Which Tories will be Hacked Off’s useful idiots?

Reading the Hacked Off memo on how to lobby Tory MPs is to be inducted into a wholly cynical world view. It declares, ‘These people are likely to be people you instinctively distrust, dislike and despair of. If they are what we need to win, however, we must understand their value and not confuse our values with their intentions’.

The memo, leaked to the Mail on Sunday, reveals that Hacked Off think that the Tory MPs who support them are likely to be ‘social authoritarians’, those ‘who have suffered at the hands of the press themselves’ or those who ‘simply want to bring David Cameron down’. This memo is also explicit that Hacked Off’s aim is ‘an independent statutory regulator with punitive powers’.

Parts of the press have behaved appallingly in the past few years. But hacking voicemails or prejudging someone’s guilt are illegal. What we need is proper enforcement of the law not a regulator with ‘punitive powers’.