Ignore the result. We must Remain in Europe

Despair has turned to anger and a steely determination to to right a patently egregious wrong.Grass- roots supporters and celebrities are insistent the result must not be allowed to go unchallenged…

Source: Ignore the result. We must Remain in Europe

Ignore the result. We must Remain in Europe

There are several million people in this country who are understandably shocked . They feel shattered, disillusioned , simultaneously suicidal and murderous. The price of failure has been high, with resignations coming immediately in the wake of what turned out to be a disastrous campaign.

The black mood has only intensified as shock has turned to outrage. People at all levels have been questioning themselves, friends and strangers in an attempt to understand  how this could this have been allowed to happen. How a mood of quiet optimism could have dissolved so quickly into despair and recrimination. The team was strong, the leadership powerful, the support from the media overwhelmingly positive. Most importantly, expert opinion from around the world was that there could only be one possible outcome. The  opposition clearly lacked the requisite organisation and experience to answer the questions they were expected to face. And yet, they still triumphed.

Now, the despair has been replaced by anger and a steely determination to right a patently egregious wrong. Grass-roots supporters and celebrities are insistent the result must not be allowed to go unchallenged: That it must be reversed for the sake not just of this country’s future sanity, but for the greater good.

So, tomorrow morning, a delegation drawn from the FA, the Premier League, assorted sponsors, agents and WAGs, will descend on the UEFA headquarters in Switzerland armed with a petition, signed by more than 3 million supporters from places as diverse as Vatican City and the British Antarctic Survey.  Reflecting the national mood, Greg Dyke, the outgoing FA Chairman said, ” I will be representing the view of millions of ordinary people, outraged by what they rightly regard as an aberration, a sick joke.We need to put this right. Not only was our team worth millions more than Iceland’s. Not only do we have more supporters, sponsors and money , but we also enjoyed more possession and territory throughout the tournament. All they did was score more goals than we did.

“For the sake of justice, our future as a  leading football nation and our lucrative sponsorship deals, I cannot allow this result to stand. We cannot be expelled from the Euros at the behest of a country whose players spend most of their lives in the  dark eating walrus sandwiches. I will demand of UEFA that the game be replayed as many times as necessary to achieve the only sensible result; a resounding win for England that will enable us to Remain in the Euros.

GHOTI? Sounds extremely fishy to me

Unlike many of the world’s languages, English is not phonetic. In other words, you can’t hear a word spoken and then work out how it should be written; or see a word for the first time and figure out how to pronounce it correctly. There are too many non-standard spellings for that.

Down the years, this tendency has infuriated many people; not all of them non-English speakers.

Samuel Johnson (Doctor Johnson), famous as the compiler of the first English Dictionary, took the opportunity, while writing the book to simplify or standardise the spelling of many words. Early Americans such as Benjamin Franklin and Noah Webster (also of dictionary fame) decided to attack the problem head-on by making the spelling more phonetic and, therefore, more logical.

Although, ultimately, their efforts came to nothing, their legacy lives on in the fact that British English (BE) and American English (AE) often spell the same word differently. Some familiar examples are:

• labour (BE) and labor (AE)
• aluminium ( BE) and aluminum (AE).
• plough (BE) and plow (AE)
• Sceptic (EE) and Skeptic (AE)

 GBS also under the spell

Another who tore his hair out at the sometimes nonsensical nature of English spelling was George Bernard Shaw (GBS). The author of plays such as Pygmalion (the basis for the film My Fair Lady) and Androcles and the Lion, Shaw spent much of his time trying, and failing, to convince the literary establishment to embrace wholesale revision of English spelling in order to make it more logical.

 What kind of fish is this?

