since about IT was invented) - because governments are bad at procuring things the world over - they all think they can negotiate a good contract because it is big and long, none of them have the commercial experience to realise that is the worst fucking way to negotiate a contract. Probably Civil Service fault rather than government, but they do seem remarkably blind to shot-term cashflow (perhaps because their borrowing is a bit too easy).
Bolded: I think we may be in different camps here. If you really think the routinely wayward traducing of innocent citizens day by day is worth the extraordinary slim possibility of turning up an important parliamentary scandal that's already 30 years old and should have been and apparently has been noticed already by everyone in the press radio and televisions, and apparently has been suppressed in view of their relationships with the political parties. Then yeah, you my have a point.
I think the press needs freedom.
I think one of the things the press most needs is freedom
from is its incestuous relationship with the political parties.
I think the best way of achieving that is through statute.
Very rarely are great, autocratic powers swept in with the passing of a single bit of legislation. It tends to happen, bit by bit, with the word of the law being altered and reinterpreted. Once on the books, a statutory regulation body would only ever go in one direction. If the best hope we have of it never being abused is the honesty and good will of our politicians, I don't think that's a risk I want to take, but I don't believe for a second that our motley gang of morons in parliament are capable of competently regulating a media system to perfectly walk the line of protecting people but not stopping stories - which will often be about the very people writing the regulation - coming out. I refuse to believe they're capable of doing such a job.
We're really talking about who's cynical about what here. But you'd
trust Fleet Street?
