Let our leaders have their holidays in peace

The chillax crisis: Cameron is perfectly capable of picking up a phone - these are just the politics of envy

 

How was your bank holiday weekend? Hours in traffic jams? Soaking up the sun in the garden? A last-minute getaway to the Continent? Or were you stuck in the office?

And today? Are you back at work or slowly getting used to being with the family over half-term?

If the latter is the case, then good for you. You clearly have your work-life balance sussed. And that, as  the press frequently tells us through social surveys, pseudo-scientific research and opinion columns, is essential. Not only for our own well-being, but for business and the country as a whole.

What hypocrisy!

Our newspapers are brilliant at prescribing desirable approaches to work, health and homelife - but they are scathing should any leader in any sphere follow such advice. (Just as they pontificate about business practices that they wouldn't dream of adopting themselves.)

It is unlikely that any national newspaper editor was in the office on Sunday to oversee the production of yesterday morning's papers. Yet we can be sure that there will have been a series of telephone calls through the day to monitor progress - with the duty editor before morning conference, update chats with the newsdesk, discussions about picture choices through the afternoon, thoughts about the splash heading come the evening. They may even have been looking at the paper through a remote online connection and be emailing thoughts about every page as it developed.

See, it's quite simple these days to run the show from a distance. Unless, it seems, you happen to be the Prime Minister. In which case you clearly have no access to telephone, internet, homing pigeon or cleft stick.

Journalists have to work on bank holidays - even, thanks to Rupert Murdoch and the Wapping revolution, on Christmas Day. It is not a popular shift. Maybe this has something to do with newspapers' churlishness when anyone in the public eye dares to imagine that they are off duty.

The paparazzi were ahead of this game and Diana, of course, was the universal target. OK, she knew she would be snapped when she was walking out from the Chelsea Harbour Club, bottle of water in one hand, mobile and keys in the other. But as a mother, she didn't want the young princes harassed and so in a desperate attempt to earn some privacy,  the Waleses made a pact with the devil in the 80s.  The family would pose for photographs at the start of their holiday if they could then be left alone.

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

It wasn't. It just established an awful tradition.  Before too long, politicians were also submitting to the First Day of the Holidays photocall. Yet the paps kept snooping with their long lenses and found that they now had a  market not only for a topless princess, but also for unflattering pictures of Cherie Blair's backside.

The Blairs in Tuscany. Photograph Daily Mail

Tony's penchant for exotic freebies brought the next development: the annual vox pop on where MPs were to spend their summer holidays. While the rest of us browsed through package tour brochures or planned the usual camping trip to Norfolk, ministerial aides would be poring over maps to find a destination that would send the right message. Never mind 'getting away from it all with the family', the holiday decision had become a political statement. And it was always wrong. (Unless you were Margaret Beckett, who was first teased, but later applauded for sticking with her caravan.)

In 2008 Gordon Brown and his family went to Southwold for a couple of weeks. They strolled on the beach, did the maize maze and visited Dingly Dell Pork. But it didn't really seem Gordon's kind of thing - perhaps the business suit  was the giveaway. We later learned from Andrew Rawnsley's biography that the holiday had been Sarah's idea,  to show that our dour man-of-the-Manse prime minister was in touch with Middle England - which he wasn't.

Brown chilling on Southwold beach. Photograph: Daily Telegraph

By now the holiday charabanc was veering out of control and we poor readers have been subjected to a bronzed Putin riding bareback, Nicolas and Carla frolicking on the shoreline and Angela Merkel  hill-walking. We have also, incidentally, seen the designs all these people choose for their Christmas cards.

Do we need to know any of this stuff? Isn't it time to give the people who run the world a break? Still you have to admire the chutzpah: in March the Telegraph ran a couple of photographs of Frau Merkel in her bathing suit with an accompanying story that read

Mrs Merkel was caught by the cameras as she had a private dip while holidaying with her husband at Hotel Miramare on the island famous for its thermal baths off the coast of Naples.

Yes, very private. Funny how often such pictures have captions that say the victim is 'enjoying a private moment..'

The headline and blurb on the web version of the story had a familiar ring:

Angela Merkel fails to escape eurozone crisis on Italian holiday 

German Chancellor Angela Merkel may have donned her bathing costume for a little relaxation on the Italian island of Ischia, but she has failed to escape the heat of the current eurozone crisis.

