Labour peer Margaret Hodge is among the candidates vying to be the next Ofcom chairman, due for appointment this April. She has been tipped as the front runner to lead the self-appointed internet sheriffs. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall will make the final decision…
Back in 2003, when Hodge was minister for children, she had to give a formal apology in the High Court and make a £30,000 payment for describing a former child abuse victim, Demetrious Panton, as an “extremely disturbed person” when she was Islington council leader. In 2014, Hodge apologised again after police uncovered possible evidence that Jimmy Savile sexually assaulted vulnerable children in a care home in Islington. She said sorry for her “shameful naivety” in ignoring the pleas of victims of paedophiles…
In the 2024 election, Hodge was spotted campaigning for Labour with Peter Mandelson in Islington. Most worryingly Hodge campaigned for the government to ban online anonymity or make social media directors personally liable for defamatory posts back in 2020. Trump’s free speech internet portal for Europeans can’t come soon enough…
Starmer was read out a list of his 13 U-turns on BBC Radio 2, to which he responded:
“Well, I am a common sense merchant.”