The Manchester Evening News has a regular slot in the paper where they get a number of MPs to write an opinion column on topical issues of their choice. This week just happened to be my turn, so I thought that I would comment on the eagerly awaited Leveson report, due out on Thursday.
For those of you who don’t know, the MEN is owned by Trinity Mirror, and along with other major newspaper groups, are totally opposed to independent regulation of the press. They claim that regulation will be the end of freedom of expression. How ironic then, that the …
Anthony Barnett (Our Kingdom), Sunny Hundal (Liberal Conspiracy), Mark Pack (Lib Dem Voice) & Will Straw (IPPR) write…
July 2011 will be remembered as one of those rare moments where the nation came together in shared outrage and disgust. The hacking of Milly Dowler shocked the country and led to a series of unprecedented events which would have seemed inconceivable just weeks before. The drama culminated in the resignation and arrest of several News International executives and senior police officers; the termination of a 168-year old national newspaper; and the appearance of a humbled Rupert Murdoch before a public hearing.
Uniquely perhaps, I was a victim of the News of the World’s private investigator, Glen Mulcaire, when I was a senior police officer at New Scotland Yard, working along the corridor from the officers who conducted the first phone hacking inquiry in 2002. But they never told me I was victim.
It was only a couple of years ago when my solicitor received a call from a Guardian journalist, that I knew Mulcaire had my name and mobile phone number in his notebook.
To US liberals, he’s something of a hero; to conservatives he’d be a bête noire if they could stomach the use of a foreign label. Jon Stewart’s satirical The Daily Show has become a cultural institution in America (and something of a cult hit here) because of the host’s pin-sharp riffs against politicians and the media.
And what better, more deserving, target could there be than News International’s conservative polemical shock-jock channel, Fox News? Jon Stewart recently agreed to go toe-to-toe with Chris Wallace, one of its more intelligent interviewers.
The result is a vigorous and surprisingly nuanced 15-minute debate, which touches on issues just as relevant to the UK — especially the 24×7 news media’s destructive sensationalising of issues needing balance, regardless of whether their agenda is driven by liberals or conservatives. In the light of this week’s Milly Dowler case, or the recent character assasination of Christopher Jefferies, it’s more important than ever.
Richard Flowers Dear Rebecca,
It is you who gives me hope and lets me take Pride.
Thanks to your tireless work, and other members of the Plus committee and community, you�...
George Thomas Have just come from the latest post discussing Welsh Lib Dems struggles to a post regarding better transport. Does this mean support for retrospective funding f...
Tristan Ward “Let’s start by arguing that the economic benefits of the Single Market far exceed having to accept freedom of movement into the UK, and take it from there....
Chloe 'Needless to say the poorest in British society paid the price for this'
I remember canvassing , the poorer the area the less interested they were. Membership ...
GWYN WILLIAMS A balanced and fair assessment of the Senedd campaign. Unlike in Scotland, Wales has not as yet polarised into for and against Independence camps. The Welsh Lib...
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Richard Flowers 
George Thomas 
Tristan Ward 
Chloe 
GWYN WILLIAMS 