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The Asian Pivot and Obama’s Gum-Chewing Problem

By Patricia Lee Sharpe

The President, it seems, can’t walk and chew gum. The so-called Asian pivot is a case in point, but not the only one.

Is it really possible that a great power with the formal institutional resources available to the U.S. can’t keep an eye on the Middle East and China at the same time? Especially since the China issue massively involves the Navy and the Middle East far less so?

Or is this really just a presidential problem? Does Barack Obama lack the smarts to juggle a complex agenda or, to use the current jargon, to multitask? Or is he a colossally bad manager? Or lazy? Or more in love with the image than the obligations of being president?

Or, truly frightening to contemplate, is the obviously troubled U.S. system we used to admire rotten and corrupted to the point of irremediability?

No Lack of People

Look at it this way. There are thousands of thoughtful, well-informed people within the State Department, the National Security Council, the many-pronged intelligence apparatus and the Pentagon to gather information, assess its implications, draw up policy and/or action plans and send them up the hierarchy to be dealt with—collated, evaluated, weighed, tweaked, given relative priorities with appropriate resources—and, passing muster, implemented. Could we possibly be reduced to this: able to activate only one department of one branch of government at one time?

Seems to me that a well-managed country that pretends to super power status should be able to deal with the Middle East and with China simultaneously—and also, at the same time, with Latin America and Africa as well as all the global issues that affect the welfare of this and other countries.

If not, the Republicans are right. Thousands of people should be out of a job because they are redundant, which is a polite way of calling them useless.

A Definite Lack of Deft PD

Actually, the apparent inability to multi-task isn’t my only perplexity on the “pivot” front, and I’d like to exhaust those concerns before I return to the question of whether this government can simultaneously walk and check gum (and, one would hope, also be able to blow big beautiful bubbles—excluding the financial sort, of course).

As an old hand at public diplomacy, I deeply do not understand why the administration so blatantly announced that it was shifting its attention, i.e., executing a pivot, to the East, thus implying that the U.S. lacks the resources to handle a full plate of global issues. Maybe the U.S. isn’t equipped these days to wage a two-front war, but any world power worth the name must have the resources to carry out effective diplomacy on a global scale. Otherwise, it’s not a middling power, much less a super power.

Employment claims prove inaccurate and misleading

By John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent

12 Feb 2013.  Statistics readily accessible through the Office of National Statistics (ONS) prove government & BBC claims concerning monthly employment statistics are misleading and/or inaccurate.  

Claims

ONS released its latest monthly estimates of employment on 29 January.  On  30 January Prime Minister David Cameron claimed once again during Prime Minister’s Questions that the economy under his government's policies had generated 1 million new private sector jobs.   

Whirled View previously published ONS' written disavowal of the claim, a claim allegedly based on ONS reported net gain in employment over a year’s period of time. I pointed out the ONS standard for counting one person as “one person in employment” is the person worked at least one paid hour per week.  I also pointed out the figures are estimates not audited actuals. 

The day the first article published I brought it directly to the attention of the Twitter accounts of Prime Minister David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, Labour Leader Ed Miliband, Labour Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, BBC News and others. 

Subsequently, I brought it to the attention of Liberal Democrat Party President Tim Farron, the Vice Chair of the British Competition Commission and others.  

Mr. Farron and the Vice Chair discussed the figures with me but I argue even the public figures  who did not should be considered “on notice” when I contacted their Twitter account.   

BBC (unlike the Prime Minister) adjusted their account. BBC described the ONS “headline” figure as a 556,000 net overall increase in employment. But BBC described it as a 556,000 net growth in employment over the course of last year, as if 556,000 jobs of equal value to the economy had been newly created.  BBC also “analyzed” these figures as  “good news” "indicative" of a “strengthening” economy. The presenter expressed puzzlement how an economy that flat lined could have produced so many jobs, but affirmed it had. 

BBC itself undercut that story 6 Feb with a report on the growing category of “Independent Contractor.”   BBC explained that a large number of people, especially men over 50 who have lost their regular jobs but cannot afford to retire, set up their own businesses. For many their “business” is gardening or other light work more designed to take advantage of a marginal benefit to tax credits over benefits. BBC explained this increase in raw numbers is not necessarily evidence of earnings or good news to the economy.   

The government claimed the ONS figures indicate that their management of the economy is “on the right track.” BBC reported that claim without an in depth analysis that compared claims to facts. 

