Have I Got News For You
I enjoyed the comments of Ian Hislop on press regulation - which were not so much funny as searingly honest and straight to the point.
Ian Hislop is of course the editor of Private Eye (a fortnightly satirical magazine) and a mainstay of the BBC's famously successful Have I Got News For You (HIGNFY) television programme.
Ian Hislop says he is not intending to join the new regulatory system - and can you blame him or the Prviate Eye?
Since the Eye was never part of the worst excesses of the press and its criminal behaviour - over phone hacking and relations with corrupt police officers.
Here's what Ian Hislop had to say:
“I was not a member of the Press Complaints Commission. No one has rung me and they don’t seem to have an interest in my opinion anyway – so at the moment, I’m out.
I have always said I would rather be regulated by the courts. I want to obey the law and I think everyone else should. People broke the law and behaved badly. I cannot see that even the new regulator would have stopped any of the abuses that were complained of – they would have hacked the phones under this new system.
I want to work out what on earth it means. Do the rules regulate Hugh Grant’s tweets? And can I complain about them?
The problem is you are seen as either a supporter of the Dowlers or you are an evil minion of Murdoch. It isn’t like that.
Index on Censorship are not in the pay of the press barons, they are expressing an honest opinion. We don’t have a system of justice in this country where the victims decide the punishment. The views of the victims of the press are not necessarily of any more importance or credibility than the views of anybody else. I feel I should be allowed to disagree with them without being accused of betrayal.
To see why we are worried about state interference, look at the way this bill got into the statute books. It’s a complete dog’s dinner done in the middle of the night when the Prime Minister is asleep. How does that bode for the future?”
Now to my mind Ian Hislop's comments rather hit the nail on the head - so let's see what the three big parties at Westminster have to say now.