It is an immutable law of journalism that if a politician dares to go on holiday, they will be leaving behind a crisis. It also follows that there will be someone, somewhere willing to say that they should be back in the office, overseeing everything.

And so to Dave. Whatever you think of him as a prime minister, he hasn't had much luck with his holidays. He's constantly mocked for being an out-of-touch toff,  but then we jeer when he queues for a Ryanair flight.

His holiday wardrobe is scrutinised and his liking for navy blue T-shirts dissected - along, of course with Sam's outfits. Where would we have been if the Mail hadn't been on hand in Cornwall last August to tell us: 

The Prime Minister's wife wore a coat to keep warm as the sun failed to make an appearance for the August bank holiday 

Yesterday the paper's fashion focus was on footwear - Dave got it right for once with his flipflops while Sam chose strappy sandals over the white Birkenstocks she wore when they were in Ibiza a couple of years back. But the sartorial appraisals were a sideshow. The main issue was should the Prime Minister be in Ibiza at all, given the terrorism crisis - there's that word again - at home.

One person had no doubt on that one:

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With UK on terror alert, Cameron off on holiday in Ibiza. Unbelievable.
— Rupert Murdoch(@rupertmurdoch) May 25, 2013

The Sun took a similar view in its splash:

David Cameron sips coffee on a carefree holiday in Ibiza - while back home the grieving family of soldier Lee Rigby visits his murder scene. 
The PM and wife sam relaxed at a beach-front bar on the Spanish isle yesterday.
In stark contrast, Lee's estranged wife Rebecca - mother of his two year old son Jack - wept as she clutched a Peppa Pig cuddly toy with a t-shirt proclaiming: 'Daddy's little buddy.'

The report goes on to quote one Labour MP - John Mann - and a couple of tweeters saying how outrageous it was that Cameron was not at work.

Melissa Kite went further on the Guardian website with a piece headlined 

David Cameron's relaxation may be his downfall 

The prime minister's sunshine holiday at a time of national crisis can only add to the Tory right's simmering resentment 

While one does not want to be begrudging, or insinuate that the PM does not deserve downtime, it is only stating facts to point out that not having had a holiday since Christmas is not exactly the definition of hardship these days...
But let us assume it is unfair to attack the prime minister for being out of touch because he can afford to take a family of five on a half-term foreign break. What really niggles is the rest of their explanation. It was all right for the PM to go on holiday days after Lee Rigby was murdered, the aides argued, because Cameron "had urged everyone to carry on as normal". 
To my mind, there is something vaguely distasteful about this. Downing Street should not be trying to make a virtue of a trip that really has nothing to recommend it apart from personal enjoyment. A still more potent puzzler is why Cameron is able to chill out on a beach this week. It seems that no matter what happens, be it European Union revolts or terror attacks, the briefing from No 10 is always the same: "The prime minister is relaxed."

 So we don't want a Prime Minister who is able to relax? Much better to have someone who is a bundle of nerves and can't sleep for worrying about the economy, Europe, gay marriage, let along the thought of a new terrorist threat?

In common with the Sun and the Mirror, the Telegraph splashed on Cameron being under fire - but from a different angle: for prematurely visiting MI5 to praise spies for their efforts, though it linked Woolwich and Ibiza for its front page illustration. 

The Times, Express and Independent all reported that the Camerons were on holiday, that Dave was still 'in charge', and all carried the obligatory note of disdain from at least one Labour MP. John Mann found voice in the Mail, Sun, Times and Telegraph, while Sarah Champion had her say in the Mail and Express. 

The one person quoted in every paper was Nadine Dorries, the 'celebrity' Tory who has recently been allowed back in from the jungle. It was ridiculous to condemn the Prime Minister for taking time off, she said. "I actually want him to be refreshed. We have got the internet, we've got mobile phones. I think he is entitled to a holiday.' 

It comes to something when Nadine Dorries shines out as a beacon of common sense. 

For heaven's sake. David Cameron is the father of three young children. When they are on holiday from school, they need him to be around as much as possible. As a former colleague tweeted at the weekend: 

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@david_cameron is prime minister pro tem but husband and father for ever. We can manage without him for a few days
— Richard Dixon (@Linguagroover) May 26, 2013

Spot on there, Richard. On both counts. 

