Dr Evan Harris told all who would listen that he wanted this blog to be regulated, Max Mosley wanted the government to “cut the wires” of the internet for bloggers who didn’t submit to judicial censorship and the nutty Professor Brian Cathcart who mutters about freedom of the press while trying to stamp it out didn’t really engage. Well they have completely and utterly failed in their ambitions.

The government has announced that for-profit blogs which make less than £2 million will be exempt from the new system of press regulation and there would also be an exemption for blogs with fewer than 10 employees under the amendments to the Crime and Courts Bill. Which leaves plenty of room for Guido to expand his operations…

We would not in any event have gone along with a regime that attempted to put an unbearable and unjustified regulatory burden on us. This is not to say that Guido supports the legislation, it seems pretty unfair on small newspapers who will still be regulated and it means there is not a level playing field. There will, as Guido told Leveson, be a thriving unregulated free press and a withering regulated unfree press with one hand tied behind its back. You only have to consider the Rolf Harris story revealed on this blog three months ago and only today seen on the front pages of the newspapers…