On Monday morning the LibDems will debate F26, a full anti-SLAPP motion claiming Britain is the world’s leading source of legal threats against journalists investigating corruption, and demanding courts be empowered to throw out abusive claims against hacks trying to uncover the truth. A noble ambition to defend freedom of the press…
The previous morning, however, they debate F17, which would commission “a second Leveson-type review of media regulation, covering new media in addition to traditional broadcast and print media”. They justify this by saying “the media scene has evolved since 2012”, and so a crackdown may be necessary…
On Saturday they also debate F14, which wants guidance to police and prosecutors making clear that “repeated, targeted or escalating behaviour” towards elected officials should be “assessed cumulatively, rather than each incident being considered only in isolation“, and social media firms placed under a statutory duty to run a human-staffed hotline for political party HQs. Good luck convincing Elon of that one…
Andy Haldane, Burnham’s recent adviser on the economy who has not taken up a No10 job, told Andrew Marr on LBC:
“The market now suspects that this is a traditional tax-and-spend socialist government with better TikTok videos…
imposing windfall taxes on oil & gas or on banks or upping capital gains tax would […] repeat the mistake that Rachel made […] The Achilles heel, the fiscal Achilles heel of this government thus far has been its unwillingness and/or inability to cut public spending.”