I want to know that there are people in control of the country. And I feel happier to know that the top man is away but contactable than I am seeing the likes of John Prescott and Peter Mandelson rushing around shouting 'I'm in charge' like Bruce Forsyth.

I do not need to know where the Prime Minister takes his family on holiday - unless it is in Assad's palace or on Patpong road. Nor do I care how many ministers are reluctantly supporting the British tourist industry. And I certainly don't need to see pictures, whether papped or posed. 

Just give us all a break.

@gameoldgirl

SubScribe

The morning after the night before

Ouch, my head hurts. Let's see if I can sit up. Argh, that's even worse. Perhaps I can snooze for a few minutes more. lAh, that pillow is so cosy. Mmmmm.
Now what's that bloody noise? Oh lord, is that the time? OK Dave, this is it. Go for it.
Must say, Sam's snoring a bit, I'll give her a little prod. 
Hang on, I don't recall her wearing Wallace and Gromit boxers before. 
Jeeeeezus!  What are YOU doing in my bed? 

What happened? Why can't I remember?

My, what a hangover. 

Ah now it's coming clearer. It was a good party, there were pizzas and coffee and chocolate digestives and coffee and fruit salad and coffee and KitKats and yet more coffee. It was intimate and chummy and everyone hugged each other and agreed we'd achieved great things. Not that I know this at first hand.  I was tucked up here at home by then and Ollie was holding the fort. He had some civil service flunky to keep him company. But I do remember being there later when it was time to move on from Ed's place to the  big bash downstairs. Don't think there was much hugging there...now it's all gone hazy again.

Oh God, what have I done?

Right Dave, remember what you learnt at Eton: self-esteem, peer down your nose and talk 'frankly' and everyone will trust you. There's nothing to worry about, we only knocked a little stone out of the 300-year-old edifice that is British press freedom. Oh don't fuss. It's right down near the bottom where nobody will notice. It won't really weaken the structure.  If it looks as though it's going to wobble, a little statutory underpinning should do the trick.

Funny, now I think about it, some of the chaps at the second do weren't so keen on our little plan. There was a bit of a frisson that we'd gone to Ed's at all and some grumbling that those Hacked Off fellows had been let in. Probably was a bit strange on reflection that the press johnnies didn't have anyone there. Still, Becks has other things on her mind these days. Do hope she didn't put her eleven mil in a Cypriot bank. 
Anyway, the Hacked Off crew didn't come on to the much smarter after-party, though someone saw that cove Mosley up in the gallery and took exception. But never mind, in the end we sorted it didn't you? Oh yes, we sorted it.

On the road from democracy to oligarchy, today is a milestone...awful, awful, awful

So it may only be a toenail in the door of regulation, but it could end up the first nail in the coffin. Bland press self-censorship is on the way

The state is now licensing journalism

When both benches agree we invariably make our worst blunders...it's like the Ministry of Truth

But aren't these people supposed to be on our side?

An elegant solution

The last chance saloon is closing

There, that's better. Oh, they're the opposition, are they?  Quite so, as I said,  best to have consensus, that way it'll all be done and dusted so much more quickly. Didn't want to hang around. Needed to get the show on the road, prove that I'm  decisive  -  like Ken Baker with those dangerous dogs that time. Nothing like a bit of rushed law-making, especially if you can finalise it at 2.30am.

What's this? Some chap saying he doesn't want to discuss a document he hasn't seen? Good job little Bercow was there to find him a copy of the draft. Wonder if there's one I could look at?

Anyway, Cleggers should be happy now. What's that? He says it was chaotic and it was my fault? Oh he's not still going on about me taking my ball home on Thursday night, is he? I did NOT have a hissy fit. It was a tactical manoeuvre and it worked, didn't it. Did we get the charter through or not? And you can say it as much as you like and so can Ed and so can Cleggers, there is NO statutory underpinning (yet). You see, they'll see it my way tomorrow.

Someone says the Spectator isn't going to join my new press club. Bit spoilsporty of them. And JK Rowling's having a go, saying I've betrayed phone-hacking victims. How can that be? Her chums were at Ed's little soiree weren't they; they got what they wanted didn't they? How come everyone is so grumpy?