To illustrate his point, he posed the following question: “How do we pronounce the word “ghoti”? If English were a phonetic language, the logical answer would be Goatee or something similar. But, as we know, it is far from logical; a point Shaw emphasised by demonstrating that Ghoti was a legitimate alternative spelling of “fish”. Challenged by a sceptical audience, Shaw explained the logic behind what, on the surface, was a slightly ridiculous assertion as follows:

•           the GH comes from the “f” sound found in English words like rouGH, enouGH                and lauGH ( pronounced ruf, enuf and larf)
•           the O makes the same sound as the “O” in wOmen ( pronounced wimmen!)
•           Finally, the TI makes the SH sound found in English words such as naTIon,                     locaTIon, opTIon etc (pronounced nashun, locashun and opshun)

Shaw felt so strongly about changing English spelling that he devoted a great deal of his later life to the pursuit of alternative, phonetic systems. This obsession continued even after his death. In his will he set aside the sum of £500 to fund a competition to create a new phonetic alphabet.

The competition, which took place in 1958, generated sufficient interest to attract 467 entries. The eventual winner, Kingsley Read, not only took the cash prize but also had the privilege of seeing his alphabet used for a new edition of Shaw’s play, Androcles and the Lion.

Unfortunately, like all previous attempts at improving English spelling, the Shavian alphabet, as it came to be known, proved cumbersome and unwieldy. It consists of no fewer than 40 different letters or symbols which vary in depth as well as height and which look more like hieroglyphs than modern letters. Next to it, the standard English alphabet looks a model of simplicity.

The moral? None really.

Just confirmation that no-one has yet found a way to improve English. Despite its quirks and obvious drawbacks it has become the most successful language ever; truly global in its reach with an estimated 1.6 billion speakers. It is also the most widely-taught second language and, of course, the language of international business.

Which brings us neatly back to where we began. The fact that you have got this far means that your understanding of English is better than good. But, if English and its mysteries can still leave you perplexed and frustrated, take comfort in the fact that you are not alone. And that plenty of help is available for beginners and more advanced users like you.

Try the BBC World Service’s Learning English or the British Council. Also check my book, The Upside Down Guide to writing for the Press, for a whole section on English and some pointers on how to avoid being talked into spelling mistakes by your word processor’s Spell Checker.

Writer’s block? Keep taking the tablets

It was hot and dusty on the plain below Mount Sinai. The people were growing restless as they waited for Moses to return from the mountain, bearing the word of God.

At last, he emerged through the dust and heat, weighed down by two stone tablets. Mrs Moses ran up to him “ Show me. Show me”, she cried, reaching for the tablets.

Moses slumped wearily into the dirt, his head bowed. As he did, the tablets fell from his hands. Eagerly, Mrs Moses picked them up.

She looked puzzled. “There’s nothing on them,” she said. “Where are the words of God?”

Moses looked abashed. He licked his dry, chapped lips.

“Well?” demanded Mrs. Moses, hands on hips.

“God spoke to me on the mountain. He gave me a list of commandments by which we all must live…”

“Yes, yes, I know all that,” interrupted his wife, “So, where are they?”

“ He spoke to me at great length. His words were so awe-inspiring I had to concentrate hard to make sure I would recall everything exactly as He said it. But, when the time came to inscribe His words on the tablets, I was overcome by fear. My hands shook. I could not find the words They wouldn’t come. It was as if my brain had frozen.”

His wife drew herself up to her full height, folded her arms across her considerable bosom and said, “Now, you listen to me Moses. While you’ve been schlepping around on that nice cool mountain we’ve been stuck on this plain, hot, thirsty, plagued by flies and covered in dust for months on end.”

Moses shrugged. “I believe I have suffered an attack of what is known as Writer’s Block.”

Mrs Moses looked as if she were sucking a particularly sour lemon. “Writer’s Block? I’ve never heard such nonsense. Right, Moses, you get yourself back up that mountain and don’t you dare come back down until you’ve got at least 10 commandments written down on those tablets.”

Managed to complete the tablets – at last!

If, like Mrs. Moses, you find the idea that someone could be literally incapable of transferring words onto paper ( or stone tablets) a little far-fetched, think again. The tyranny of the blank sheet or screen is real. It is also very even-handed, striking seasoned professionals and rank amateurs with absolute indifference to status. 

