The Royal Charter on Press Regulation has been signed off by the Queen on the advice of the Privy Council. Members of the public probably think that when the Queen in Privy Council is considering a new Charter, she sits with the wisest men and women of the realm, deliberating, drafting, listening to the pros and cons before reaching a decision. Not so. By convention the Queen follows her Ministers’ advice, in this as in so many other major issues, for the scope of the ancient royal prerogative is greatly reduced and looks to be reduced still further by recent events. The Privy Council has hundreds of members, including the most distinguished judges and bishops of our nation, and many active politicians and Ministers. On this occasion, the Queen was advised by Nick Clegg, Jeremy Hunt, Maria Miller and Lord McNally. So in practice the Charter was created by a quartet of politicians of all major parties and both Houses. This (potentially much stricter) new system of press regulation, or rather its foundation, which is what the Charter contains, has been designed and brought into law without full Parliamentary discussion and without the chance to amend it. Time will tell whether the substance is good – it is the process that concerns me.
Let us put aside the fact that MPs have had their expenses aired by the press; let us hope that the media people and celebs who are buzzing around this new system had no undue influence. Let us also not forget what an enormous amount of good has been done by investigative journalism, and the many instances of bad behaviour that the press has rightly exposed in the public interest, even when the information has been obtained by surreptitious means. From a legal point of view, there is plenty of law, such as libel and conspiracy, affecting what the press may do (some of it being tested right now), and one could argue that if the laws were enforced consistently, there would be no need for regulation on top. It ought also to be made clear that the “lock” of the requirement of a two-thirds majority of each House before the Charter can be changed is no lock at all, and can be unpicked by a simple majority of the Commons. Maybe the British public is having one of its periodic fits of hypocritical morality. If we don’t like salacious gossip and illegally obtained scoops, why do we in our millions buy the papers and magazines that provide it, and then tut tut over it?
Is it really the millions of readers who are calling for tighter press regulation, or is it the much smaller number of politicians, celebrities, and others in the public eye who have featured in the papers that demanded it?
The British people, according to newspaper editors, are so keen on salacious gossip their sales rise when they make a loud noise about some kind of celebrity. Mainly fakes who buy their notoriety through PR pushers. A great business for those nonentities will pay a fortune for just one article reflecting their peculiar private lives. Because that is all they have to sell. Little or no talent, no juicy looks to relish, as most are barely more than five feet in height. Actors for some odd reason are getting shorter every year. Something to do with the size of sets I think. Keeps the cost down. The marionette look runs well on film.
However, as Jonathan writes, when a story they didn’t instigate explodes the myth they want to broadcast then they get vengeful. Just as we see the people in parliament are now taking up with them. Vengeance they say, is sweetest when eaten cold. So this is back to ‘shoot the messenger’ not the offender.
Again this retribution is simply parliament going way higher than those lame excuses for celebrity, but they come in handy for those in power to use as a rouse to remove the right to free speech and our right to know. Those titled Lords and Royals, along with their band of merry men, can only bear the spread of what comes out of their paid PR department. You must only know that they want to sell as their way of life and persona. Which is grossly contrived in order to keep them in the position they have grown accustomed to.
After this change and subsequent ‘open’ control of the press, it has in fact been controlled for ions but sold to us as free, the smarter of the general public should simply ignore the bull and not buy the paper or magazine they place their phoney story on for any price, as they are buying pure fiction or spin. Why pay for those people to advertise their lies? And why pay for the likes of Campbell et al to sell us a line of utter clap to dupe us into believing they are are saviours of some sort.
When you are wiling to shell out money to read and listen to propaganda, whether it comes via institutions or individuals you are begging to be conned.
And all you have to do to know that is look at the front runners of this ‘Hacked Off’ outfit to know that. The washed up Hugh Grant and that Moseley weirdo, being just two who will stick their neck out to keep their face on the front covers at any cost.
The public deserve to know the truth of those who sell themselves in the game of fame. Its the only way we can make informed judgement. Look at what we bought when we were spun a line on the grinning Blair creature, colluded in by those who sell us news. If those same news sellers are never allowed to balance that kind of fable, by trading with the darker truth, then we are lost as suitable challengers to power.
The conservatives like a Charter to augment the sense of monarchy actually having power, whilst the labour people, like all good parliamentarians, like…..
Acts of Parliament; surprising as it may seem.
The Privy council usually has about 3 or 4 attendees at Windsor Castle or similar. It would be a big day for them since parliament and crown don’t always have much contact.
The rank of PC (Privy Councillor) is a high honour. Looking at the Privy council website, not all former MPs want to attend the House of lords, or even know the procedure for doing so! To be able to put PC after his/her name is a suitable alternative. Many do both. Lord **** QC.PC. Kt.