Available statistics debunk the claims  

BBC’s regular reports have been misleading although arguably technically accurate as far as they go. The Prime Minister’s claims were and are both misleading and inaccurate. The facts that could give an appropriately nuanced view have been available all along.  There is an abundance of statistics that could put the raw increase in “in employment” into appropriate perspective.  

ONS publishes on its web site data which hardly paints a picture of a strengthening economy.  Particularly useful is a graphic representation of the relationship between employment and overall population.  Even in headline form, the ratio of UK employment to UK population remains stubbornly below pre-recession levels.  That is neither cause for celebration as good news or an indicator of a strengthening economy. 

In a follow up FOI request I asked ONS for clarification.  On 12 February 2013 ONS replied.   

Comparing September through November 2012 to September through November 2011, ONS reports 552,492 net more people “in employment.” This ties roughly with the BBC headline figure. But significantly, of the 552,492 in employment, 67,607 were in government supported training and employment programmes, 239,282 were employed part time and 30,013 were “self-employed working part time.” Less than half - a total of 254,097 - worked as full time employees. The largest percentage increase was among part time self employed. The rate of increase in full time employment was only 1.4% on the year.  

ONS does show a 1 million increase in private sector employment in the three years since 2010 but at least 196,00 of that is due to the reclassification of public jobs. Over 150,000 is attributable to Labour according to the Vice Chair of the Competition Commission. More importantly, the headline figure disguises what the detailed data shows.

ONS also publishes an Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. Its "headline" shows an average plus 1% Median increase for 2012 among full time employees.  Sometimes Press  cite this figure as if the small annual increase in the wages of Full Time Employees applies across the board.  But the figure for Part Time Employees, found in the detail tables, is a .3% increase in Median wages.  Median Earnings were £155 a week for Part Time employees. That is less than one pound in a year. Median Earnings for Full Time employees were £548 per week for women, £556 for men. Moreover the highest earning salaried employee category dropped.

Dealing with the exploited desperation undergirding the War on Welfare

By John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent

28 January 2013 Panorama -- BBC’s investigative news arm -- examined the Coalition's programme of “Welfare Reform."  One hopes Panorama may have convinced someone of something. One also doubts it.   Public Support for Welfare Reform wasn’t fueled by fact in the first place. Public support was -- and is -- fueled by exploited fear and desperation.   

Perception 

Welfare Reform builds upon a widespread perception that benefits recipients choose benefits as a lifestyle because they do better on benefits than they do in work. Those who hold this perception resent what they believe is recipients’ free ride on the taxpayer’s already too tightly stretched pocketbook. They believe the Coalition pseudo statistic that over a third of government expenditure is on benefits, more than is spent on the total spent on the military, the NHS and the police force. But more important than pseudo statistics is the constantly heard refrain, “my neighbour does better on benefits for which I pay than I do working hard and going without.” 

Many who oppose Welfare Reform immediately respond to perception and feelings with facts and statistics. I certainly do. But the facts and statistics have yet to win the debate.  We may be right. We may be slowly “changing the dial.”  But it is not yet enough.   

What to do? 

I sometimes suggest those who hold the perception sit down with their neighbour to compare accounts. I’m fairly confident such a comparison would prove what the facts and statistics show - the perception is inaccurate.   

Suggesting it may shut some up. But for others it leads to the rejoinder their neighbour does better because their neighbour has an x, y & z the speaker (or his/her family) doesn’t have.  So I ask, have you noticed the a, b & c you have which your neighbour doesn't?  Then comes the argument, I know because (fill in the blank) told me my neighbour said she was better off on benefits.  In the end, no one takes up my suggestion. No one sits down with the neighbour, much less with an open mind. In the end, the discussion convinced no one.

It may not surprise you to hear that this attitude aggrieves benefits recipients. They sometimes see it as raw envy - a sort of communal sibling rivalry that would rob the recipient of the means of life the recipient needs so desperately.   

Other times recipients do know something more profound underlies stubborn adherence to the perception. 

Exploited desperation

Many who hold this stubborn perception are all too close to the circumstances of the benefits recipients.  But even among those who are better off, many struggle to make ends meet. The perceptions about "my neighbour" originate in the quiet desperation to provide for oneself and one's family as real incomes decline, real costs increase. 

An unscrupulous media and cynical politicians capitalized on this desperation. They spun it into a narrative that puts negative focus on the fairness of benefits recipients “profiting” from an alleged “life style choice.”  It isn’t fact. It isn't. But that no longer matters.  It is the prevailing narrative. This narrative provides both social acceptability & a confirming echo chamber to a harsh and negative focus on benefits recipients and the welfare system -- with an intensity born of the British public’s increasingly desperate anger at their own increasingly desperate situation. 

