Impress is the Max Mosley-funded, state-backed press regulator. Having secured official recognition in October, it now wants to force newspapers which do not join up to face legal penalties. Over the next few days MediaGuido will publish a series of findings showing that Impress regulators openly despise the newspapers they want to regulate, our dossier shows these individuals are totally unfit to be the watchdogs of a free press. This is The Impress File…

MediaGuido can reveal that Impress code committee member Gavin Phillipson, a law professor at Durham university who boasts of his commitment to “free speech” in his Twitter bio, wants to ban the Daily Mail. In response to an article by Quentin Letts, Phillipson wrote: “is such a shame we can’t just ban the Daily Mail – probably the worst aspect of contemporary British culture”. Impress wants powers to regulate the Mail, in truth its senior staff want to ban it…

MediaGuido has found that four senior Impress employees have endorsed loopy comparisons between the Daily Mail and the Nazis. Impress CEO Jonathan Heawood has shared multiple social media posts calling the Mail “fascists”, “a neo-fascist rag”, and a claim that it is “increasingly adopting fascist style politics”. Another post shared by Heawood compares the Mail to a newspaper from Nazi Germany.

Impress board member Marie Messenger Davies, the chair of its code committee no less, has shared social media posts calling the Mail “fascists” and accusing it of using “Nazi methods” to “attack its enemies”. Another Impress board member, Emma Jones, has shared social media posts accusing the Mail of “Nazi smears” and “Hitler adoration”. Gavin Phillipson has also promoted a social media post showing the Mail and a Nazi newspaper side by side.

How can a press regulator reasonably regulate an industry if it wants to ban newspapers? How can they come to fair and balanced judgments if its CEO believes they are “neo-fascists”? Impress is the press regulator that hates the press, it is a farce that the government is giving these people the time of day…