The big newspaper companies have failed in their attempt to delay the Royal Charter, which means that charter approval by the Privy Council will go ahead at last this afternoon.

The High Court firmly rejected bids by PressBoF – that’s mainly the Murdoch papers, the Mail and the Telegraph – for injunctions to halt charter approval and for leave to have a judicial review of the earlier Privy Council decision to reject their own charter scheme.

This is as expected: the principal reason for the five-month delay in charter approval since May was that the government was ensuring its processes were legally fireproof. The judges have confirmed that they were.

The actions of these companies in mounting this desperate legal manoeuvre were an affront to democracy and yet further proof that these companies – as the Leveson Inquiry found – are not fit to regulate their own affairs on their own terms.

Brian Cathcart gave the following response on behalf of Hacked Off:"The big newspaper companies like the Murdoch press and the Mail have been in denial ever since the Leveson inquiry report condemned the way they treated ordinary people and told them they needed to change."

The inquiry judge has told them this. Their own readers – the public – have told them. Their past victims have told them. Every single party in Parliament has told them. Now the courts have thrown out their latest manoeuvre."

We have to ask: is there anyone at all that Rupert Murdoch and the other arrogant proprietors will listen to?"

The Royal Charter is good for journalism, good for freedom of speech, and – vitally – good for the public. What Mr Murdoch and his friends are clinging to is the right to lie, twist, bully and intrude, inflicting misery on innocent people. That has to stop."