The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

THE LAST DITCH

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Our enemies are circling

Published by Tom

on

Phone hacking scandal: enemies of free press are circling – Telegraph.

Andrew Gilligan, on the Daily Telegraph website, nails the very point I have been pursuing here:

…hateful as the behaviour of some journalists has been, we may now face something even worse. For many in power, or previously in power, the News of the World's crimes are a God-given opening to diminish one of the greatest checks on that power: the media…

…The "journalistic culture" Campbell has spent the past 10 years complaining about is not newspapers that have invaded people's privacy – but newspapers that have been too unkind to important public servants such as himself.

A carefully-timed campaign this week launched missiles of elderly data at the public with shiny new warheads in the shape of the Milly Dowler/military widows revelations. I would love to know how long those warheads were stockpiled before launch. The aim of this attack was clearly to destroy News International's chances of challenging the BBC News political line. On that, the dust has yet to settle. I fear the collateral damage to press freedom and to political accountability will soon become clear.

3 responses to “Our enemies are circling”

  1. Trooper Thompson Avatar
    Trooper Thompson

    Yes, this is what I’ve been trying to verbalise. I’ve heard politicians saying things like ‘now power is back in our hands, we no longer will live in fear of the press’, and red lights are flashing in my head.
    A kind of myth is being erected, that the press has acted like some kind of shadowy overlord. In truth the power of Parliament has shrunk, but not because of the press, but because Parliament has ceded sovereignty to other bodies, most notably the EU, and been lazy and cowardly in holding the executive to account.

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  2. Phaesi Avatar
    Phaesi

    I smell a rat, and it isn’t all the wrong doings of the journos,there’s more behind it methinks. It worries me when newspapers are forced to close down. It is a freedom of speech issue, the freedom to not agree, and to go against the status quo. Even when things get grubby, we can protest, but not to obliterate. That has the stench of the gulag.

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  3. Phaesi Avatar
    Phaesi

    Goodbye News of the World, don’t go in peace, rise like a Phoenix from the ashes of political correctness and smug self righteous hypocrisy

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Tom is a retired international lawyer. He was a partner in a City of London law firm and spent almost twenty years abroad serving clients from all over the world.

Returning to London on retirement in 2011, he was dismayed to discover how much liberty had been lost in the UK while he was away.

He’s a classical liberal (libertarian, if you must) who, like his illustrious namesake, considers that

“…government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”

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