The parliamentary majority for keeping a free press in Britain fell to just nine votes this evening. The attempt to bring back another Leveson Report to harass the press was defeated by a dangerously thin margin. Quite something, given that the ideas under discussion would not have looked out of place in Orban’s Hungary.
The point of another Leveson Inquiry would have been to harass newspapers in general and Rupert Murdoch’s titles (and staff) in particular. The other amendment was on the cards was even worse: forcing newspapers to pay the legal bills of anyone who wanted to sue them, whether or not they were in the wrong. This is an extraordinary proposal for any democracy. In any other context it would be seen as an act of simple persecution: choose a victim, then deprive them of basic legal rights. It’s the behaviour associated with autocracies, and to have the House of Commons even consider it is a sign of how many MPs either don’t understand what they are voting for or don’t value the liberties they’re supposed to protect.
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