It looks as though Hacked Off has finally won its three-year battle for tighter regulation of the press. Why do I say this? Because on Tuesday it published a list of 200 people who agree with them in various national newspapers. These weren’t just the usual suspects — Hugh Grant, Rowan Williams, Richard Curtis. And this isn’t the same list of panjandrums Hacked Off has published in this week’s Spectator. No, these were, in Hacked Off’s words, ‘the leading figures in literature, arts, science, academia, human rights and the law’. Not some leading figures, mind you, but the leading figures.
So who are these luminaries? One of them is Zoe Margolis, described as an ‘author’. Presumably, she’s one of the ‘leading figures in literature’, so I looked her up on Amazon. It turns out that her latest book is called Girl With a One Track Mind: Exposed: Further Revelations of a Sex Blogger. Doesn’t sound like a contender for the Nobel Prize for Literature to me, but what do I know? If Hacked Off have got Zoe on their side, the defenders of press freedom might as well give up now.
Who else? Well, there’s Albert Scardino, described as a ‘journalist’. He’s such a ‘leading figure’ that his name appears twice. I Googled him and the only ‘Scardino’ that came up was Marjorie Scardino, the former CEO of Pearson, who’s now on the board of Twitter. She’s married to a bloke called Albert, who used to work for the New York Times. Could that be the man in question? I’ve never heard of him, but no doubt the fault is mine. I’m sure his illustrious name will add an unstoppable momentum to the pro-Leveson bandwagon.
Magazine articles are subscriber-only. Get your first 3 months for just $5.
SUBSCRIBE TODAY- Free delivery of the magazine
- Unlimited website and app access
- Subscriber-only newsletters
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in