The sombre looking balding one has pontificated at last; sort of. At a cost estimated to be in the region of £4m – nice work if you can get it – The Leveson Report is finally out in the public domain, all 2,000 pages of it. But who really cares? In the age of twenty four hour news this may be manna from heaven for editors, continually in need of content other than the football results or Kerry Katona’s latest diet to fill the airwaves with; and yet as far as Joe Public goes I sense total and utter apathy.
True enough there have been some shocking abuses against normal people thrust unwillingly, often by personal tragedies, into the public eye. And yet the crimes, as they were, perpetrated against the Dowlers and the McCanns, were nothing to do with the notion of a free press; these were criminal acts – pure and simple – and we have laws to deal with such transgressions. What has followed has been a public washing of dirty linen and excruciating hand-wringing on the part of the establishment.
Big Dave’s Bold Idea
Leveson has shown up, somewhat unwittingly, how shoddy our elite and ruling classes really are – as if we needed further confirmation. The notion that David Cameron would follow the recommendations of the inquiry he instigated was hopeful and naïve at best. The reality is that no political party can risk alienating the owners of the “free” press, a handful of hugely powerful men – largely unknown to the public they “inform” – with considerable sway on public opinion by virtue of their financial clout.
Politicians have always toadied up to the press because they know that the mandate of a rag like The Sun can be critical come election time. The public are not, on the whole, extremely bright and they tend to believe what they read or are told via their television screens. This is why the likes of that moral crusader, Rupert Murdoch, are held in awe by Cameron, Miliband and Clegg whatever they say in public. Despite the falling circulations of the mass daily and regional newspapers few other mediums are as powerful in mobilising opinion.
The Age Of The Pundit
What amazed me when I dipped in on occasion to watch some of the proceedings was the amount of people employed in some form or other to report on the goings on. We have specialist “media commentators” all with seemingly their own valuable take on the expensive charade. As for the main players, what did we learn other than that they are all extremely accomplished manipulators of the truth? A free press requires free opinion but when can you last recall a politician giving an honest answer free of the party whip?
The media is a London freak show these days with little relevance to the regions. Frankly, most of us do not care a jot about nonentities such as Alastair Campbell or Piers Morgan but we have their “personalities” thrust on us. If we really had a free press and media then surely we should have freedom of choice? In a week when we were told that energy bills will rise by around £100 a year by 2020 – without a choice – one way of redressing that bill would surely be a choice over the licence fee?
BBC London
I can choose whether to buy a newspaper or watch subscription television but I can do nothing about the £145 that leaves my bank annually to fund the outdated notion of a “public service broadcaster” i.e. the BBC. If ever proof were needed that the BBC was not a public service but a self serving offering for the chosen few, it has to be the last few weeks shambolic events. Pulling out of a city like Bradford on grounds of cost – saving perhaps the equivalent of the salary of one inane celebrity – whilst paying off a man unfit for its top job in the region of half a million quid shows how arrogant and out of touch it is.
Leveson will neither prove nor solve a thing as did Murdoch’s sacrificial offering of the News of the World, replaced in a breath by the same paper under a “new” title. Public life has reached a new nadir in recent times with a raft of scandals that have left the public weary and battered, bereft of any semblance of strong and respectable leadership. Our politicians are weak, inconsistent and clearly not in possession of ultimate power. For Ordinary Joe, worrying about whether they have a job next week to keep up with the mortgage payments needed to keep bailing out the disgraced banks and fuel the dividends of the utility companies, these are troubled times.
Paul Thompson says
Well said Stevie! Bravo