Decent Brits want rid of vicious Newscorp inaccuracy, not press freedom

Live: Maria de Villota found dead…

…headlined the Mirror’s website this afternoon. It’s hard to imagine any headline writer being either that thick or that smartassed as to pen that one, but there you go: my money’s on smartassed.

Potty as it may seem, it is this kind of behaviour that is going to bring the Sword of Levenson down on the necks of brass.

A-lister biffed over barf girl…..

….headlines the Murdoch Currant Bun. ‘A FILM star was punched and kicked in the groin by a passer-by in London after he refused to stop filming a female reveller being sick’ claims Rupe’s soaraway sh*te-bucket. But if you want to know which star it was you’ll have to sign up for the Digger’s paywall-smasher. And if you don’t want to know, congratulations, you are civilised. Such a decision, in fact, may go some towards explaining why there is a real correlation still between being civilised and comfortable. For non-Blighty readers, ‘comfortable’ means ‘don’t have to watch the pennies too much, but do consider paying £80 for a pullover to be idiotic. (And in the sale at £35, sensible).

Whatever the soi-disant ‘quality’ press would have us believe, tabloidism is what most decent people in Britain want to kiss goodbye. They want to wave a not very fond and final farewell to pigs yelling through letter-boxes, bald old psychopaths with far too much influence over Government policy, and former (but unreformed) pornographers writing drivel and titillation.

Remember: tabloid ‘journalists’ have included Piers Morgan, Alistair Campbell, Janet Street-Porter, Kelvin Mackenzie, and Quentin Letts. What more do you need to know?

Well, if you do need more, how about this for an idea: if Hugh Grant promises never, ever to make another movie, would this be enough for 90% of the UK population to consign Sport, Sun, Star, Express & Mirror to the dustbin of history? Even if this meant 40% of the population returning to nightschool in order to read those newspapers still left, wouldn’t it be worth it?

Let’s have a heated debate….

Earlier at The Slog: US debt: the difference between a contrived crisis and an an inevitable default