Maybe it's because they don't understand the stuff about who's going to play and who isn't, how we're going to keep as many people who know anything about journalism as possible away from the new club. We won't let their bosses in either - well it's only fair. If MPs can't play even after they've left the Commons, why should editors with newspapers to run? And as for the publishers? Look, do you think I've just sailed up the Thames on a water biscuit? I've got into enough trouble inviting them for a Pimms and a round of croquet at Chequers. They already have to sneak in the back door if they come to No 10, I'm not about to start giving them a seat at the most public dinner party I've ever thrown.

Strange this confusion, though, and even more about who should join our new club.  I thought we made it quite clear. We'll do all the press and Hello! magazine, but we'll leave Decanter and Angling Times to freewheel. Bloggers will have to take their chances, yes I know we said news-based websites, but we can't be more specific at this stage. You can't expect me to differentiate between them; I have secretaries to read that stuff.

Oh now the local rags are getting sniffy? Well if they want to play with the big boys...it'll be too expensive and not worth their while to join and it's not fair because Leveson said they were goodies and beyond reproach? Well they don't really matter. I'm sure the proper press will see sense and be grateful that everything is going to be put on a proper footing without any state interference. 

They don't trust it? And they don't like the money bit?  But half of them were behind us last week when we were scribbling it all down on the back of that pensions advice envelope. Can you get that phone please Sam? What's my view on the Newspaper Society,  Mail, Express, Telegraph, Sun and Times taking high-level legal advice?  That it's sour grapes because they weren't invited to Ed's party. They need to get over themselves. The Guardian said the idea seemed ok  - ish. So did the FT the other day. No I didn't hear Barber on WATO and I don't follow him on Twitter. Too much emphasis on statutory underpinning? Can you get all that in 140 characters?

Right that's it. My head hurts. If the Telegraph thinks the papers should get together to form their own club instead of joining ours, then good luck to them is all I can say. You try to help out and all people do is moan. We spent £4m staging the Leveson show and have wasted hours and hours trying to turn his script into something we can take on tour and now they throw it all back in our faces. Ungrateful sods.

Still it's Budget Day tomorrow and everyone will be so busy jeering Georgie Porgie that they'll have forgotten all about this little local difficulty.

Come on Phydeau, time for your walk...

Press regulation: history, hysteria and hyperbole

Oh dear, oh dear. What a bugger's muddle we've all got into over press regulation v press freedom. The hacking victims want retribution, the media barons want influence, the politicians want to be seen as principled - and as winners. Meanwhile the journalists just want to get on with their jobs and the readers just want their crosswords, football results and some interesting 'news'.

An awful lot of nonsense has been written and spoken since the Guardian blew the phone-hacking scandal wide open in 2011 with its report that Milly Dowler's voicemail had been intercepted and deleted. We have had a £4m public inquiry, the closure of the country's best-selling newspaper, and seen police banging on suburban doors at dawn to arrest journalists who could more sensibly have been asked to attend the local copshop at a given time. The public money that has been spent on the demonising of the press is mind-boggling. 

We have now reached such a pitch that the three party leaders were  huddled together until the early hours arguing the toss over how the press should be reined in without using any reins or other restraining device. Come the dawn a deal had been done and everyone claimed to have won. This afternoon Mr Cameron told MPs that a royal charter would be approved by the Privy Council in May to establish a new regime to replace the supine Press Complaints Commission.  The new regulator would be able to impose £1m fines for bad practice,  and recalcitrant publishers that  refused to join in would be punished for their temerity with exemplary damages if they dared to argue a case in the courts.

All this was outlined in a three-hour emergency debate.

An emergency debate? We aren't going to war, we aren't joining the euro or leaving the EU, we haven't conceded the Falklands or Gibraltar. This is Budget week, for heaven's sake. The economy is in the mire, people are seeing their jobs vanish and their living standards fall. No one feels safe enough to spend what money they have - and if they have any to save, they'll be hard pushed to find somewhere to put it where it will still be worth as much this time next year. Of course the biggest emergency facing the country today is to decide whether a new press regulator should have the power to request or to direct a newspaper to publish a correction or apology in a particular position on a particular page. And of course it's so urgent that a solution has to be cooked up in a Westminster office at 2am with four anti-tabloid campaigners in attendance and not a newspaper editor in sight.

