By Jonathan Coulter. First published at Campain.org. Republished here, with permission and thanks.

On 29th November, the Hacked Off Campaign held an event “Ten Years on from the Scandal that Rocked Britain”, with four speakers and three panellists, in a chilly University of Westminster auditorium.

I particularly suggest watching Nick Davies, who exposed the scandal (starting in 2006), and his exchanges with the other participants. These include Alan Rusbridger, the Editor of the Guardian who supported Davies and, amazingly, allowed him to focus on this single topic for over seven years. [/vc_column_text][vc_video link="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SLgb0478Ps"][vc_column_text]

Professor Steven Barnett started the event by saying the Guardian’s ground-breaking revelations were about much more than phone-hacking. They concerned the routine and systematic abuse of journalistic principles in several newsrooms, and most importantly of all, the abuse of power.

To me, the panel throws light on the fears dominating British public life, as I discussed in a previous blog, and upon the surreal world we encounter when trying to push back against misrepresentation. It does not justify, but helps explain, a phenomenon we in CAMPAIN have much noted, that both leaders and members of the public often fawn, or “walk by on the other side”, when faced with the most outrageous falsehoods.

A nasty business

Davies characterizes newspaper editors – with the notable exception of Alan Rusbridger – as bullies. They do a lot of shouting, and their writ holds throughout the journalistic the chain of command. They will if they can, “do violence” to the reputation of someone who seriously crosses them.

It is an environment that foments resentment, and this played to Davies’ advantage, meaning that he could find people of conscience prepared to spill the beans about the criminality taking place in their own newsrooms or under their watch. This allowed him to gradually penetrate the vast web of phone hacking and related abuse, of which there may have been as many as 12,800 victims, though the precise number is unknown.

However, as the Guardian revealed the facts, the press, the police and Murdoch’s allies within the House of Commons closed ranks, placing both Davies and the Guardian in an unenviable position. They were being made to look as if there was no evidence behind their assertions. It was one thing to obtain off-the-record information from whistle-blowers, but quite another to persuade any of them to break cover.

The most frightening point came in July 2009, when Rusbridger and Davies were instructed to appear before the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, an event at which they were “being set up to have their careers ended”. Then, just two or three days before the meeting, one source authorized some key evidence that showed that Murdoch’s group had been covering up its employment of law-breaking private investigators, and that Scotland Yard had been sitting on important information and failed to use it in stopping the cover-up.

So, what have the years of investigation achieved?

The investigation reduced the level of criminal phone-hacking to near zero, and has improved privacy, but Davies objected that it had been totally unsuccessful in getting the newspapers to tell the truth. They systematically ignore the first clause of the IPSO Code of Conduct, which requires that they correct any false or misleading information they publish: “If they abided by that clause, Britain would still be in the European Union”.

He had expected that exposure would lead to Britain's mainstream press getting a decent regulator, but it didn’t happen. We have ended up with IPSO which is similar to the Press Complaints Commission it replaced and allows the press to continue distorting the truth (i.e. lying) day after day with impunity.

Alan Rusbridger provided further illumination, describing how, following the Milly Dowler revelations of 2011, there was an “Arab Spring” moment when two or three newspaper editors recognized the need to clean up Fleet Street. However, the opportunity was wasted and they ended up closing ranks with Murdoch’s editors and Paul Dacre of the Mail.

At the end of August 2015, Rebekah Brooks was back as CEO of News UK and Murdoch had in effect put “two fingers up to the British public” (in the words of Chris Bryant, the then shadow culture Secretary). In 2018, the Government reneged on Cameron’s commitment to Part ll of the Leveson Inquiry, IPSO has not acted to regulate journalistic standards, and now Boris Johnson wants Paul Dacre, a virulent opponent of public sector broadcasting, to run Ofcom.

