This week showed once again just how out of touch the government is, not just with the public but with itself. David Cameron and Nick Clegg failed to agree with each other about the long anticipated Leveson report. The year long enquiry, which cost a reported £3million, called for statutory underpinning. Earlier, Cameron said he would follow any suggestions from Judge Leveson, as long they were not bonkers.. He went on to acknowledge and accept everything he said, except the need to legislate. Deputy Prime minister, Nick Clegg said he agreed that we need legislation as did Labour leader Ed Miliband.
The lack of action from Cameron has left many people wondering what was the point in having the enquiry at all? Month after month we saw celebrity victims turning up to the enquiry. Stars of TV, film and music as well as politicians and newspaper editors gave evidence. Some of the people who gave evidence are now more well known for the hacking scandal than their chosen professions.  One might say that the press and the enquiry have done a lot to raise awareness of certain people rather than damaging them.
Clearly we need laws that protect innocent members of the public from being falsely accused and hounded by the press . Those laws already exist.  A stricter more robust governing body needs to be in control of the press and the newspaper owners. Mr Murdoch, News international and some of the other News papers have had far too much power to wield for far too long. This needs to be addressed immediately before the next general election so that politicians can get on with what they are paid to do rather than having to worry about cosying up to the papers. Self regulation is not an option but nor should be the option of government regulating the only people that can really hold them to accountability. The people to regulate the press and media generally should be us the tax payers, the licence fee payers, subscription fee payers and paper buyers. It may take a little bit of statute to ensure the governing body had the necessary powers or the press could simply chose to ignore. How hard can it be to set up. We have public bodies that govern schools, we have 12 members of the public deciding the fate of people in court when they sit on a jury. We should in my view use similar models to govern the press.
Prime minister David Cameron seems to be adopting the strategy of doing nothing quite a lot lately. Last week, when the church decided it would not allow women to become bishops, Cameron said its not for government to tell the church what to do.
Yes it is! If the church breaks the law it should not be exempt. Equality laws exist to protect everybody and every institution that employs people has to abide by those laws. Every institution except the church apparently. What message does Mr Cameron think it sends to other religions, if we say oh its fine, their religious beliefs conflict with that law so they don't have to obey? If we allow religions to not obey some laws where do we draw the line? There have been child molestation accusations covered up by  religion. There have been murders and torture in the name of religion.
Mr Cameron should have said to the church, if you want the right to practise your religion in our country then you abide by the laws of this country. Comply or die.
The head of the church is the Queen of England. How arrogant is it of Bishops, who incidentally sit in the house of Lords passing judgement on the laws of this country, to say we don't have to follow those rules.
The Bishops should be barred from the house of Lords and the church should be fined until it falls in line with modern society.  It is so far out of date that they probably think we should have ducking stools for suspected witches. If God in heaven created us all equal who the hell do the bishops think they are to say women are not worthy of the top jobs.