IPSO business as usual says Lord Puttnam

New press regulation regime is ‘business as usual’, says Lord Puttnam. (Jasper Jackson, Guardian)

NOTE ON SOURCE: Lord Puttnam is a Labour peer; Labour, without being particularly clear on what this means (see end-note), have said they intend to seek press regulation which complies with Leveson.

Delivering the inaugural Media Trust annual lecture, the Chariots of Fire producer, who was also deputy chairman of Channel 4 until 2012, said David Cameron had “bottled” his chance to take on press barons over regulation.
He said that in the two and a half years since Sir Brian Leveson published his report on press regulation, “no progress of consequence, certainly nothing that would signal a change in our culture or compassion, is in any way evident”.
He added: “A body with no meaningful credibility, Ipso has been established – which several newspapers have refused to recognise because to anyone with a serious interest in change, it comes across as little more than business as usual in gingham.”

Whilst it is tempting to agree, and not being at all convinced that IPSO will emerge as a truly robust or independent regulator, I think it's a little harsh to contend that IPSO is in no way an improvement over the PCC, an organisation so woefully inadequate it announced its own disbandonment!

MILIBAND Q+A, 13TH APRIL 2015

Q: Do you agree with a cap on media ownership? And does this, and your pledge to implement Leveson, explain media hostility to you?
Miliband says it is incredibly important that we have a free press, and that they can write what they like about his. “And they certainly have.”
But victims must be protected from the press.
And, on media plurality, he says it has always been Labour’s case that protecting this is important.

(Guardian report)