On June 30th, Joseph Dinnage wrote a piece headlined "Why Hugh Grant is the last person Burnham should listen to on press freedom".  It is packed with falsehoods.

Firstly he accuses Grant of supporting "censorship" of the press.  Grant is a Board Director of Hacked Off, which opposes press censorship.  We endorse membership of an independent regulator, to ensure that complaints about the press are handled fairly, and which would have no powers to "censor" or prevent publication in any circumstances.

Dinnage says that in 2012 the Leveson Inquiry "recommended legislative changes be made to the operations of the press".  Leveson recommended no such thing; he said that newspapers should be responsible for their own complaints-handler, but that it should be operated independently and not by newspaper executives.

Dinnage assumes that the promised Leveson Part Two inquiry, one (but not the only) priority for Hacked Off, would recommend new legislation.  There is no basis for that assumption, unless it is so obvious to him that parts of the UK press are so profoundly corrupt that he feels it inevitable that the inquiry Chair would reach for the last resort of new statute.

Dinnage pleads poverty on behalf of the press, describing how many local newspapers have shut down.  But this has nothing to do with regulation (which would have no impact on bottom lines), and everything to do with the way large corporations have bought up huge parts of the local press and closed any newspaper not sufficiently meeting its profit margin targets. If anything, regulation would restore public trust in the press and provide a much needed boost to readerships and circulations.

Dinnage states, "if newspapers behave unethically, they should be punished", yet his entire article relies on falsehoods and distortions to rail against any attempt to ensure that happens.

Dinnage also fails to recognise that, in opposing independent regulation, he is effectively endorsing the status quo.  For most national newspapers, this means membership of "IPSO" - a complaints handler controlled by newspaper executives and politicians, in defiance of the Leveson Inquiry's recommendations.

Serious free speech advocates recognise that a complaints body run by politicians, like IPSO, is a genuine threat to press freedom, unlike an independent regulator set up to protect the public.