In Davies’ view, the key underlying problem is that senior people in the British power elite live in fear of Murdoch, a “pathologically greedy man”, and will not stand up to him. This was most evident after the 2014 trial of Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks, when police planned to interview Murdoch, as a suspect under caution, but yielded to bullying and backed off. “So”, says Davies, “what did we achieve (from seven years investigation)? We didn’t even teach the police it needed to stand up to this bullying”.

Davies mentioned two further factors that contribute to the failure. One was the development of the internet which is literally “flooding the planet with words” and making it difficult for journalists to get people to focus on one story. The other was the growth of a powerful and very skilled PR function within Government and the private sector, something which had scarcely existed when he started work in the 1970s. This allows Governments to virtually ignore public opinion. Taken together, these factors had reduced to “near impotence” our ability to change the direction of events.

A movie on the hacking scandal

George Cloony, himself the son of a newspaperman, wanted to make a movie based on Davies’ book “Hack Attack, how the Truth Caught up with Rupert Murdoch”, announcing his intention as far back as 2014. He described the book as having "all the elements - lying, corruption, blackmail...The fact that it's true is the best part." However, in 2019 he scrapped the idea due to Hollywood’s fear of upsetting Rupert Murdoch, whose group has enormous power to review movies. Cloony’s scriptwriter had been unable to raise US$ 20 to $ 30 million, modest figures by Hollywood standards.

There is still hope that the story will hit the big screen, as another project is now being developed with “an A team” – so let’s watch this space!

The emergence of an independent press regulator, IMPRESS

While the mainstream national media has resisted regulation, the Leveson Inquiry did lead to the establishment of one independent regulator called IMPRESS. Two panel discussants spoke for IMPRESS, including Lexie Kirkconnell-Kawana, Head of Regulation, and Paul Wrag, a member of its Code Committee.

Kirconnell-Kawana said IMPRESS now had a membership basis of 200 titles that reach 16-17 million readers per month. Large swathes of the independent media (including titles like the Canary) had voluntarily signed up, because they believed in a new form of publicly accountable journalism. Unlike the case with IPSO, no sitting editor or political actor could be part of the IMPRESS governing body. Unlike IPSO, it runs a low-cost arbitration scheme and gets people compensation for the abuse they suffer, and as Paul Wrag added, it shows what could be achieved if the mainstream titles were independently regulated.

Looking forward

Davies, who is now in retirement, ended with a word of advice for the Hacked Off Campaign (of which I am supporter). If he were running Hacked Off, he would not be trying to expose a residue of crimes committed 15 years ago and more. He would focus on what he sees as a far more important problem: newspapers’ failure to tell the truth in the here and now.

We need an organization that checks the facts of, say, five random stories published by each newspaper, and produces a “falsehood quotient” (FQ) that it promotes every week. This would provide the political parties with a rationale for legislation, requiring broadcasters to publish the FQ on a daily basis. It would prove a very effective corrective, prompting people to avoid buying newspapers with a poor FQ and hitting the newspapers “in their most sensitive organ, i.e. their wallet”.

Steven Barnett is a board member of Hacked Off, and his immediate reaction was to welcome the idea, though unlike Davies, he still saw the need for work on past cases in some areas like intrusion into grief, and discrimination.

In 2014, the Guardian and the Washington Post earned the highest accolade in US journalism, by winning the Pulitzer Prize for their ground-breaking articles on the Snowden leaks. By contrast, the British establishment has never honoured the Guardian and associated journalists for their tireless work in exposing the evil of the hacking scandal and the ruthless power-play that lay behind it. However, as ordinary British people, there is much we can do to honour their courage and diligence. We should study their experience and work to ensure that the mainstream media helps strengthen our democracy, rather than distorting it.

Many books have been written about the hacking scandal, and I suggest starting by watching the video and then reading Nick Davies' book ("Hack Attack"). Another book by Davies, "Flat Earth News", and Alan Rusbridger's "Breaking News, the Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now", provide invaluable background on the British press.

