Well potentially, anyway. Maybe a good week for short-term, let by the hour hotels, though!
Seems that most of the UK press have decided that they can do without the draconian and anti-free speech Leveson laws and won't participate or have anything to do with the so called Royal Charter establishments.
The Guardian and The Independent both accepted the gagging of free speech, that is inherent in this bad law. Since they are losing readers (and money) faster than @Old_Holborn is losing followers in Liverpool, one needn't be too concerned about their kow-towing.
At the same time, it has been reported that the 'No to Page Three' has received a very poor response to it's campaign to ban photographs of topless women appearing on Page 3 of the top selling The Sun newspaper.
Maybe there is a connection?
Maybe people see such campaigns as a foretaste of what the Royal Charter will bring? Minority interests pedaling and imposing their views on the majority and stifling any view that doesn't fit with their narrow perspective on life or current pet hate.
I am sure that the overwhelming majority of decent people, will have shared the revulsion felt by publisher/owner, Rupert Murdoch, at the allegations that his own The Sun or The News of the World, hacked the phone of the schoolgirl, Milly Dowler. Sympathy for the parents of this young girl, who was brutally murdered, would naturally, and rightly, be high. That the subsequent police investigation doesn't seem to have found evidence that this 'journalistic activity' was criminal, doesn't excuse it.
It is a hell of a leap from there to allowing criminal activity to go unreported, just because the criminal is a 'celebrity'. When a famous actor is caught 'in flagrante' getting a blow job, from a known and previously convicted prostitute, in a public place, this has to be a reportable incident and within the public domain.
Equally, when a Daily Mail columnist (Jan Moir) questions the lifestyle of a 'celebrity' homosexual who dies at a very young age, and the death seems to be very much linked to such a hedonsitic way of life, why should such comment be stifled (it would be under the Royal Charter). Again, with the Daily Mail, that paper's questioning surrounding the disappearance of Madeline McCann are legitimate areas for investigation.
Of course some journalists will step over the line and report erroneously or gather their information in an illegal way but there are laws already in place that can be applied. New ones are not required.
So bravo for the majority of the press, national and local, who had the courage to oppose this bad legislation and to decide to have no part of it. Now we will see if the enemies of a free press - the Labour Party, the Lib-Dems and their socialist and control-freak allies - will push for regulation rather than the so=called voluntary element that was included in this compromise law. Just as importantly, we will see the true colour of David Cameron's Conservative party - libertarian and upholders of a free press or totalitarian and socialist by another name?
Oh! and the Hughs of the world? While you now know that indulging in fellatio in a car, with a prostitute is very risky, consider that maybe those 'rent by the hour' hotel rooms might have CCTV installed. Enjoy!
Seems that most of the UK press have decided that they can do without the draconian and anti-free speech Leveson laws and won't participate or have anything to do with the so called Royal Charter establishments.
The Guardian and The Independent both accepted the gagging of free speech, that is inherent in this bad law. Since they are losing readers (and money) faster than @Old_Holborn is losing followers in Liverpool, one needn't be too concerned about their kow-towing.
At the same time, it has been reported that the 'No to Page Three' has received a very poor response to it's campaign to ban photographs of topless women appearing on Page 3 of the top selling The Sun newspaper.
Maybe there is a connection?
Maybe people see such campaigns as a foretaste of what the Royal Charter will bring? Minority interests pedaling and imposing their views on the majority and stifling any view that doesn't fit with their narrow perspective on life or current pet hate.
I am sure that the overwhelming majority of decent people, will have shared the revulsion felt by publisher/owner, Rupert Murdoch, at the allegations that his own The Sun or The News of the World, hacked the phone of the schoolgirl, Milly Dowler. Sympathy for the parents of this young girl, who was brutally murdered, would naturally, and rightly, be high. That the subsequent police investigation doesn't seem to have found evidence that this 'journalistic activity' was criminal, doesn't excuse it.
It is a hell of a leap from there to allowing criminal activity to go unreported, just because the criminal is a 'celebrity'. When a famous actor is caught 'in flagrante' getting a blow job, from a known and previously convicted prostitute, in a public place, this has to be a reportable incident and within the public domain.
Equally, when a Daily Mail columnist (Jan Moir) questions the lifestyle of a 'celebrity' homosexual who dies at a very young age, and the death seems to be very much linked to such a hedonsitic way of life, why should such comment be stifled (it would be under the Royal Charter). Again, with the Daily Mail, that paper's questioning surrounding the disappearance of Madeline McCann are legitimate areas for investigation.
Of course some journalists will step over the line and report erroneously or gather their information in an illegal way but there are laws already in place that can be applied. New ones are not required.
So bravo for the majority of the press, national and local, who had the courage to oppose this bad legislation and to decide to have no part of it. Now we will see if the enemies of a free press - the Labour Party, the Lib-Dems and their socialist and control-freak allies - will push for regulation rather than the so=called voluntary element that was included in this compromise law. Just as importantly, we will see the true colour of David Cameron's Conservative party - libertarian and upholders of a free press or totalitarian and socialist by another name?
Oh! and the Hughs of the world? While you now know that indulging in fellatio in a car, with a prostitute is very risky, consider that maybe those 'rent by the hour' hotel rooms might have CCTV installed. Enjoy!
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