All Shall Have Prizes

As peace finally appears to be breaking out over the need for more effective regulation of the press - all three major parties at Westminster are claiming credit for the 'success'.

'It was us wot won it!' - cry the Lib Dems, Labour and the Conservatives. 

Whereas a great victory has many parents - defeat is always an orphan, wherever possible unloved and unclaimed. 

Yet the truth of the matter must be that the Lib Dems deserve most credit - because they broke ranks from the coalition government without which nothing would have been possible.

If the Tories had a majority government at Westminster - it's highly likely that the present reforms would not have gone nearly as far.

A kind of Leveson Lite - if you like.

If Labour held the whip hand at Westminster - I suspect the party's tunnel vision and hatred of the Murdoch media empire would have had even more implications - for the freedom of the press to hold people in the public eye, like MPs, to proper account.

As things stands, the result is the kind of compromise that you would expect in a hung parliament - when no single party has overall control.

Now there are some downsides to coalition government - arguably strong leadership is much more difficult when no one party has the upper hand - the ability to simply out vote its political opponents when push comes to shove.

So coalition can lead to ineffective compromises and governments that are in office - but not in power.

On this occasion the process has produced something of a dog's dinner - with better protection for the public for sure - but the last minute 'stitch-up' at 2.30 am in the morning and the endless party politicking - is hardly an edifying sight.