I sent an email to my local MP (Daniel Poulter) outlining my support for the general recommendations and findings of the Leveson Report and arguing, no doubt quite pompously, that there was no intellectual rationale to the arguments that statutory underpinning would necessarily inhibit press freedom.
If we were ever in the catastrophic position where a government (elected or otherwise) wished to actively curtail press freedom, the existence or otherwise of a statutory framework for regulation would be of little or no consequence to the potential outcome. I’m guessing we’d also have quite a lot of other pressing issues with which to deal if such a situation did arise.
I also suggested that the kind of obfuscation, duplicity and backtracking that David Cameron has exhibited on this particular topic is precisely the type of behaviour that is driving so many away from engaging in any kind of political activity. I got what was clearly a standard ‘party line’ response full of the obfuscation, duplicity and backtracking that I had complained about in the original email. Oh the irony! There was a time it took more than an ability to mimic a parrot to become an MP.