Labour has joined the Tories in allowing the press to break the law – that’s right – isn’t it, Lisa Nandy?

The new culture secretary has suggested that the Labour government she represents will renege on its promise to resume the second part of the Leveson Inquiry – that was intended to examine unlawful conduct within media organizations and the relationship between the press and police.

The inquiry under Lord Justice Leveson was launched in 2011 to investigate the practices and ethics of the British press after the phone-hacking scandal involving the now-defunct News of the World. Its first part focused on the culture, practices, and ethics of the press and its recommendations led to the creation of IPSO, the more-or-less toothless press watchdog.

According to the i, Labour won the backing of Murdoch newsrags The Sun and The Sunday Times after his company News UK received private assurances that a Starmer-led government would not pursue Leveson 2, or introduce restrictions on press freedom.

The i quoted an interview with Nandy in The House magazine, in which she said, “I’m very opposed to the idea that politicians should be telling the media and the press what they can and can’t say.” Apparently she doesn’t want to stop criminal activity there either.

That is certainly what social media commentators have concluded.

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn had said the party would resume Leveson, back in 2018 when he was leader. Now, his Peace and Justice Project has lambasted Labour’s u-turn, posting on X: “Labour’s decision to block the next stages of the Leveson Inquiry are a deeply disappointing and shameful indictment of how media barons can influence the government. We need a truly independent, fully accountable and democratic media.”

This was mild in comparison with other responses. Here‘s a friend of This Site, Simon Maginn: “Corbyn was going to go ahead with Leveson II: our print media called him an ‘antisemite’. Obviously Murdoch’s new pet Starmer isn’t going to rock the boat. He’s seen what happens if you do. It’s not hard to understand, really, is it?”

Left-wing commentator Frank Owen’s Legendary Paintbrush agreed: “Turns out, Starmer is in Murdoch’s pocket. Just like every other PM since Thatcher. The only political threat Murdoch faced in the last 40 years was Jeremy Corbyn. And “centrists” who claim to hate the power Murdoch wields over British “democracy” refused to support him.”

Mr Corbyn’s Labour policies proved to be significantly more popular than those of Keir Starmer. Even his “worst-ever Labour defeat” of 2019 saw Labour receiving 560,335 more votes than Starmer’s “landslide” victory this year.

It seems clear now that popularity with voters doesn’t win elections; collusion with questionable mass-media organisations will swing them every time.

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