Evgeny Lebedev

All of this noise about phone-hacking and invasion of privacy seems to have distracted us away from two very important points. I think it is time I reiterated those points lest they be forgotten.

1. It is the function of the media to criticise the government and the authorities.
2. Nobody gives a shit who Ryan Giggs* sleeps with.

I had to be reminded of this by Evgeny Lebedev when he was interviewed on the TV the other day. Sometimes it takes an outside perspective to see things clearly. This man used to work for [own] newspapers in Russia where the press is not so free. He explained how in Russia, journalists have been murdered for writing unfavourable articles about certain people. Our press can write whatever shite they want, and we are one of the least corrupt countries in the world**. These two facts and not-unconnected.

If a newspaper taps some phones and discovers that a businessman is making a large "donation" to the government in exchange for a change to the law, and then exposes the thing. Then that is a victory for Britain. If they tap some phones and discover that some dude wot is occasionally on TV is sleeping with some woman nobody has ever heard of, then the newspapers are just pandering to their readers' base interests. They are just trying to make money and are forgetting point 1 above.

In case you missed it, I think injunctions and super-injunctions are a bad idea. Perhaps RG could have had more success and spent less money by just having a few people assassinated.

Why-aye pet! With this false beard and amazing Russian accent, nobody will ever suspect  I am secretly controlling the media for the purposes of keeping me and the other one on TV.

* Or Andrew Marr.
** Why the fuck is Mugabe still in power?