It is the con man distracting the mark with his left hand while his right appears to move the shells without doing so.  The Coalition diverts public attention with a war on welfare recipients (and a debate on a European Union Referendum of unspecified detail four years from now) while the Coalition systematically undercuts the wages and hours of those same desperate British householders under an expert-sounding term, “competitiveness.”  

The strategy works.  

If opponents are to succeed, opponents cannot rely on facts, the moral righteousness of their position or the better correctness of each advocate's separate counter arguments.  Opponents must unite. But more importantly, opponents must find a way to “bridge” to the exploited desperate. Only if the exploited desperate believe themselves fully heard will more open themselves to the facts and by so doing at last end the hold this destructive narrative has on the public.

The Daily Report Card of Unresolved Coalition Issues

By John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent

It is rarely as much fun for a publicly funded news agency to report the ambiguity of fact -- or a politician to deal with the loose ends of sometimes awkward and inconvenient but necessary action -- as it is to pander to unfounded hopes or cherished prejudices.  It’s never a win-win and kind of feels like going to the dentist.  

A little nudge

We all sometimes need a little nudge to help us do so.  So I’ve decided to help BBC and David Cameron with a nudge. The nudge takes the form of a Daily Report Card on issues that languish unaddressed or unresolved.   

The format of the Daily Report Card is a series of Tweets on Twitter to David Cameron and the BBC, “copied” to Nick Clegg, Ed Milliband, the BBC Trust and the Channel 4 News Team. These tweets call attention to issues which in my honest opinion (to use the lingo) languish, inadequately reported by the BBC and inadequately addressed if at all by David Cameron.   

You may ask yourself, why the two together, Dyer?   

There is sometimes a remarkable degree of similarity between BBC and David Cameron in describing some issues. For example, Office of National Statistics reports monthly estimates of employment and unemployment.  Just 15 January I reported what I considered misleading claims concerning these ONS reports contained in both BBC’s analysis and David Cameron’s claims during Prime Minister’s Questions. On 23 January both BBC and David Cameron simultaneously changed how they packaged their claims in - it seems to me -- exactly the same way and word choice. I don’t mean to be paranoid. I'm not suggesting conspiracy. I just notice they both suffer from the same misapprehensions I will detail subsequently.  So I choose to inform both of this outstanding issue on the same report.  

Well, then, why the BBC Trust?    

It is the job of the BBC Trust to safeguard the license payer's interests. It is decidedly not the Trust's job for the Trust to interfere in editorial policy. Indeed, it would be wrong. I certainly wouldn’t want that. But it is the responsibility of the Trust to monitor BBC to ensure the interests of the license payer and the public generally are safeguarded.  It is appropriate for the Trust to nudge BBC regarding issues of concern to the license payers.  The rest is editorial decision and entirely the responsibility -- and the accountability -- of management. I copy BBC Trust so it is informed of the ongoing concern of at least this license payer.  

And Channel 4 News Team?  

The Channel 4 News team is IMHO the most perceptive and thorough television news team in the UK. Together they remind me of the old Huntly-Brinkley-John Chancellor era at NBC.  They cover the issues the Daily Report Card covers. It seems to me only appropriate everybody knows what everybody else knows. There isn’t room on a Tweet to include ITV and Sky news so I exercised some editorial discretion. 

What sorts of issues does the Daily Report Card cover? 

As of this writing the Daily Report Card nudges include the unaddressed recommendations of the Leveson Report. It appears to too many that the entire issue has been "kicked into the long grass" all too traditional for such reports.  

The DRC also reminds all of the grass growing under the report of Tyrie’s special committee on banking . Regular readers may remember I reported on this special committee some months ago in conjunction with the LIBOR scandal.  The committee wrapped up its business in December, finding that planned banking reforms do not go far enough to adequately address the problem.   

That nagging problem of the "1 million new jobs created"

By John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent

15 January 2013.  It is a time of dodgy statistics used to support manufactured happy but unsubstantiated headlines, even by some of the news agencies the public trusts to sort out economic fact from convenient political fiction.  

In the United Kingdom one such statistic is the number of new private sector jobs created this past year.  Although some economists have questioned it in blog pieces, this alleged statistic is regularly cited by the Prime Minister, Party officials and even the media as an indicator that the economy may be healing. But -- as this article documents -- it is not a fact or confirmed by the very body that allegedly produced what turns out not to be a statistic at all. 

