Lincoln MP Karl McCartney backs moves towards new Press regulation

“MP's have only agreed to this to stop all the expenses information coming out. I will never trust a polititian as they all lie cheat and steal. The average polititian earns £100,000 a year plus expenses and what do we get, nothing... This country is falling apart and he smiles because he agrees with the new press regulations.. no hs smiling because now it will be harder for the press to report about all the earnings and expenses they claim.

Polititians are no better than the lowest form of scum that lives on our planet, we do not live in a democarcy, we live in a dictatorship...”

“Rick29 - are you sure you know what you're talking about? There are no nOw on the regulatory panel so how can they cover anything up? This change doesn't touch law so there is no difference to libel, data protection et al. The change is that the press no longer regulate themselves because they've shown they ( the Press compaints commission) have shown they can't be trusted and lacked power to deal prop ely with ethics breaches.”

“menshy, your also missing the point, when this has come in it will be abused by mp's, this is basically one big gagging order on all press. whistleblowers will be considered illegal as well as they would be breaching the data protection and privacy acts by giving out information regardless if its in the public interest (ie mp expenses, nhs whistleblowers on death rates, whisteblowers at a4e who found huge fraud going on and sent info to papers)”

“Chelle90, rick29 - I think you're missing the point a bit. The Royal Charter arising from the Leveson Report is aimed at protecting peoples' privacy - ie the press cannot use material that it obtains through illegal means such as phone hacking, but it can use material it obtains legally such as via the Freedom of Information process provided it is published within existing libel laws. The expenses scandal arose from info accessed via Freedom of Information requests and whistleblowers, and the reporting couldn't be libellous because it was true - therefore this Royal Charter changes nothing there and were the scandal to re-surface it could be reported in the same way.

Since the Conservative Party gave ground on 4 of the 6 key aspects of the reform package and originally wanted a much tougher regime for the press to operate within I expect Mr McCartney's support is less to do with party loyalty than it is because he is a lawyer - the real winners from this reform.”

“Hmm.. I think that this could be because of the MP expenses exposed..”

“and without freedom of speech we wouldnt of never found out about the expense abuse that mps were caught up in, now its just got alot easier to hide if they do it again. they will end up gagging the press to stop them releasing anything that damages there parties image, or they'll just ask all stories to be verified before there published a bit like in north korea where any story that slates the government isnt published”

“Will Mr. M be suing when the press gets his name wrong again?”

“'press regulation to ensure that such appalling acts of 'phone hacking can never happen again' - - - In theory it should NEVER have happened again to start with. The trouble is now a lot of stories that are legally found to be true are liable to be blocked by the Government. SO MUCH FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH!”

“He would agree with anything to be in favour with his leader .”

“Politicians, nowadays, have a tendency to remove freedoms and rarely the opposite.”