If the politicians have lost their sense of perspective, then so have the newspapers. And the prize for greatest misjudgment of the moment goes to The Sun for today's front page, which has absolutely nothing to do with what interests or concerns its readers and everything to do with what concerns its own interests. For the Sun, sister paper of the newspaper that prompted the whole Leveson circus, to portray itself as a Churchillian vigilant guardian of the rights of the ordinary citizen  is to invite mockery.  Inside, you can almost see the steam coming out of Trevor Kavanagh's ears as he fulminates over the prospect of any interference in the freedom of the press. Kavanagh has written a fair bit of sense about the police's Operation Weeting and the hacking scandal in general, but to state, as he does today, that Britain will soon have the world's most heavily regulated newspapers is plainly bonkers.

The Mail, too, got all historical on us with a spread on all the public-spirited investigations that could never have been undertaken had the regulation being proposed today been in effect over the past 300 years. 

Now I happen to think that a free press is an essential element of a free democracy. You may describe today's compromise as the 'dab of statute' recommended by Leveson, but it's a dab too far.

To regulate a specific group of society that has no greater rights or freedoms than any individual within that society has to be wrong. To do so in such a manner that two-thirds of MPs can in future meddle still further and tighten the rules is deplorable.

Today's MPs may believe they are tying the hands of tomorrow's legislators, but they don't know what holes the next batch will find themselves in - or what super-whizzy scissors may by then have been invented to allow them to loosen or remove their bonds.

Once this charter is established with even a whiff of parliamentary input/control/oversight, then there will never be any return to true unfettered journalism, only tougher constraints down the road. 

So why, then, do I balk at the Mail and the Sun? Because there is no point in publishing this hysterical hyperbole today, all it will do is turn the reader off. The displays came too late to have any impact on the events of this afternoon and the bombastic tone will not engage the reader or inspire reasoned debate. The papers are just posturing.

So are the politicians. Outside of the Guardian, nobody cared much about journalists listening in to telephone conversations or voicemail until Milly Dowler's name was mentioned. Then all hell let loose. Down at the pub, in the queue at Tesco, at the bus-stop, everyone suddenly came over all righteous and started tut-tutting and declaiming 'Something must be done. It shouldn't be allowed..' 

As the full sordid tale emerged, politicians and vested interests leapt on the speeding bandwagon: Cameron had foolishly appointed a former News of the World editor as his communications chief; he had jolly country suppers with Rebekah Brooks. If he was to have any credibility at all, he had to bow to Ed Miliband's demands for a public inquiry. 

Whatever goes wrong in almost any sphere in this country you can depend on the Leader of the Opposition to call for a public inquiry. Generally these demands are brushed aside, but when they are successful, the result is invariably a long-winded and expensive investigation that rarely produces anything good or useful. (See previous blog post An Expensive Hiding to Nothing).

The Dowlers were hawked all over the shop: tea at No 10, meetings with Murdoch, and finally press conferences with Brian Cathcart's 'victims' group Hacked Off, whose most prominent members are Hugh Grant, J.K.Rowling and Kate and Gerry McCann. An interesting quartet.

Before 1994, few had heard of Hugh Grant. Then he was cast as a tongue-tied charmer in an engaging romcom. The film turned out to be a success, but our leading man seemed to  suffer a lack of confidence when it was released - to the extent that when it came to the premiere, he cast himself as an accessory to a pair of boobs, a sliver of black fabric and a collection of safety pins. Elizabeth Hurley and Versace left no one in any doubt about their objective that night: to reserve the following morning's front pages. It was calculated marketing, and there is no way that Grant was not a party to it. As a novice film star, he needed the press and the press obliged.

The country took Grant to its heart in the way that only sloppy Brits can - by mistaking the actor for the floppy-haired affable posh boy  he played. Grant and the film companies were equally happy to capitalise on  Four Weddings in similar films with a similar persona. Sadly, life offscreen wasn't quite the same. There was the Divine Brown fiasco (which he faced with refreshing candour and aplomb), the strange on-offness of the Hurley relationship, the dalliance with Jemima Khan and the brief affair that led to the birth of his daughter. None of this was of any business of anyone's but his. Except...