It is a way of thinking.
And a way of thinking which is as ubelieveably backward thinking that you would imagine that democracy has not helped in human progress in the last 3oo years, at which time the monarch’s privy council was the government!
Today it administers…… charters, and not a great deal else.
Still if Rt Hon Mr Cameron wants to be an earl at the end of his tenure, he is going the right way about it. It’s the name of the game; make what you can while you can. He is talking about estate, and have his way…. he will.
My good friend the late Maurice Macmillan’s son (or grandson?)
the Earl of Stockton, is not an earl for nothing.
That, noble Baroness Deech, is rank!
Kind regards, (from the vegetable patch, and orchard)
A number of high profile people have said that the use of a Royal Charter to regulate the press is wrong. This is the nature of our constitution, if it feels wrong it probably is.
The Privy Council in large part is plebeian with most proud to have the association. Therein lays a conflict of interest. Do Privy Councillors operate to protect the Monarchy or protect the people? Sometimes the well trod path of compromise is not enough, it must be one or the other.
The Saxons served as mercenaries under the Roman God Emperors and suffered its shortcomings. When the Romans abandoned Britannica the Saxons filled the vacuum. They needed Kings but they didn’t need Kings that could declare themselves as Gods.
The anointment of a Kings raises a person from the temporal to the spiritual. What the Saxons realised was that by delegating some essential powers to the temporal, the King could never divorce himself from the needs of men. The King would have a conscience.
On the Continent this temporal accountability was corrupted allowing its Christian Kings to say that they served only God and that their right to rule was divine and its power absolute. The outcome was revolution and the loss of Monarchy with any executive power.
What is Parliament going to do to restore the Sovereign’s temporal accountability to give her the power to intercept democracy when it fails the people?
Is the press now regulated by a God in the making?
The accumulation of landed estate which really is essential to the acquisition of rank as Earl is an interesting thing.
The Earl of Pembroke in the 16thC, was one of the two peers who accompanied the kings’ bier to its final resting place, and had been a constant companion and adviser for many years.
Wilton House and Nuns’ estate had become available at the time of the sacking of the monasteries and it was there for the taking. He took it. He was said to have been a Swansea businessman in his early days.
I have noticed ways of accumulating landed capital in the last few years which do not differ substantially from that, other than not being community (ie monastic/ nunastic)assets. Whether it has always been so since the 16thC, I don’t know.
There have been wars and plagues since then which have permitted comparatively free acquisition of such estates.
Today it is rather more the re-distribution of capital by way of commission-man profits that allows some upward or downward(in the case of the client) social mobility of that sort.
Oh! For the days of Thomas Jefferson, who gave his all for the
people of the land of the free! Such greatness! Such wisdom!
The extinction of an earldom is comparatively rare, although thye become so remote from their commonal famlies that Their estate is available too by intestacy. Some people concerned with the land keep their eyes open for such genealogical opportunities.
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Do Privy Councillors operate to protect the Monarchy or protect the people?
The word “Do” that Daedalus uses is probably not operative!
I wonder whether Privy Council would approve my brother’s
( A Doc) Anti-Donation of Organs Charter campaign, charters being their main business? I doubt it! Do you need one?
I don’t see the British public clamouring for press regulation at all. Many of us out here like the fact that journalists can get stuck into politicians and others in powerful institutions. We dislike phone hacking but wasn’t interception of communications actually already a criminal offence? Enforce the law.
A deeper question is whether there actually was a prerogative power to do this. Certainly, there is a prerogative power to create incorporated bodies. However, one should surely look at what the body is to do. If it is to give a Royal Charter to the Society of Widget Manufacturers then OK but when it is to regulate something as vital to democracy as a free press then serious questions ought to have been asked as to whether it was legally right to use a Royal Charter. In short: was there a prerogative power to regulate the press?
Now that the charter has been issued and not opposed we seem to have a precedent for the argument that there is a prerogative power to regulate the media. What then might be done via this mechanism if all that is required is to use a charter to nod into force some body?
As for the democratic lock – it is something I suppose but is easily changed by further legislation and, in any event, the majority required is only a majority of those who actually bother to attend and vote.
Odd too that Leveson did not consider the use of a Royal Charter. Such an eminent lawyer – advised as he was by counsel who is now a judge – would have known if there was a prerogative power to regulate the press. He did not mention it and it is not in his report.
It’s all rather odd – looks like a carve up to appease ‘Hacked Off’ and Parliament bypassed. Most unsatisfactory in my humble opinion.