Leveson Vote - Press Losing It

If anyone needed to know that today’s series of Commons votes on a series of amendments to the Data Protection Bill was likely to be close, our free and fearless press, along with their obedient hangers-on, have demonstrated this by winding up the panic meter to the very maximum. While campaign group Hacked Off just keeps on lobbying, the press establishment has taken to banshee-level screaming.

This can be seen to excellent effect at the Murdoch Sun, which has once again devoted its editorial to defending the status quo, where the press barons get to break the law and generally crap all over the little people without fear of being called to account. “We must protect the free Press to save investigative journalism and hundreds of newspapers … The only winners if the Data Protection Bill amendment is passed will be crooked politicians, tycoons and celebrities”, they tell. Sounds like their kinds of people, then.

But just how desperate the Murdoch goons are today is not in doubt as they howl “THE two most self-serving, cynical and downright shameful pieces of legislation of modern times … a jaw-droppingly blatant and probably illegal attempt to shut down newspapers”.

There was more: “Investigative journalism would be axed overnight”. Er, it already has been at the Sun. And still the lies come: “the Press is fighting for life in a totally new media landscape dominated by Facebook and Google, that it has changed its practices entirely and has a new regulator, IPSO, far more potent than any before it”. IPSO is merely the PCC, er, fluid in a differently labelled bottle. No practices have been changed.

And then they claim “If these amendments go ahead, the rest of the civilised world will regard Britain with horror”. For completing the Leveson Inquiry, as Young Dave promised, and providing properly independent press regulation? Er, no.

The Murdoch mafiosi have even got John Whittingdale to fraudulently ask “Do you want the Government to control what is in your newspaper?” and claim that sham press non-regulator IPSO is “fully independent”, a lie blatant even by his standards.

Whitto then shamelessly tells “I too bear the scars of having had tabloid press stories written about my private life”, without mentioning that the press was holding back many of those stories because his presence as Culture Secretary was useful to them.

And just how desperate and panicked the press establishment has become can be seen as the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog obediently carry out their instructions, howling “Tonight the Commons votes on Tom Watson and Ed Miliband’s amendments declaring war on press freedom. The amendments are a Trump-style assault on the media”. And there is the usual rubbish being peddled.

Like “Hacked Off’s press-hating millionaire celebrities and oligarchs … Watson and Miliband’s personal loathing of the free press”, along with the threat “Any MP who votes for their amendments tonight is an enemy of press freedom”. The Great Guido has even claimed “Miliband Smears Free Press Ahead Of Tonight’s Vote”.

But then, they and their press pals know all about smearing others. No change there, then.