As the face of Hacked Off, Grant accepts that the public has a right to know if an MP espousing 'family values' is cheating on his wife or if a vicar has his hands in the collection pouch, but he feels that as a celebrity he is entitled to a private life and apparently that he should appear in the newspapers only when he wants to promote a film, which he does grudgingly.  But surely, if you make your living pretending to be an honourable Englishman and all-round good egg, it's not unreasonable for your audience to be told that actually you may not be.

Grant's assertions to Leveson that his phone had been hacked by the Mail on Sunday were rejected by the newspaper and described as "pure speculation" by the inquiry's counsel Robert Jay. Nor could he find offer any justification for linking a newspaper description of his flat with a break-in a short while before. Hardly concrete evidence of journalistic wrongdoing.

Yet Grant now has the ear of the Opposition, has been in regular contact with Harriet Harman, as she confirmed today, and felt it his right and duty to telephone members of the Shadow Cabinet over the weekend to urge them to push for firm regulation of the press. This is apparently quite OK. If, on the other hand, newspaper proprietors or editors put their case to  politicians of any colour that is special pleading.

J.K. Rowling has had more positive publicity than anyone could want: she is the woman who single-handedly persuaded a generation to return to books and an outstanding beacon for the under-privileged. Rowling's talent and business acumen have made her a billionaire and she has been listed as the 78th most powerful woman in the world. She shrewdly held on to the rights to her creation and oversees all marketing and merchandise; when she grants a newspaper interview, the contract is so watertight that the journalist concerned loses virtually all control of his or her words. 

She also told Leveson bout her suffering the hands of the press. One day her five-year-old brought home a batch of letters from school which turned out to include one from a journalist. There was no suggestion that anyone approached the child in person. Did she seriously think that some grubby hack had crept into the infants' cloakroom, found the child's satchel and snuck the note into it? Is it not far more likely that said journalist had asked a secretary or a teacher or a dinner lady to pass on the note? In which case, would Rowling's anger have been more reasonably directed at the school?

And then there were the McCanns, the couple who left their three children, aged three and one, untended in their holiday flat as they went out with friends to a bar 50, 70 or 100m away. When Madeleine vanished, every news organisation was on the parents' side; whenever they spoke, their words were reported in the hope of finding the child. Everyone held back from publishing  the thought that immediately jumped into every parent's head: 'What were they thinking of? I'd never leave my children alone'. None of us would want to be in their shoes, so the compassion overtook the disapproval: 'They must be feeling so guilty, so distraught....' The couple did  - and still do - everything they could to keep Madeleine's case in the limelight, and who can blame them? But if newspapers report every inch of progress in a police of investigation, are they not also obliged to record the less palatable events, such as the McCanns being seen as suspects?

So these are the spokespeople for the hacking victims, the group that wants to shackle the press. Ooh, sorry, the word shackle reminds me that I've forgotten someone: Max Mosley, Formula 1 boss and partaker in sado-masochistic orgies with prostitutes, who apparently doesn't mind talking about his sex life,so long as you don't suggest any Nazi overtones (he's sensitive about his surname and its connotations).

Hacked Off declared itself satisfied today with the deal announced in the Commons,  even though the restrictions are not as tough as Grant would have liked. Well hurrah! It's such a relief that these self-appointed guardians of people's freedoms, these people who have played the press so skilfully to their own advantage, are happy. Never mind the real victims - of thalidomide, of hospitals' incompetence, of systematic sexual and mental abuse, of carehome neglect  - who have achieved justice as a result of the dogged efforts of a free press, people who acknowledge  the importance of the newspaper campaigns and who want to make sure that others benefit in the future. 

We don't care for mob rule in this country. Courts listen to the victims of crime in considering an offender's sentence, but they do not consult the man whose house was burgled or the woman whose bag was snatched. We don't operate a blood money system whereby an offender can buy a lighter punishment with a donation to the victim's family.  And, in spite of the constant clamour, we have not reinstituted the death penalty. We don't heed the baying of the crowd because we put reason before emotion. Yet on this issue, our political leaders have kow-towed to  populism and paid more attention to indignance and ignorance  than to intelligence and insight.

