David Blunkett warns MPs against regulating the press

David Blunkett, the former Home Secretary, has has his private life in the newspapers often enough to yearn, Hugh Grant-style, for a world where the press is not free but obliged to operate within parameters outlined by the government. But I’ve interviewed him for Radio Four’s Week in Westminster (it airs at 11am this morning) ahead of next week’s Leveson report and he has come out against the idea state-mandated regulation.

It was an unusual discussion: the supposedly illiberal Blunkett, himself a compensated victim of hacking was defending press freedom. A Tory, Nadhim Zahawi, was urging David Cameron to act.

As a former Home Secretary, Blunkett’s words carry some weight. He wants change, mainly a stronger Press Complaints Commission

‘I think we all want a complete transformation of what currently is the PCC  so that it actually does have teeth so it can provide redress. I would like it not just to mediate but to able to make a judgment where the particular journal publication won’t play ball, and I’d like proper compensation.