Hacked Off says press damages plan is a mistake

So the latest twist in the surreal saga of statutory regulation of the press is that the campaign group which had unparalleled access to the three parties hammering out a settlement in the silent watches of the night now thinks there’s been a terrible mistake. Whoops! Hacked Off has put out a statement this afternoon which says the amendments to the Crime and Courts Bill approved by MPs on Monday night contain ‘an accident in the drafting’ and is now trying to change the amendments so that they won’t impact bloggers and small publishers. You can read the full statement here, but this is the key section:

‘The amendments are the work of Conservatives in government and not of Labour, the Liberal Democrats or for that matter Hacked Off.

‘They have not been endorsed in any way by Hacked Off. On the contrary, at the weekend we urged the three parties not to approve them finally there and then, but to leave time for them to be improved.