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”
Mick
Labour people only really care about themselves, moaning as they did all the way through the 1997-2010 period, ‘just’ because Labour people committed so many faux-pas and made so many scandals that they were constant media fodder.
This is their chance for revenge, just waiting for the right moment, else they would have acted when in office. And Labour have proved they’re just the dictators to do it.
From the BLAIR’S FRENZIED LAWMAKING by the Independent: “The 3,000-plus offences have been driven on to the statute book by an administration that has faced repeated charges of meddling in the everyday lives of citizens, from restricting freedom of speech to planning to issue identity cards to all adults.”
Mick
HARRIET HARMAN called Labour people the underdogs, I should say. But ‘she’ is good enough a label for that thing!
Mick
‘Lie-boor’ want some kind of consultation with government offices before printing certain articles. There’s your control-freakery right there. Tightening up existing laws on stalking and such just doesn’t cut it for Labour people who, face it, were BIG wheels under Blair and Brown.
Consider the conflict of interest. Consider how Labour abused power so much that the postal vote scandals under them were so bad that even the SOCIALIST WORKER once felt compelled to write about it.
Make sure newsmen are punished if they break the law. Yes. But don’t let Labour people rule what is or isn’t news. Those charlatans and sick freaks have too much to hide!
Jonathan Middleton
Bits I would sort out would be a proper regulator which could levy fines against newspapers who transgress, Corrections given more prominence. As for the Press and Labour. During the 80s newspapers like the Sun acted as Pravda for the Tories. Here’s a blog which exposes the lies of the Tabloid press http://tabloid-watch.blogspot.co.uk/ look at the section on Muslims especially
Jonathan Middleton
You are aware that the Lib Dems are backing them on this?