Victims are not just those fortunate enough to make their living by the pen; although some of the more famous names afflicted include Tolstoy, Hemingway and Stephen King. The dreaded block can strike anyone faced with writing anything from a job application, a school or college assignment, a business report, a letter of resignation, to a first attempt at creative writing.

The big question is: how do you overcome it?

 Here are five ways to kick-start the writing process:

 1. Write. It may seem obvious but it’s also true. An athlete trains to run by running. Writers should use the same approach. Write something every day. It could be a shopping list; a memo; a letter to a friend. It’s immaterial. What matters is the process of putting words onto paper or screen. Once you start to fill a blank sheet or screen it begins to look less daunting.

 2. Take time out. Go for a walk and run through the things you want to say. Make sure you carry a notebook or recorder to capture any choice words or phrases that pop into your mind. In fact, try to carry a notebook as a matter of course. Some writers always have a notebook or memo cards for this specific purpose. Then, when times are bad a quick rummage through their notes might be enough to provide the necessary inspiration.

 3. Forget about starting at the start. Frequently, it’s the prospect of making the first leap into a new project that causes the problem. So, if the first sentence or paragraph is the stumbling block simply ignore it. Start somewhere else because where you start is, basically, immaterial. It’s where you end that counts. Pick a section that interests you, whether in the middle or the end and work backwards to the opening paragraph. Frequently, just getting a few words down on paper will be enough to unfreeze the brain and provide the necessary spark of inspiration. 

4.Look around your office, pick an object – any object, it does not have to be special – and write a brief description of it. Or start to list everything you know about the object; what it’s made of, who made it, where it came from. The thought processes involved could jog your brain back into creative mode and break the block. This was the approach that E.L. Doctorow employed when he was stuck and the result was probably his biggest success, the book Ragtime.

 5. Take a pad of Post-It notes and jot down the key points you need to cover in whatever you are writing. These could be statistics, facts, bullet points, or headings and sub-headings that you would use as stepping stones from one section of copy to the next. Stick the notes up on a wall. Study them and rearrange them like a jig saw puzzle to see how they best fit together. Once you are satisfied with the structure, pick a topic or heading and start writing. 

For more tips on writing, click here to download my book The Upside Down Guide to writing for the Press. 

 

 

 

 

Does it pay to be legal in the UK?

This may sound like a silly question. But, think about it a little more deeply and you might understand what I am getting at.

Consider one recent case; that of the Australian woman legally married to an Englishman, with two children who are both British citizens, but who was deemed to be living here illegally and threatened with deportation because she, apparently, failed to file the correct forms before arriving in the UK.

Some faceless, jumped-up little clerk at the Home Office obviously thought that she represented a threat to this country because Katherine Tate faced a nightmare scenario in which she would be deported to Australia – despite being pregnant – and forced to leave her husband and two sons behind in the UK.

This despite the fact that the family never tried to hide or disguise what they were doing, They lived perfectly transparent, blameless lives. The husband, Dale Tate, owns an electrical contracting company, employs two tradesmen and two apprentices and has never claimed benefits, even those to which the family are fully entitled such as child support and family tax credits. In every sense, the Tates were the epitome of a sensible, law-abiding young family. Perhaps that was their mistake. Being so straight, so visible, they represented an irresistibly easy target for some box-ticking, heartless bureaucrat keen to earn some brownie points.  

It’s probably only thanks to the negative headlines the case generated that an Immigration Tribunal finally ruled that common sense should prevail and the family kept together. Getting to that point has, according to Dale Tate, cost the family thousands in legal fees. Not to mention, of course, the incredible stress on the family in general and the heavily pregnant Mrs.Tate in particular. Now, to add insult to injury, they have been told that Mrs tate will have to pay for any future treatment the NHS provides in delivering her third child.

Meanwhile, back in the world of inverted values inhabited by so many of our political and administrative elite, so many Nigerian women fly to the UK to give birth that there is a regular flight from Lagos dubbed the Baby Express. They fly in, have the baby, frequently by caesarian section, recover and fly out again, leaving behind thousands in unpaid bills.