Journalists are not professionals who have to produce certificates and  register with authorities to practice, they are tradesmen. Those who want to work on newspapers or magazines are well advised to take a college course, but  plenty are happy to set up their own websites or blogs  without any formal training or experience.  It's a bit like a  bricklayer who hasn't been taught how to  build a pier or do a herringbone pattern. He won't get a job on a building site, but there's nothing to stop him advertising his services on a card in the newsagent's. 

A journalist has no more right to go snooping into people's affairs than our bricklayer. Both are  bound by exactly the same laws of the land, including laws that forbid phone-hacking and protect people from being libelled or harassed. We don't need new rules especially for journalists - the whole point is that their rights and responsibilities are identical to those of every other citizen. 

Newspapers are struggling in this digital age, readerships are ageing;  sales and profits are falling, so that their journalists have to offer their efforts not simply on paper, but on the web, on tablets, on smartphones. Staffs are being slashed and quality is becoming harder to maintain. At the same time our amateur bloggers and tweeters can set their own agendas and devote the time and patience required to focus on particular issues unhindered by editor's demands, deadlines, print costs or Mr Cameron's royal charter. The Guardian and FT have spoken openly about abandoning print, and there are few who would bet on the traditional newspaper surviving beyond the next decade. The Mail and the FT have talked of moving their web operations to unregulated America. Others are likely to follow if they find restrictions in Britain unpalatable. None of this will help to improve the quality of our press.

News of the World reporters were unquestionably wrong to intercept people's telephones - as were those from all the other papers that indulged in the practice but have so far managed to keep their heads below the parapet. There are plenty of examples of despicable behaviour of which we should be ashamed. But newspapers are also capable of self-restraint: they respect news blackouts to protect kidnap victims;  they shy away from publishing offensive material, whether words or photographs, that are general currency on the internet. And of course, as we see from the MPs' expenses scandal, the expose of child sex grooming, the Mail's bravery over Stephen Lawrence, they can also do great good. People may like to imagine evil cigar-munching proprietors urging their minions on to ever more dastardly deeds to sell more papers, but in reality reporters just want to be first with a story and to serve their readers.

The proliferation of celebrity magazines and the TV schedules full of programmes such as Embarrassing Bodies, Through the Keyhole, You've Been Framed and Snog Marry, Avoid? suggest that privacy and intrusion don't worry the average Brit too much. The  Fool Britannia  television programme, described as a hidden camera show in which Dom Joly unleashes a host of pranks on unsuspecting members of the public has an audience of 2.5m. Indeed, it seems that we have become a nation of voyeurs with the ambition of becoming the watched rather than the watcher - no humiliation is too great if it means we can be on television. If we can't curb our appetite for this trash, it is no surprise that our 'caterers' will go to ever greater lengths to find titbits to satisfy us. We get the press and television that we want and deserve.

If we also want our newspapers - in whatever format - to expose wrong-doing, to call politicians to account, to focus on serious issues, we need to allow them to do their job with freedom and responsibility. If the price is the discomfiture of a few celebs, then so be it.

Let's go back to Milly Dowler for a moment. We know now that the reporter did not delete her voicemail messages, as at first suggested; we also know that the reporter told the police in 2002 - almost a decade before the scandal erupted - that he had hacked into her phone. In the furore of 2011, nobody would dare defend the hacking practice, but did anyone seriously believe the reporter's objective was to hinder the police inquiry or to dig dirt? It's a pound to a penny that he was hoping to pick up some little clue that would put him on the trail of the missing child and, with luck, bring the biggest scoop of all: 'We find Milly safe and well'. Would he have been the villain then - or the hero? Look at MPs' expenses. James Harding at The Times declined to buy the discs because it would have been handling stolen goods; The Telegraph said 'yes please.' One editor was feted with plaudits and gongs, the other lost his job. 

The Guardian's pursuit of Murdoch over the past three decades finally bore fruit with the hacking story. It exposed dreadful practices, bungling cover-ups and managerial incompetence. But from the moment the Dowler story was published, the cacophony of axes grinding has been drowning out common sense.

Today the 'something must be done' brigade won.

And the rest of us lost. 

