It appears that 65,000 have signed the petition on the Hacked Off website in favour of the British press being subject to state control. What this proves is that Britain contains a lot of morons who cannot see beyond the end of their nose, and are blindly condemning this country to a neutered press.

This group, probably have been led by emotions brought on by the sight of various celebs whining about intrusion by a media without which such a thing as a ‘celeb’ wouldn’t exist, and the McCann’s** and others shroud-waving about their undoubted and sometimes proven, ill-treatment by the Press.

This 65,000 strong posse of the short-sighted, cannot see that by supporting state control of the press, they are condemning their children and grandchildren to a world where journalists have to think before following up any potential story, thoughts like ‘would the government like this, or would XYZ pressure group like this?’ That to me doesn’t sound much like a free press to me, that sounds like something that wouldn’t be out-of-place in the former East Germany.

But, but, I hear the chorus of Lefty mouth-breathers cry, this is Britain, we have a responsible parliamentary middle of the road government, overt censorship won’t happen. However, here is my ‘but’, can you imagine what, for example, a future extremist Labour government would do with such a press control law. The various parasitical government-funded pressure groups (that Labour encouraged to grow with taxpayers money) would constantly badger the press with threats of legal action causing journalists to stay away from stories about certain subjects, or cover them in a non threatening way.  This would turn the press into little more than Government propaganda mouthpieces.  

Would you want to see a press that was forbidden to discuss or publicise the problems of excessive immigration, or a press that refused to report problems with the NHS, or crime figures that would embarrass the government?

Would the widespread problems of Islamic Grooming Gangs that seem to operate with impunity in some of this countries ‘Labour One-Party-States’ have been highlighted if some Leftist/Islamic group could have used legal measures to spike these stories?

I believe that under state press control none of these stories would have come to light, and I believe that when people think coolly and carefully about this matter, then they may not want this sort of neutered press either.

Of course there are problems with the press, but there is no need for any new and novel restrictions on press freedom. All the misdemeanour’s and crimes that the press have committed are punishable under existing laws. There is no need to have new legislation on this matter. There is sufficient means to punish miscreants in the media, what went wrong was these laws were not applied.

Yes, the press has behaved in a bit of a scummy way, but I’d rather have my press a bit scummy but free rather than responsible and shackled in immutable chains wrought by the very politicians and others, who have the most to fear from a free press.

To conclude, I’ve not been totally enamored of David Cameron’s performance as Prime Minister, but I definitely support him standing up to the whines of special interest groups such as Hacked Off, and hope that he will not be the first PM in centuries to curtail the press.  

* For my non British readers, the word ‘Divvy’ means a stupid or foolish person.

**Note: The McCann’s were the subject of not only a terrible tragedy but also untrue press speculation, for which I empathise, but I do feel they are being used by Leftist advocates of state press control in order to push the idea. People have an emotional response to the McCanns, which is understandable, but that emotional response should not decide the future of press freedom.