Among a large part of the population, ‘Labour’ still means ‘authoritarian’. Over Leveson, it has once again revealed its authoritarian streak.
Padraig Reidy is senior writer at Index on Censorship
Among a large part of the population, ‘Labour’ still means ‘authoritarian’. CCTV, ID card schemes, all the way to the various legal battles over terror suspects and secrecy.
In 2010, in the run up to the general election, I attended a panel discussion hosted by Privacy International. Nick Clegg made much of the authoritarian streak in Labour policies, even offering a Littlejohnish “you-couldn’t-make-it-up!” as he told the assembled digital activists how Labour had even made up a law banning people from detonating atomic devices (for the record, this sounded like an eminently sensible move to me).
Labour were powerless to fight the ZaNu Liarbore narrative, and the election was duly lost.
Step forward to now, and we’re constantly being told that new Labour is nothing like New Labour. Mark Seddon wrote in the Guardian last week of how this was “not the party that went to war in Iraq.” Those bad old days of control freakery and conspiracy are over, replaced by a new spirit of discussion.
All very nice, but Labour’s behaviour over the recent Leveson negotiations has carried the exact same hallmark of scheming and authoritarianism that was supposed to have been left behind.
The attachment of Lord Puttnam’s Leveson amendments to the Defamation Bill was a disgrace. Let there be no equivocation about this.
Here was a bill which had been built by consensus, with popular support. A bill that could go a little way to making this country a little freer. It wasn’t perfect, but it was an improvement.
Lord Puttnam chose to sabotage it. On Twitter on Friday evening, Chris Bryant was telling people that the defamation bill would pass without amendment if Labour got what it wants on Leveson. It is a tawdry political move.
Meanwhile, Labour’s insistence on statutory underpinning for the post-Leveson press regulator revealed that the authoritarian streak is alive and well. Is there a problem? Only another law can sort it out. A new Quango for the people. The party knows best.
All this in spite of the fact that many journalists are already facing prosecution for hacking and other breaches. We have laws for this sort of thing, so what exactly is this new law for?
Labour could have been brave: they could have pointed out that the focus after Leveson is almost entirely on the press, while politicians get off free. They could have said that here we have an issue on a principle of free press, and discussion about principal is not helped by emotive campaigning.
They could at the very least have signalled some interest in free speech by allowing the Defamation bill it had committed to continue on its path unmolested.
The Labour party chose to do none of these things, and in doing so has once again allowed itself to be cast as an enemy of freedom.
152 Responses to “Leveson: Labour has allowed itself to be cast as the enemy of freedom”
twidili dee
The proposition is for regulation, by a man whose own profession badly needs regulating and through laws passed by people burnt by the expenses exposure. When you accuse people of straw man arguments be careful not to do the same yourself: I never made the argument that anyone should be above the law; I do think the mass arrest of journalists is sinister.
Frankie D.
What part of “independant body” do you not understand?
Greg
Reading through the comments here, and elsewhere, it’s not hard to see why Labour is authoritarian. Most of its supporters are authoritarian. The Labour leadership is much more liberal than the voters they rely upon. Guys like George Orwell come along once in a century, if that often, but his wisdom can’t hold back the tide of people who see the world in black and white, who know what is best, know that everyone who disagrees must have been brainwashed by evil people with an agenda, know that the only way to progress to a perfect society is by imposing more and more rules. That’s the goal they worship: more and more and more and more rules, until we’re all free. Meanwhile, we accumulate so many rules that nobody enforces them any more. Tax rules? The only people who understand them are the people avoiding them. Rules to stop invasion of privacy? The police don’t bother to enforce them. Rules to say the NHS shouldn’t kill its own patients? Managers treat them as secondary to meeting their targets. So what’s the solution the authoritarians always come up with, when confronted with so many examples of rules turned meaningless because they’re not followed? They demand more rules.
twidili dee
Show me a public body with the word “independent” in its title, which is in fact independent, and I’ll show you a unicorn.
Gold Bug
Socialism is the enemy of freedom. Every it has been tried it brings, poverty, dependency, cronyism, debt, big brother and failure. See it for what it is not what you want it to be.