One woman, Bimbo Ayelabola, gave birth to quins in Homerton Hospital, east London, running up £200,000 in bills over the two weeks she and her new-born babies stayed in the hospital. Since they were born here, her children automatically became British Citizens. In 18 years time, they will all be entitled to enter the country legally to live, work – or claim benefits. That, of course, depends on their being shipped back to Nigeria in the first place. So far, that hasn’t happened. Mrs. Ayelabola has been given temporary leave to stay in the UK while her children’s health improves.

 

As she is already claiming that her wealthy Nigerian husband has abandoned the family, any future attempt to place them on a plane back to Nigeria, will see a queue of legally-aided Human Rights Lawyers form rapidly at her front door. An application, under Human Rights legislation, for the family to stay permanently on the ground of a right to a family life, won’t be that far off.

So, there you have it. Be up-front, legal and honest like the Tates and the bureaucrats will sniff you out and bully and hound you. Brazen it out, like Mrs Ayelabola, wrap yourself in the Human Rights Act and the bully boys will run rapidly for cover.  

Write, right or rite – who’s checking the spellchecker?

If you have ever worn khakis, tucked a baby into a cot, thought about buying a bungalow or creating an avatar, you might have been thinking in English but were actually using words acquired from Indian languages. Similarly, when you curse a computer glitch or admire someone’s chutzpah, you are using expressions appropriated from Yiddish.

As I point out in my new book, The Upside Down Guide to writing for the Press, English has absorbed words from different languages down the ages, beginning with Latin (from the Romans), German from the Angles and Saxons, Norse from the Vikings and French from the Normans. Later, the British Empire’s global reach meant that words were absorbed from hundreds of languages and cultures around the world

Thus, despite the rapid recent economic growth of China, India, Brazil and Russia, English is still the language of international business. Anyone wanting to succeed in the global economy has to be proficient in writing and understanding it.

This continuous assimilation of words and expressions from other languages keeps English vibrant. But it has also made the language complex, quirky and frequently illogical; making it an even more difficult proposition for non-English speakers and writers.
Mistakes are easy to make
Perhaps that’s why mistakes are so easy to make. Take the headline of this post, which contains three words which are pronounced exactly the same but spelled differently and mean different things.

Write means to produce letters and words

Right is the opposite of wrong ( or left !)

Rite means a ceremonial act or procedure.

English contains hundreds of words like this, known as homophones. To confuse matters even more, there are words which are spelled the same way but have different meanings; for example, bear (to carry or withstand) whose spelling is exactly the same as for the animal of the same name e.g. a polar bear. These words are called homographs.

Many try to cut through the confusion by using a spellchecker. Unfortunately,that can sometimes be as dangerous as using as using a calculator,in my opinion. To use a calculator efficiently, it helps if you can do a basic bit of mental arithmetic to help you decide in advance whether or not a calculation makes sense. Without that basic skill, you are left completely at the mercy of the calculator, obliged to accept at face value whatever result the machine spits out.

Though many are context-sensitive, it is entirely possible to use the wrong word in the wrong context as long as it is spelled correctly. Any writer who relies solely on a Spell Checker to proof their material is asking for the same sort of trouble as the calculator user who can’t do mental arithmetic. The moral is this: Check the SpellChecker. Or, better still, have someone who is a fluent writer of English proof-read your words before you finally commit anything to the public domain.

For more tips on English, download my book – FREE for the next few days – or log into my personal website: http://peter-rose-writer.co.uk/

Press Freedom? Hugh must be joking

Press Freedom? Hugh must be joking.

Why grammar schools scare the elite

Recently, David Laws, LibDem Schools Minister, gave a speech in which he called for more Grammar School places to be made available to children from poorer homes. 

The fact that Mr. Laws made this demand is ironic on several levels. In common with politicians from all of the major political parties – including UKIP – he is the product of a private education. For at least the last fifty years, the conventional wisdom on all sides of the political spectrum has been that comprehensive schooling levels the educational playing field.

