+ + PCC TO GO, NEW BODY UNDERPINNED BY LEGISLATION + +
+ + POLITICIANS MUST PUBLISH DETAILS OF ALL CONTACT WITH SENIOR MEDIA + +
+ + LEVESON SAYS ‘NO DEAL’ BETWEEN NEWS INT AND TORIES + +
+ + HUNT CLEARED OF BIAS, CABLE CRITICISED + +

Lord Justice Leveson slams press saying “behaviour can only be described as outrageous” across all papers and says criminality was ignored. The police get off relatively lightly, but politicians are slammed for years of turning a blind eye and getting too cosy.

The PCC is a goner. Brian recommends parliament legislate to set up a body to regulate the press that has the power to force due prominence apologies and corrections and fine up a million pounds or 1% of turnover. It should have investigative power.

The press will have to come up with their own body and pay for it. The new body will be “validated” by Ofcom. The body will have no power to make organisations and titles join it but those that do not will be seen in the eyes of the law as negligent and showing wilful disregard for standards and thus face far high costs in civil claims. He says government might want to consider Ofcom regulating those that refuse to join and should be considered as overseeing body if new system fails.

Leveson dresses up new legislation as enshrining freedom of the press and closes with a quote from Sir John Major saying its now or never. Leveson says this is not state regulation but an independent body given powers by the state.

The police are to stop using the term “off the record” and politicians should publish all relationships with senior media figures and brief notes of what was discussed. Estimate of all forms of contact including emails and texts should also be published

On a political note Leveson says there was no deal with the Tories and News Int, criticises but does not name politicians for being too close to media, turning blind eye and failing to get a grip sooner. All too close. Hunt is cleared of bias, though Cable gets a slap for letting his own views get in the way.

More follows…

Find out why Phillip Schofield could have found the perfect platform for his Google-based detective work…

…Over on MediaGuido…

Fancy yourself as a Google-based investigative citizen journalist? ITN are setting up just the thing for you: an online channel allowing amateur conspiracy theorists to broadcast anything from UFO sightings to, inevitably, stories of the more sinister kind. ‘Truthloader’ will be coming soon to a YouTube channel near you. Finally somewhere for Phillip Schofield to air the findings of his peerless detective work…

Hold the front page: Gordon Brown is speaking in Parliament today. And why is the jet-setting Prime Mentalist gracing us with his presence? He’ll be speaking in a debate on Scottish independence, but don’t let that fool you. The only reason Gordon is speaking, today of all days, is that he somehow got wind of the huge celebrations planned tomorrow to mark the one year anniversary of the last time he spoke in the House. That’s right, the last time Brown spoke in Parliament was on the 30th November 2011. His utter contempt for serving Parliament and his constituents knows no bounds…

Outside of the Leveson bubble there are some actual, real, political events also going on today. Perhaps most interestingly the by-election in Rotherham. Labour’s nerves are reaching a crescendo, and not just due to the prospect of the Homeland candidate splitting the left-wing vote. This morning Peter Watt warns that the party are losing votes to UKIP by the bucket full:

“UKIP will take votes from Labour as well as the Tories in Rotherham today…the assumption that UKIP is just a threat to the Tories is dangerous and the fact that the Rotherham foster-carers were former Labour voters is not really a surprise. The quicker we wake up to the fact that most voters are not like people who attend Labour party meetings the better.  Some of them even read the Daily Mail.”

While Harry Wallop notes in the Telegraph:

“Today, Rotherham goes to the polls in a parliamentary by-election. That all the talk is about Ukip rather than Labour, which has provided the town’s MP since 1933, is a remarkable turn of events…Despite the momentum, Ukip is still small, with a mere 19,000 members – the equivalent of just a few tables of pub drinkers in each constituency. But these sums appear to hold little truck in Rotherham, where the lack of jobs and prospects are the main concerns.”

UKIP’s price in Rotherham has come in to 8/1. Guido reckons that Labour are still going to take their ‘safe seat’, but numbers are going to be very, very interesting…

Emily Bell explains why press regulation won’t work…

“Just as nature abhors a vacuum, the internet abhors geo-specific regulation.”