How do you see the future of journalism? Do you still have a paper delivered or pick one up at the station on the way to work? Do you prefer print, Kindle or iPad? Or have you given up on the mainstream media and switched to Twitter and blogs? Please join in the SubScribe survey here. Thank you.

@gameoldgirl

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SamCam and the cameraman

Jimmy Carter did it; Clinton did; Dubya and Blair did it - sometimes together. Sarko does it, Obama does it, even Gordon Brown does it. So of course Cameron, Osborne and co must do it. Jog, that is.
Back in the 80s it was something of a novelty to see a world leader pounding the pavement. Then it became a standard summit photo opportunity to see a whole clutch of them turn out with puffing security guards in their wake. At times it was almost as competitive as the mums' race at primary school sports day.
By now you'd have thought we'd be used to the idea that our leaders expect to be fit for office in every sense and that the early morning trot round Downing Street would be less newsworthy.
But then along came  Steve Back. He snapped David Cameron looking a little puffed out and the picture made it into print. The Prime Minister ribbed him about the unflattering image, the seed  of a "story" began to germinate and the Mail was there to harvest it.
So this week we were treated to a picture of Samantha Cameron looking tired and a little sweaty alongside another where she is fresh faced and bouncy: 

She looked as glamorous as if she were heading to a glittering engagement...full make up: foundation, a rose-tinted blusher, pink lipstick and mascara. Her hair, pulled back into a ponytail, was glossy and freshly washed....in stark contrast to her appearance last week, when Mrs Cameron was spotted on her early morning run looking nothing short of bedraggled. 

The Telegraph took the same tack, though it did have the decency to acknowledge Back as  its source, quoting the photographer:

"When I first photographed Samantha running about two weeks ago she looked a mess. Today with her make-up on and her hair swept back she looked more like she was made up for a ball than the park. I think they've deliberately smartened up..."

Well, in these lean times you have to make a crust where you can. Back may have cottoned on to an image makeover. It does seem odd to put make-up on and to wash your hair before rather than after your jog. But neither paper appears to have bothered to ask No 10 whether that was the case; there is no  'No comment' or even an 'Of course not.' 
So can we trust the evidence before our eyes? The earlier photograph of Samantha was clearly taken at the end of her run - and she's obviously had a good workout; her hair is sticky and she has taken off her sweatshirt and tied it round her waist. The new photograph, on the other hand, looks as though it has been taken the moment she emerged from Downing Street to set off. Hardly a fair comparison. And if she had decided to spruce up after the Mail's bitchy report  a couple of weeks earlier, who could blame her?
Does any of this matter? Well, the Mail dressed up its coverage in a ballgown of gushing, admiring adjectives -  but this was no glittering Cinderella gown, rather an artificial Ugly Sister affair that could never disguise the malice beneath.  

And the Telegraph? Well! Someone needs to teach the editors there a lesson or two in juxtaposition. They should have learnt  from the hilarious picture of the Queen and two duchesses over a ginormous witchcraft heading. Clearly not. The SamCam makeover was on the same page as the report of the Leveson inquiry. 

Now I may be off beam here, but I thought Leveson was looking into media standards -  with a particular accent on invasions of privacy. 

Thank you for sticking with it to the end. Please do share your thoughts below. And please take a look at the other posts. They are all media related.

Sold down the river the Beeb's flotilla and fireworks fiasco - and a feeble fightback. Why didn't the top man have his hand on the tiller?

Hello and goodbye to Wapping a personal diary of life inside the fortress in the days before the strike that changed newspapers forever

Out of print a love letter to newspapers in this digital age. Why they don't have to die if we have the will to let them live and thrive

Why local newspapers matter Why we should care about the revolution in the regional press

Missing: an opportunity How the hunt for Madeleine McCann could be turned into a force for good instead of just a festival of mawkish sentimentality

Riding for a fall Does buying a ticket for a jolly day out at the races mean you are fair game for the snobs who sneer and snipe?

Just a pretty face Illustrating the business pages isn't the easiest job in the world, but spare us the celebs who aren't even mentioned in the story

Food for thought a case study in why we should take health advice with a pinch of salt (and a glass of red wine and a helping of roast beef) 

The world's gone mad Don Draper returns and  the drooling thirtysomethings go into overdrive But does anybody watch the show? (But there is more Whipple in this post!)