MPs and peers line up to oppose state regulation of the press
A cross party group of over 80 MPs and peers have signed an open letter to the guardian and Daily Telegraph imploring the government not to go down the route of state regulation of the press – even if Lord Justice Leveson recommends it in his report, due to be published on Thursday.
The group is calling for a beefed up self-regulatory system to be implemented instead and has recruited some big-hitters such as former home secretary David Blunkett and Olympics chairman Lord Coe to hammer home the point.
This puts them at odds with a group of 40 Tory MPs who've gone against their ideology to earlier state their support for some form of state regulation.
Prime Minister David Cameron is publicly sitting on the fence for the time being, saying that he will assess the report when he gets hold of his copy at lunchtime today, 24 hours ahead of the rest of us.
At present the media are self-regulated through the Press Complaints Commission but this was widely held to have failed in its remit following the phone hacking scandal.
The letter states: “As parliamentarians, we believe in free speech and are opposed to the imposition of any form of statutory control even if it is dressed up as underpinning.
"No form of statutory regulation of the press would be possible without the imposition of state licensing - abolished in Britain in 1695. State licensing is inimical to any idea of press freedom and would radically alter the balance of our unwritten constitution.
"There are also serious concerns that statutory regulation of the print media may shift the balance to the digital platforms which, as recent events have shown through the fiasco of Newsnight-Twitter, would further undermine the position of properly moderated and edited print journalism."