British newspapers fight back, too The Cameron Government's contemptible move to muzzle the British press is also falling to pieces: Downing Street and Labour were on Tuesday insisting that an increasingly rebellious newspaper industry will eventually sign up to the new system of press regulation backed by parliament on Monday, hinting that opinion polls and fiscal incentives will force the newspaper industry to realise the dangers of rejecting it. But the newspaper groups appeared to be moving to boycott the new system, and with a split emerging between the publishers of the Sun and the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph, which could raise the prospect of the remaining newspaper groups, including the Financial Times, the Guardian and the Independent, being the only titles regulated by the new government-backed watchdog. The Spectator's Fraser Nelson and Ian Hislop of Private Eye have become the first magazine editors to decline to join the proposed press regulator. Local newspapers and magazines could also set up on their own, insiders have warned, while Scotland is also threatening a separate system. There is dismay in cabinet circles at the way in which the deal appeared to have been sealed in a meeting between Cameron's policy adviser, Oliver Letwin, the deputy prime minster, Nick Clegg, the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, and members of the pro-Leveson lobby group Hacked Off in Miliband's office early on Monday morning. What seems lost in the debate is that the ostensible excuse for new media controls - the phone hacking scandal and claims of police being bribed for information - involved conduct already illegal, with journalists already being prosecuted. Mike Hume on this attempt by Britain's political class to muzzle the media: Whatever differences Tory prime minister David Cameron, his Liberal Democrat deputy Nick Clegg and Labour leader Ed Miliband might have had were ultimately less important than what they shared: an acceptance of the need to curb the press. The result was, as predicted on spiked last week, a case of âstitching up press freedom behind closed doors," in a late-night meeting between Clegg, Miliband, Cameron's lackeys and the Hacked Off crusaders which arrived at a messy compromise of a royal charter backed by statute. Hume lists some of the lies deployed to sell the censorship: 1) That not living in Zimbabe is something to celebrate Tory supporters of the deal cheered after prime minister Cameron assured us, âLet me be clear: this is not by any stretch statutory regulation of the press.... But the fact that we do not have a state-controlled media along the lines of Zimbabwe or North Korea does not mean that we have a free press. There are already scores of statutes impinging on press freedom in the UK, from our execrable libel laws to the 2010 Bribery Act that has helped create what one editor calls an âice age" of investigative journalism. Now the âindependent" new regulator, established by a royal charter backed by statute, will further extend state intervention in the affairs of the press, and cast an even longer official shadow over freedom of expression, with the power to rewrite the journalists" code, order the press to publish front-page corrections, and impose million-pound fines... 4) That Ed Miliband is a âhero On the other side of parliament, nerdy Labour leader Ed Miliband has been hailed as a âhero" by his small band of groupies in the liberal media, for supposedly taking a brave stand against the press and the mighty Murdoch Empire in particular to fight for press regulation. In fact, like all the supposedly high-minded crusaders for press regulation, Miliband has been motivated by base political self-interest. Does anybody truly believe that the likes of Miliband and Labour MP Tom Watson, Gordon Brown's former fixer, would have pursued their crusade so zealously if the Murdoch press had remained loyal to Brown's New Labour government at the last General Election? In claiming credit for the stitch-up of press freedom, Miliband has demonstrated that Labour and the rump of the left are now not only the most despicably illiberal and anti-free speech force in British politics, but are also proud of that badge of infamy. 7) That press regulation is only about curbing Murdoch and Co Supporters of press regulation insisted again this week that their aim is not to limit free speech, but only to curb the excesses of the Big Media, as best represented by Rupert Murdoch's empire. But whatever anybody thinks of Murdoch or his newspapers, attempts to curb the freedom of the press can only have serious consequences for us all. As my book demonstrates, hatred of the âpopular" press and the âmass" media has always been a thinly veiled code for expressing an elitist fear and loathing of the populace/masses who consume them. Limiting the freedom of the press is about limiting what the people are allowed to see, read, and even think. The ostensible target might be Big Media, but the real one is the Big Public. And the current proposals for press regulation reach far beyond the big media monopolies, dragging any print or online publication that carries news or opinion into the regulators" net. That means spiked, as well as the Sun. Freedom of expression remains indivisible, and we defend it for all or none at all... 10) That the press is too free and needs a tough new regulator at all This is the Big Lie, the major myth that has been at the heart of the entire discussion around the phone-hacking scandal and the Leveson Inquiry. Whatever their differences over procedures, all sides of politics â and many in the media â have effectively accepted that the British press has been too free to run wild and so must be reined in and tamed. It would be far truer to say, however, that the press is already neither free nor open enough, even before a new regulator is imposed to chastise it further. There might be many problems with the British media. None of them is going to be solved by more regulations and restrictions on freedom that can only reinforce an atmosphere of conformism and create a more sanitised press.