The Claim 

The Prime Minister and members of his Party regularly and proudly tout the alleged statistic that the private sector created 1 million new jobs this past year.  

The Prime Minister just last week used the 1 million new jobs figure during Prime Minister’s Questions as evidence that his government is on the right track. 

BBC regularly expresses puzzlement how an economy that generated 1 million new private sector jobs in a year could flat line during that same year (and, indeed faces a third quarterly dip into recession). Despite its puzzlement BBC regularly echos the Party line - it is a hopeful indicator in the tea leaves.  

Skunk in the Woodpile  

There is one, major, nagging problem with this happy headline. The independent body entrusted with these sorts of things -- the Bureau for National Statistics, the very body cited by the Prime Minister, the Party and the BBC for the figures concerning new private sector jobs -- that body denies its figures support that claim. 

FOI response 

The 1 million new jobs creative statistic is so counter intuitive in the face of the flat economy and so integral to the narrative supporting the government’s economic policies I decided to do some independent research. Attempts to do so through the media didn't provide me with answers I trusted.  I submitted a FOI request to the Bureau of National Statistics. 

15 January the BNS replied. The full text of their reply is found here.  With respect to the 1 million new jobs created claim BNS said the following (highlighted by me for emphasis): 

“The Office for National Statistics does not collect any statistics relating to the number of new jobs created. The figures published by the Office for National Statistics on private sector employment are estimates of the total number of people employed in the private sector and the net change in this number. This is not the same as the number of jobs in the private sector, as one person can have more than one job or one job can be shared by more than one person. Nor is the net change in the number of people employed an estimate of the number of jobs created. Therefore the ONS can neither confirm or deny that over a million jobs have been created in the private sector this past year. “

Why wouldn't continued use after notice of this unsubstantiated statistic constitute ministerial misconduct?

My apologies if the British media have somewhere published the BNS disclaimer and I missed it. But I did. The British public has similarly missed it. If it is tucked away in a blog or online report somewhere that is hardly “equal time” with the often and regularly repeated happy headlines albeit they may be repeated with some expression of puzzlement. 

The disclaimer is clear. There is simply no basis for the happy headline that the private sector created 1 million new jobs.

Shouldn't the regular citation of this statistic -- thoroughly debunked by the BNS’s own disclaimer -- cause media to report this "statistic" as debunked by the BNS disclaimer? Wouldn't continued citation of this alleged statistic -- after notice -- be considered fraudulent? Wouldn't continued use be actionable ministerial misconduct? Seems to me that the continuing use of this “statistic” of unknown origin since BNS disavows it (and the companion speculation it proves the economy is healing and, therefore, the Coalition is on the right track) raises serious questions to answer. 

I think Parliament should be asking these questions now. 
 

A Fight Back against the War on Welfare for Christmas

By John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent

Update:  At its 8 PM virtual meeting on Twitter and Facebook WOWpetition named comedienne Franchesca Martinez as their spokesperson. Franchesca, an outspoken and nationally known entertainer has already made plain to everyone across the country where she stands on the issue of the government's War on Welfare.

18 Dec 2012.  A poignant conversation took me by surprise late last night. It was one of those mind focusing moments of unexpected intimacy with a stranger and his unremitting grief. The stranger lost his dear wife two years ago to long term illness.  She was only 44.  

Poignant under any circumstances, it was made the worse by an event become all too common place in today’s “United” Kingdom.  ATOS -- a contractor used by both the current Conservative and the preceding Labour governments -- had found the stranger’s wife “fit for work” just 2 months prior to her death.   

All too common 

ATOS has done the same to many women and men who previously had been considered too disabled or ill to work.  The grim statistics-- and stories-- are easy to find.  Advocacy organizations keep and publish them.  Both BBC’s Panorama and Channel 4’s Dispatches broadcast exposes of ATOS. I’ve heard many anecdotes from strangers. But I also know -- and seen the paperwork-- concerning people close to me. 

Although the stranger’s experience took place in 2010, the current Conservative government takes it all to a new level. Its “Welfare Reform” coerces the disabled to work -- without proper medical exam to determine what they can do within the limits of their disability without exacerbating it.  It coerces them to work without proper determination of what resources, support (including carer) or accommodations the disabled need in order to do the job within the limits of the disability.   It coerces them to work without assessment as to their suitability to the task or the working environment.  The government coerces the disabled with substantial sanctions to their weekly benefits if they fail to cooperate with work placement activities, including placement into unpaid manual labour. 