So confident have successive Education Secretaries of all stripes been of this fact that  that no new Grammar Schools have been or will be allowed to be built; although some will be given permission to expand. Yet now, here he is demanding that the remaining 164 Grammars throw open their doors to the poor and disadvantaged; presumably because he believes the Grammars give their pupils an unfair advantage which the said poor and disadvantaged are missing out on.

The logical thing to do, surely, would be to build more new Grammars; or allow a percentage of the better comprehensives to revert to Grammar status. But, thanks to ideology or dogma – and the intransigence of the educational establishment -he will not even countenance such a move.

How have we arrived at this situation? By 1948, almost 40% of secondary schools in the UK were Grammar. At that time, British education was admired and emulated around the world, with many countries adopting O and A level curricula for their own education systems. Three post-war Prime Ministers – Wilson, Heath and Thatcher – were products of Grammars. Now, Grammars represent just 5% of secondaries, but send more pupils on to University pro rata than even the fee-paying sector.

What is it about Grammars that so terrifies our elite? Probably, the simple fact that they demonstrate that intelligence and intellectual achievement are not determined by class or status. Education empowers and breaks down barriers. At the height of the Grammar system, the UK enjoyed unprecedented levels of social mobility; a trend that has gone rapidly into reverse since their enforced decline.

Between the two world wars, over a third of the UK workforce was employed in service; a huge army of worker ants busting their collective gut to ensure that their betters – as they preferred to think of themselves – could enjoy privileges totally disproportionate to their value to society.

Several things changed the status quo. The first was the steady, if not unchallenged, rise of the Trades Union movement between the wars and after WW11. The second was the war itself. The imperatives of war forced the government of the day to turn to women to do jobs that had been the sole preserve of men. Female tractor drivers, pilots, ambulance crew, factory workers and miners filled the gaps left by men dispatched to the front line.

After the war, those men returned to a country and society they hardly recognised; bankrupt, battered and with few prospects for immediate economic recovery. Their jobs had either disappeared or, in some cases, been successfully taken by women. Their homes, if they were still standing, were in a state of disrepair and neglect. Yet, the elite expected normal service – or more accurately servitude – to be resumed immediately.

How devastated were they when the masses responded at the earliest possible opportunity by electing a Labour Government. As Hartley Shawcross is consistently misquoted as saying: “We are the masters now”. Of course, the fact that Shawcross was a Baron by inheritance meant that he had always been a master, but you get the point. It was the people who now held the reins of power.

That Labour Government can lay claim to two very significant achievements; 1. the provision of universal health care through the National Health Service and 2. the implementation of the Tories’ Education Act 1944, which ensured a secondary education free for all pupils. At the tip of this tripartite system was the selective Grammar School.

A whole generation of children – including those from the poorest homes – had their horizons  expanded dramatically simply through exposure to a higher form of learning. By the Sixties, it was no longer unusual for the brightest and best to make it to Oxford or Cambridge.

Of course, beneath this pinnacle of achievement was the rest of the pyramid; those who, for one reason or another, had missed out on selection. It wasn’t long before the Levellers -epitomised by Anthony Crosland– were plotting to destroy the grammar system because of its “unfairness”. Ironically the man who said “”If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to destroy every fucking grammar school in England. And Wales and Northern Ireland” was himself the product of a highly selective education;via Highgate School to Oxford University.

In that sense, he is not merely the original template for modern politicians and apparatchiks but could almost be regarded as their spiritual father.
Virtually every member of any significance on both sides of the Houses of Parliament is a product of selective education.

Much has been made of Cameron’s Eton background. But Clegg, Laws and leading Labour figures such as Harriet Harman, Tony Blair and Ed Balls were formed in precisely the same kind of mould as Crosland – fee-paying private schools followed by Oxbridge. They all support the concept of comprehensive education ( although almost all have managed to cherry-pick the best schools in the private and public sectors for their own children).

