Spectator magazine declares itself ready to defy Leveson
The Spectator magazine has become the first major publication to declare that it stands ready to defy Leveson and break the law if state regulation of the press arises as an outcome of today’s report into media oversight.
In an editorial published in today’s edition of the mag its editor Fred Nelson vowed he would rather go to prison than go against the principle of being free from government control, saying: “If the press agrees a new form of self-regulation... we will happily take part. But we would not sign up to anything enforced by government.
“If such a group is constituted we will not attend its meetings, pay its fines nor heed its menaces. We would still obey the (other) laws of the land. But to join any scheme which subordinates press to Parliament would be a betrayal of what this paper has stood for since its inception in 1828.
“The Prime Minister is, at heart, a pragmatist and will realise that statutory regulation of the press would achieve very little - save to crush an ancient liberty that has survived every one of his predecessors.”
The Spectator is widely respected as the oldest continuously published English weekly and is owned by Press Holdings Ltd, which also publishes the Daily Telegraph.