Sham procedure 

The government likes to characterize their procedure as a medical exam. In fact it is a computer checklist with pre-determined standards. Those who complete the check list may have degrees and experience but they have no discretion. They examine no records. They may not consider the recommendations of treating physicians.  To call it a medical exam is like calling one who microwaves MacDonalds’ hamburgers a chef.  The standards are such that the ability to sit upright for a brief period is considered sufficient to require finding someone “fit for work.”   

By contrast, US Social Security tries to determine what someone can and cannot safely do under what circumstances with what kinds of support or accommodation.  They make the determination based on medical records, recommendations of treating physicians and independent medical examination.   

Unrealistic and demeaning

Welfare Reform pushes the disabled into a job market where scores of persons not diagnosed as disabled-- including many young college graduates and persons with solid track records of previous employment-- compete unsuccessfully for the scarce job vacancies.  It does this without calculation of the reasonable probability of success either at the job or at building what is often a temporary placement into permanent work. Indeed, the current government declares such considerations irrelevant. What’s important, according to the current government, is that the “work shy” be “helped” to see work as the thing to do. 

Welfare Reform comes wrapped in demeaning rhetoric.   It isn’t just the frothing-at-the-mouth “know nothing” who is “not prejudiced, but ...” who uses terms like “Scrounger,” “work shy” or “blinds drawn” or the tabloid press.  Government Ministers regularly use them, including no less than the Chancellor.  Neither Welfare Reform, its proponents, the Department of Work and Pensions or Ministers exhibit any appreciation for the distress they cause or its real life consequences to health & indeed life.    

By fear or favour once more let down

By John Charles Dyer, UK Correspondent

30 November 2012.  Yesterday Judge Leveson delivered his long awaited report into Media ethics.  

It was hardly the storming of the Bastille.

The Judge seemed to some to lean over backwards to shield the police, Ministers and the Prime Minister from criticism over their conduct.  

But Prime Minister David Cameron and the majority of his Conservative Party MP’s rejected even Judge Leveson’s muted and temperate central recommendation even despite the fact this was the 8th time in 70 years press behaviour had necessitated such an inquiry.   

Lord Justice Leveson recommended a statute which would 1) enshrine the principle of free speech, and 2) require the Press to establish an Independent Press Commission to watchdog Press behaviour. The Commission would be independent of government and politicians, and be composed of distinguished people drawn from outside the active Press.   

Both in the report's thrust and in his carefully chosen words at yesterday’s press conference, Judge Leveson focused on bad behaviour -- not the content of speech. He additionally stressed the point that no one -- no one -- spoke for him as to what he “really” meant, thereby underlining the care, temperance and caution he brought to the report.  He was, it seems to me, remarkably temperate, considered and narrowly focused on a narrow reform.  As Alastair Campbell remarked, one could characterize the Judge as pulling his punches. But one can not -- by the wildest stretches of imagination -- call his proposal partisan, personal, recriminatory, repressivly aimed at the content of speech or free speech in the public interest.  

But it was all too much for the Prime Minister.

Or was that the heat in the political kitchen? Was it principle or lost nerve?  Or maybe political advantage? Did the Prime Minister calculate his best hope to salvage a respectable (if losing) finish for his party at the next general election was for him to be the one who sucked up to the Press Barons?  Certainly, election strategy looms larger by the day.   

Whatever motivated the Prime Minister, his decision triggered a political firestorm. 

The faces of the firestorm are the unhappy ones of the Dowler family and celebrities Hugh Grant, Stephen Fry, and Charlotte Church. But the outraged and disappointed victims of press misconduct are not alone. This firestorm may yet escalate into the equally long awaited “last straw” between Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.   

Liberal Democratic Leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg took a step without precedent in response. Clegg spoke separately from the Prime Minister and against the Prime Minister’s position.

Conservatives met Clegg’s decision with outrage, some calling for his resignation. 

Maybe, as some perhaps jaded commentators opined, they will patch this up, too. After all, it is their sacred jobs and power at stake.  On the other hand, it just maybe this is the affair that breaks up the always bad marriage between the two parties. 

What are the relative prospects for the two parties?  

Three Parliamentary by-elections took place the same day as Judge Leveson announced his report.  They were utter disasters for both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Both finished behind euro-skeptic rival UKIP, itself perhaps a significant change in political winds. But worse, Conservatives finished behind UKIP, the British National Party and the Respect Party in one district. The Liberal Democrats lost deposits in 2 districts so poor was their showing. In one Liberal Democrats finished 8th, behind the, ahem, erm, how shall I describe them (?) ... oh, the “other” parties.   