Under them, the standard of education in Great Britain has been so comprehensively devalued that mediocrity is now the benchmark. Statistically, we have more pupils passing more exams than at any point in our history. Almost 50% of the school-going population gets a shot at a university education. Yet, somewhat conversely, the international league tables for Maths, English, Physics, Geography show that we are slipping, relentlessly, down the educational ladder to share rungs with the likes of Botswana and Estonia.

Many of our leading universities are having to provide British pupils with the basic Maths and language skills they need before they can even start their course proper. So a three year degree turns into four years. For poorer pupils, or those that are not so motivated, that extra year of tuition fees might translate into loans and other financial sacrifices they are not able or willing to make.

Despite the evidence to the contrary, our political and educational elites continue to claim that everything is for the best in the best of all egalitarian worlds. They have collectively set their faces determinedly against Grammars and selection in the public sector. Why?

Well, we are back to the elite again, are we not. The Cleggs, Camerons, Osbornes, Balls, Harmans et al have all arrived where they are by virtue of a selective education. Irrespective of the school they attended, their education has been challenging, disciplined, competitive and achievement oriented. The very attributes they have done their best to excise from the public domain are those that have enabled them to achieve elite status.

But, there is no point becoming an elite and giving another fifty million people the chance to join you at the top of the greasy pole. Far better to dumb the system down, even while denying that you are doing so. Make mediocrity the new gold standard, reduce the number of Grammars to the absolute minimum and, every now and again,   allow a few to escape the great mass of the ill-educated to challenge your position at the top.

Just for the top show, so to speak,

A must-read for aspiring and experienced PR writers

My e-book, The Upside Down Guide to writing for the Press has been down-loaded nearly 11000 times in just under six weeks. 

If you want to understand why, just read what communications expert, Noreen Comerford had to say after reading the book:

A must-read for both experienced and aspiring PR writers that
want to know the mechanics (and golden secrets!) behind getting their
material published – every time. You have taken years of cultured, diverse
experience and somehow made this text book an entertaining, “fun” read. In
addition, this is a reference book I will go to time and time again – the
tactical examples of “do’s and don’ts” for releases, as well as the “Word
1 – Word 2 ” charts – are like having your own “cheat sheets” to
continually revisit.

I would post a warning in your promotion: Warning: Do not send out
another Press Release before reading this book!!!!

 

Press Freedom? Hugh must be joking

Some time in 1999, at a loose end in Los Angeles and slightly disillusioned with life as a film star, Hugh Grant was seeking some intellectual stimulation. The actor, a graduate of New College, Oxford , knew the town was home to renowned academic, Dee Light-Brown, author of an acclaimed work on Hegelian philosophy. Anxious for an opportunity to discuss the book, he determined to spend the evening with her.

For a number of reasons but mostly thanks to Grant’s unfamiliarity with American spelling, he ended up with the wrong person that night; a lady called Delight Brown whose accomplishments were more obviously physical than intellectual.

Despite this misunderstanding, the mismatched couple struck up an immediate rapport. Safely ensconced in Grant’s white BMW, they were soon discussing a wide range of topics. Delight was later to comment that Grant’s English accent transfixed her, reminding her of Prince Charles.

Perhaps it was this bedazzlement that led to their subsequent arrest. Grant had just launched into an explanation of Hegel’s basic tenets when Delight  popped his penis into her mouth in an attempt, as she later explained, to experience at first hand the interconnectedness of all things. Not unnaturally, Grant went rigid with shock.

The couple were still in this interconnected state when a police officer  tapped on the window of the vehicle. Completely misunderstanding the existential nature of their transaction, the officer  arrested the pair for committing a lewd act in a public place. To compound their embarrassment, Delight was further charged with solicitation.

There were dire murmurings that the scandal would finish Grant’s burgeoning Hollywood career. However, he calmed the situation with an abject apology on US prime time TV. After this, if anything, the scandal seemed to burnish rather than tarnish his image.

