How wonderfully entertaining is the great British public in one of its periodic fits of steaming hypocrisy, this time over the excesses of newspapers.
The very same public who have enjoyed so many of these very excesses.
How enlivened we found our Sunday mornings as we both tut-tutted and smirked over tales of errant scoutmasters, naughty vicars running off with pretty choirgirls and ‘respectable’ middle aged housewives revealed as suburban brothel keepers.
All thanks to a now defunct Sunday paper.
It is certainly right for the law to take action against newspapers in cases involving such as the Millie Dowler parents, the McCanns and similar.
Legal sanctions already exist to deal with such cases and it is not the fault of the newspapers that they were not acted upon.
The law should certainly be used in cases such as the above and examples of clear criminality such as theft.
Let us not forget that it was the newspapers who exposed so many jail-worthy MPs.
However, most of the protestations by ‘celebrities’ should be ignored, for they are only too eager to co-operate with the media when they have something to sell.
They should not be allowed to have it both ways.
The British press has a long and often scurrilous history in lampooning and exposing those who deserve such treatment.
It would be utterly wrong to have it muzzled at the behest of those who have something to hide, be it deadly serious or merely titillating and entertaining.
Mr T Crawford
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