Democracy and the Freedom of the press.

According to the number of people who turned out to vote yesterday, two out of three people don't think it's worth voting for, let alone a fight.

We do not have a functioning democracy and neither do we have a free press. What we have is a bunch of lying bastards and the most popular bastard out of all of Westminster past and present only hits 30% popularity. Compare that to the Chinese president which is 91% currently according to an international survey of leaders of countries. In fact all over the Far East the popularities are in the 80s for the most part. Isn't it strange that the global pattern in all of this is the Western leaders are at the other end with similar scores to our own, and well below 50%?

Good question.

Should journalists be exempt from penalties for lawbreaking ?

Well you obviously don't believe so because you refuse to acknowledge any argument made by what you consider to be "right wing" parties or media lol.

Depends on which laws they break, and why.

Breaking, or abetting in the breaking, of Corporate or Governmental, or Institutional Gagging Orders in order to blow the whistle on an issue that is clearly in the Public Interest should be protected.


All The Best 

How about any of the following then :

Espionage ?

Assisting or enabling the transfer of information to an agent of a hostile power ?

Breaking the Official Secrets Acts ?

Contempt of Court ?

Actions which if undertaken by anyone other than a journalist n pursuit of freedom of the press would give rise to a charge of being an accessory to a crime ?

You see, I can think of a number of cases where 'freedom of the press' is a (generally left leaning) incantation meaning 'can't touch me'

The earliest example I can think of Government abuse of laws protecting 'national security' to attempt to protect personal stupidity comes from the days of Thatcher. I'm sure there were others far earlier. But we have allowed hatred of the individuals abusing those laws to enable widespread disregard of the law itself

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On another tack in the same vein, I wonder if you, or anyone else, can enlighten me.

For as long as I can remember, the Guardian has greeted anyone viewing it's online site with a plea for money using the simple - and to the public spirited, middle class champagne socialist I would have thought effective - claim that their appeal to those who can afford to stump up to fund it provides access to their particular spin on the truth for those who cannot afford it.

More recently this appeal to the deep pockets of the 'socialist' wealthy has been replaced with a claim that establishment lawyers are trying to shut down their publication of 'tbe truth' and that they need money to burn on paying lawyers to allow them to fight such moves

I must have missed the reporting of what it was The Guardian published that brought them this attention.

Do you - or anyone else reading this - have any idea what that might have been ??

Corruption tends to be protected by the lack of open and free public discussion. In the UK there has been a tendency for free public discussion to, eventually, correct governmental wrongs. The condition of the Boer prisoner of war camps was only corrected after British Public Opinion was active against the system, the Black and Tans were finally withdrawn after British Public Opinion railed against their deployment, the injustices in Kenya at Hola camp were finally corrected due to British Public Opinion pressure. Parliament also played key roles in these situations. 
Currently corruption, of some sort, is being protected by the lack of free and open discussion on the Pandemic and Vaccines, in and out of Parliament, as well as the immigration problems. Perhaps time will tell, in a democracy it usually does to some degree.