This blog has been re-published with permission and thanks to campain.org

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ENDSFor press enquiries contact: sara@hackinginquiry.org and 07554 665 940

NOTES

Hacked Off is the campaign for a free and accountable press, and we work with the victims of press abuse to achieve those aims.Jacqui Hames’ story: https://hackinginquiry.org/former-police-officer-crimewatch-presenter-jacqui-hames-calls-for-the-completion-of-the-leveson-inquiry-after-appearing-at-court-to-hear-hacking-claim-settled/Extracts from the judgementOn the abuse suffered by the claimants

P.1The claimants in these judicial review proceedings have in the past variously been the victims of outrageous and unlawful treatment on the part of certain elements of the press. The distress to them has been immeasurable. It is felt by them to this day.

P.8The first claimant [Christopher Jefferies] had been the subject of what he described, without exaggeration, in his witness statement as a “campaign of vilification” on the part of elements of the press. He was variously described in articles – with accompanying photographs – as “strange” and “creepy”; “effeminate”; a “loner” and “odd”; a “nutty professor with blue rinse hair”; and so on. He was said to have links to a nearby unsolved murder and to be a close friend of a convicted paedophile. He states in his witness statement: “I was, in effect, ‘monstered’ by the press”. He was in consequence forced to leave his home at that time and change his appearance.

P.13[About Kate and Gerry McCann] There was also constant press intrusion and photography. One newspaper even published extracts of the third claimant’s private diary which had been taken by the Portuguese police. And so on.

P.15There had been a serious and total failure to apply anything approaching the standards to which they claimed to aspire; and that some of the reporting involved was “outrageous”. It was said that a rigorous search for the truth was the first principle to be sacrificed: as was any respect for the dignity, privacy and well-being of these claimants. Their treatment was described as “frankly appalling.”How claimants withheld evidence for Part two

P.22It is stated by all four claimants (and is not disputed) that all accordingly gave evidence at the first stage of the Inquiry in somewhat restricted terms: it being anticipated that much fuller evidence would be given in Part 2 of the Inquiry.On what commitments Mr Cameron gaveP.2Part 1 of the Inquiry was concluded by a report published on 29 November 2012. In the House of Commons on that date Mr Cameron stated that it was the Government’s intention to go ahead with Part 2 of the Inquiry.

P.24On that same date, 29 November 2012, Mr Cameron made a statement to the House of Commons. Amongst other things, he said this: “When I set up the inquiry, I also said that there would be a second part to investigate wrongdoing in the press and the police, including the conduct of the first police investigation. That second stage cannot go ahead until the current criminal proceedings have concluded, but we remain committed to the inquiry as it was first established.”

P.25In answer to a question from Mr Keith Vaz MP, who had indicated welcome for the Prime Minister’s commitment to Part 2 of the Inquiry and who stressed the need to provide resources for that purpose, the Prime Minister said this: “The right hon. Gentleman is entirely right. One of the things that the victims have been most concerned about is that Part 2 of the investigation should go ahead – because of the concerns about that first police investigation and about improper relationships between journalists and police officers. It is right that it should go ahead, and that is fully our intention.”

P.78If one is to look for a clear statement from Mr Cameron as to the intended implementation of Part 2 then one can, on one view, find it.

P.87It is true that, as recorded, Mr Cameron stated at the outset that he remained committed to the report as established: “so Part 1 and Part 2.”On the views of Sir Brian LevesonP.46There was in due course a meeting with Sir Brian Leveson (now President of the Queen’s Bench Division). His firm view was that, while it was a political decision for Ministers, Part 2 of the Inquiry should be proceeded with in some form, as some of the original terms of reference had not been dealt with. He also, among other things, said that he saw no advantages in a non-statutory review. He also estimated that Part 2 would be likely to cost less that Part 1 (which had cost in the region of £5 million).

