The Guardian goes toxic…Martin Kettle’s column on porn provides a fine example of how the Guardian has descended into illiberal authoritarianism

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Thanks to Alan who ask: Have you seen article by a twat called Martin Kettle in today’s Grauniad? What has happened to Britain’s “liberal” newspaper? Kettle is a toxic, know-nothing, sanctimonious authoritarian. I’m no Tory, but comparing him and Damian Green makes me question whether we should use “wanker” as a pejorative. It’s the anti-wankers like Kettle who seem like dickends. I agree and noted particularly this intolerant nastiness from Kettle’s column: Green is to some degree a victim of the fact that online pornography is so easily available. People — they are overwhelmingly men — access porn because they can. MPs are not employees, so their offices are not even subject to employer-imposed controls. A digital revolution combined with a free-and-easy approach to online controls meant that porn went from being concealed in brown paper bags on top shelves in seedy shops that charged money for it to being a mass online product costing nothing at all and sent straight into your home, office or phone for anyone to see.Advertisement The fact that men may like porn is not a justification for this ease of access. Porn demeans women. It is violent. It is socially undesirable. It is very bad for men too. To his credit, David Cameron grasped this. The upshot is the Digital Economy Act 2017, not yet in force but coming into operation in a few months. This requires internet service providers to impose an age verification requirement that will be a deterrent not just to children looking for freely available porn but also to adults such as Green (or someone), who will have to go through a process to gain access. In time, shame and embarrassment may act as a deterrent not just to telling the truth but to porn itself. Society would be better off with as little access as possible, and ideally with no access at all. Controls matter. They should be stronger. And I must admit to being somewhat angered by this example of intolerance from the Guardian. 15 years ago I was a keen Guardian reader myself, I found the newspaper to be most in tune with my own beliefs in a liberal and tolerant society, supporting universal equality. At the time the Daily Mail was the villain of the newspapers regularly calling for censorship as sort of panacea for all society’s ills. Now 15 years on the Guardian has become the voice of authoritarianism, censorship, injustice and selective equality. Whilst the Daily Mail, in a strange kind of way, has become the newspaper that gives a voice to the opinions of significant sections of the people who would be silenced if the Guardian had its way. The Guardian and its political allies seem to have become the enemies of the very basics of civilised life: free speech, tolerance, equality and justice. Martin Kettle provides a fine example about the disregard for free speech and tolerance. Political correctness seems to have resulted in a system of justice more akin to witchfinding than anything else. The standard PC unit of ‘justice’ is for someone to lose their lifelong career, and it doesn’t matter how trivial or unintentional the PC transgression is. And when a real and serious crime is being investigated, eg rape, the politically correct prove by their actions, that they are totally happy if innocent people are convicted, especially if it contributes to a feeling of wellbeing by those lucky enough to be favoured by the politically correct.

You can’t investigate that…The Daily Mail reports on Labour amendments to the Data Protection Bill designed to restrict press investigations in the name of data protection, and of course to resurrect unjust press censorship ideas suggested by Leveson

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The Daily Mail explains that criminals and corrupt politicians and businessmen could escape exposure under a new attempt to restrict Press freedom.A fresh bid to restrict the rights of journalists and the media to inquire into crime and corruption involves attempts to change a data law that is going through Parliament. One Labour amendment to the Data Protection Bill would mean that the Information Commissioner would have powers to decide whether codes of conduct under which journalists work should be recognised by the new law. A second amendment would rewrite the new law so that the unjust censorship powers suggested in the second half of the Leveson inquiry into Press standards would go ahead. Currently the proposed legislation provides an exemption for journalists who access and store personal information without consent when exposing wrongdoing. This means that individuals under investigation by journalists would not be able to interfere with their inquiries or block publication of stories that would bring to light wrongdoing. However a series of attempts have been made to introduce changes to the Bill which would remove safeguards for freedom of expression, bind journalists and make their inquiries either difficult or impossible.

Still a little green…The new Green Party leader attempts to censor the press from revealing that many of the ‘child’ refugees arriving in Britain were surely adults

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The Green party has complained to the press censor IPSO over the use of pictures of refugees by the Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Star and Sunday Telegraph.Although it was absolutely obvious that some of the ‘children’ were many years into adulthood, Jonathan Bartley, who co-heads the Green party, has asked the Independent Press Standards Organisation whether the titles were justified in printing images of refugees in Calais whom were claiming to be under 18. According to Ipso’s code of practice pictures of children under the age of 16 should not be used unless adult consent has been given. Bartley ludicrously argued that the coverage did not qualify as an exceptional public interest that would allow the newspapers to override the Ipso code. In fact large proportions of the public were well interested in the fact that the authorities are so politically correct that they refuse to entertain reasonable doubt about the voracity of what desperate refugees tell them. Bartley argued that publishing the pictures contributed to an atmosphere of prejudice against the refugees. A little bit bizarre considering the pictures demonstrated how far British officials are biased in favour of the refugees. The Green party complaint cites editions of the Sun (18th and 19th October), the Daily Mail (18 October), the Daily Star (19 October) and the Sunday Telegraph (23 October).