But these three by-elections cannot be considered bell weathers.  They were all Labour strong holds. It is interesting how badly the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats did. It is interesting how well UKIP did. But the results are probably not solid indicators of a blood bath to come, although some will dream. 

On the other hand, the Prime Minister’s response to the Leveson report came only in the late afternoon. One must wonder just how bad the results would have been had the Prime Minister’s reaction been known the day prior.  At least one poll conducted in the pre-release build up to the report suggested that as much as 80% of the country wanted some form of statutory regulation of the Press.

It ain't over yet.

In the weeks ahead the Coalition government will draw up a bill that allegedly does what Leveson recommends. But Ministers "are confident" it will illustrate why the idea won't work.  So, that would be a bill sabotaged in the writing by its opponents, then? A lot of credibility that will carry.  

I will not rehash here the arguments concerning whether or not these proposals would actually impinge on freedom of speech or the press in any way inconsistent with democratic tradition.  Whatever those arguments, whatever the future regulatory and political consequences of this moment, one thing appears crystal clear in this writer's honest opinion. When the chips are down, the Conservative Party stands for neither stabilizing conservative principle nor acceptance of the democratic will if principle or democratic will threaten the special privileges of the entrenched special interests. 

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Here comes the Judge

25 November 2012.  

Judge Leveson will soon release his long anticipated report on Press Practices. You would have thought the Luftwaffe had suddenly appeared over the English Channel. 

Observers widely and wildly anticipate some form of press regulation. For weeks now some politicos and media alike have fulminated against what is, in essence, their own speculation.   

They need to take a chill pill. It isn't the end of life as we know it. 

It isn’t about freedom of speech, is it  

Leveson has a context. It isn’t freedom of the press (at least as that concept is embodied in the United States Bill of Rights). It is alleged widespread illegal practices, especially illegal searches and seizures of confidential information. It is alleged hacking of private phones and computers. It is alleged bribery. It is the alleged use of the information -- and the proven capacity to gain it --  to unduly influence the policies and decisions of public officials.  It isn’t the vital Freedom of the Fourth Estate. It is the Corrupt Practices of a ruthless Big Press.  

Most of these charges have not yet been proven criminally in a court of law. I express no opinion as to the accuracy of those charges in any individual case, especially those still pending.   

But I will offer this opinion -- had the allegations been lain at the doorstop of MI5 or even MI6 they would have ignited furious righteous indignation among the very figures now protesting the regulations Leveson has not yet proposed.   

Why would the public accept the behaviour Leveson revealed? 

Why would the public accept behaviour from multi-national media giants it would not tolerate from big government? Why would the public accept extortionate practices it would not accept from the Mafia?   

Some argue public interest. But in many of the cases Leveson examined the alleged victims were ordinary, private citizens caught up in allegedly "press worthy" events.   

Would we accept a “public interest” defence where big government illegally spyed on ordinary, private citizens? Wouldn’t we demand at least a showing of probable cause before an independent magistrate? Wouldn't we insist the procedure be confined to allegations of truly terrible nature -- terrorism, organized crime?  

Leveson didn't explore the illegal search and seizure of information pertaining to "Johnny the Fish" or "Osam Bin N Gone."  Leveson explored the illegal search and seizure of information pertaining to Millie Dowler.   

Why would we put up with this? We wouldn’t. We didn’t. We won’t.  

It’s an opportunity

Leveson presents an opportunity if embraced.  The Press could negotiate seriously healthy changes to British law.    

For example, the Press could negotiate limiting Britain's strict liability Libel law. Liability could be limited to proven actual increments of actual damage proximately caused by any publication. They could negotiate adding a defence now accepted in the US -- absence of malice with respect to a public figure about whom inaccurate information was published mistakenly but honestly after reasonable diligence.   

The press could negotiate an overhaul of the Freedom of Information Act, including a Private Attorney General enforcement mechanism. The mechanism could award prevailing plaintiffs' costs and attorney fees.  Individual public officials could be made liable for civil penalties for bad faith refusals to comply.

For that matter, the press might negotiate a Private Attorney General mechanism in lieu of a regulator to enforce whatever regulations Leveson does propose.   

Seems to me a responsible Press would seize this moment, turn it into a triumph for responsible freedom. That certainly would be preferable-- and invoke considerably more public sympathy -- than some of the panicked and petulant rants I have read against regulations not yet recommended and a report not yet released. 

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