In fact, the subsequent notoriety did neither participant any great harm. Grant’s stock character, the slightly wet but charming English fop, acquired an unexpected  edge, while Delight Brown parlayed her new-found fame into a million dollar fortune which took her off the streets and into a mansion.

Having learned that there is no such thing as bad publicity, Grant was assiduous in working the popular Press to increase his exposure and wealth. His on-off relationship with Liz Hurley kept the couple in the limelight for many years, irrespective of what they did on-screen. There were no complaints from either of them that their privacy was being invaded.

Then, Grant discovered that the News of the World had hacked his mobile phone. In this he wasn’t alone. Any number of other celebrities – most of them self-styled – had their privacy similarly invaded. Suddenly, the louche playboy of the western world, who had spent most of his career bathing in the warmth generated by a thousand tabloid headlines, discovered that he really didn’t like the tabloids very much at all. They were full of nasty, grubby little oiks who were constantly invading his space, spying on him. They needed to be reminded of their proper place; as suppliers of free publicity, useful only when some extra column inches were needed.

Following the hacking of missing teenager Milly Dowler’s phone, in 2011 a pressure group – Hacked Off – entered the public debate. With the tacit support of such beacons of truth and rectitude as Max Mosley and John Prescott this shadowy coalition of academics and lobbyists demanded that heads should roll and the Press – or that part of it the Guardian regarded as beyond the Pale – be brought under Government control.  Grant became one of its figure-heads, popping up all over the BBC and in interviews in the Guardian and Independent along with other celebrity “victims” of Press intrusion.

Arrests were made.   Dozens of journalists were imprisoned. The News of the World was shut down and over 200 people lost their jobs. Millions of pounds were spent on the Leveson enquiry -at which Grant was one of the star turns. Even more treasure, over £100 MILLION, was expended on Police investigations and the recent show trial of Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson, former editor of the News of the World and, more recently, David Cameron’s Head of Communications.

Brooks and most of the other defendants were acquitted.  Only Coulson was found guilty and now faces further charges from  a legal establishment relishing the chance to stick it to uppity journalists at every opportunity.   Many of the celebrities whose privacy was invaded have received six and seven figure pay-offs from News International. But, still that is not enough.

Hacked Off and supporters like Grant, Steve Coogan, Max Mosley and legions of expense-fiddling MPs and Peers are still demanding that a Royal Charter be established to appoint an “Independent” panel called – echoes of Newspeak – the Recognition Panel.  This Recognition Panel will vet the regulators put in place to regulate the Press.

Hacked Off claims that this is not the thin end of a wedge that will, inevitably, lead to politicians controlling the Press. Yet, the Recognition Panel will be appointed by politicians; and if the politicians don’t like the look of the regulator, then they will be able to block the appointment; leaving the regulator in limbo and, presumably, powerless to make any decisions. Under those circumstances, it would be only right and sensible for the Recognition Panel to step in to fill the void with its own appointee; simply to restore equilibrium, of course.

If you doubt the pendulum has already swung heavily towards greater news management, consider the Rolf Harris case.  Solicitors acting for Rolf Harris were, apparently, able to block news of his arrest for four months simply by invoking the Leveson Report.  Prior to Leveson, police would have confirmed details of the arrest if approached by a journalist already in possession of the facts.

Now, with the tacit approval of the Establishment, refusing to confirm or deny, leaving the Press swinging in the wind, is rapidly becoming the norm. This, despite the lead prosecutor in the Harris trial saying that press coverage was instrumental in encouraging other victims to come forward.

If Hacked Off and Grant get their way and the Royal Charter gets implemented it will be goodbye to Press Freedom in the UK as we have known and appreciated it for 300 years. The change won’t be immediate.  It won’t be particularly heavy-handed. The proponents of change are too savvy and discreet for that.

But, it will happen, incrementally and inexorably until, to those brought up in a post-Leveson world, the time when the Press was free of Government interference will be something else a few grumpy old fogies bang on about when they get together to reminisce about the Good Old days.