P.54He replied on 23 January 2018. He stated in that letter his opinion that he "fundamentally disagreed" with the view that Part 2 was not necessary. He referred to the way in which the terms of the Inquiry had been announced in 2011 when it was established. He said: "These statements highlight the legitimate expectation on behalf of the public, all parties in Parliament and the alleged victims of media intrusion that Part Two would follow at the appropriate time." He made further detailed observations. He recognised that there had been developments in the intervening six years and recognised the need to take stock of the progress made, while identifying gaps that might still remain. Among other things, in this regard, he pointed out that Term of Reference 6 had not been met; and he also said that "self-certification of compliance is hardly sufficient to generate public confidence when so much has been revealed about wrongdoing..." He acknowledged, of course, that whether the Inquiry was to be brought to an end was a matter for the Secretaries of State under the Inquiries Act 2005 and that he could only give his own view. The letter concluded in this way:“For the reasons I have explained, however, I have no doubt that there is still a legitimate expectation on behalf of the public and, in particular, the alleged victims of phone hacking and other unlawful conduct, that there will be a full public examination of the circumstances that allowed that behaviour to develop and clear reassurances that nothing of the same scale could occur again: that is what they were promised. For the reasons given above, I do not believe that we are yet even near that position and would urge you to give further consideration to the need for at least the bulk of Part Two to be commenced as soon as possible.”

For press enquiries and interviews: Email press@hackinginquiry.org or call Nathan Sparkes on 07554 665940

Peter Oborne’s resignation from the Daily Telegraph last week was accompanied by trenchant criticism of his former employer. But Oborne has always been independent-minded and critical of wider aspects of the British press, and he set out some of his criticisms when he gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. Here are some of his most pertinent remarks, followed by comments from Hacked Off.

1. ON PRESS TREATMENT OF VULNERABLE MINORITIES

“I do think that vulnerable minorities are pursued by some newspapers in an invidious way.”“Normally the press aligns itself with the government of the day and will take the side of the powerful against the weak, or the majority against the minority.”

For years, the big newspaper groups gave themselves – through the now discredited Press Complaints Commission - the power to reject complaints from groups. The PCC insisted that it was only obliged to act on a complaint if an individual who had been directly affected by the story made the complaint. The press defended this system as a defence against attempts by lobby groups wishing to gag the press but the effect was to limit the number of complaints; potential code breaches went unrecognized when an individual did not wish to complain or no named person – rather than a group or an ethnic minority - was affected.

The new fake regulator IPSO, a reinvented PCC, has relaxed its rules slightly. Its regulations state that IPSO “may, but is not obliged to consider complaints... where an alleged breach of the Editors’ Code is significant and there is substantial public interest in the Regulator considering the complaint, from a representative group affected by the alleged breach.” Whilst this appears to be an improvement for representative groups, the words ‘significant’ and ‘substantial’ establish a threshold that Leveson rejected as unfair.

At the Leveson Inquiry, representatives of Travellers explained:“The result [of the PCC’s reluctance to accept third party complaints] is that as long as they are carefully worded, derogatory references to Travellers can be published repeatedly, as they were in the Sun’s ‘Stamp on the camps’ campaign, without committing any offence. Yet it is clear that articles of that sort do cause substantial damage to the rights and reputations of Travellers, fanning hostility against them in settled communities.”

For travellers, read women; Muslims, Poles; gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people; those with eating disorders; the mentally ill; the disabled; those claiming benefits and many other groups in society that may sometimes be targets of hostile reporting. Such groups are not above criticism – no one is – but they ought to be able to have their complaints heard if it appears that the code has been breached. IPSO threatens to block the path to regulatory remedy for many such complainants.

2. ON MONOPOLY OWNERSHIP

“Throughout my professional career the British media has been dominated by the Murdoch empire, which typically forms an alliance with the political party in power.”“[Another point], of course, is monopoly ownership, whether it is a good thing that one group should have, as has been the case in recent decades, such a dominance defined by the City regulation as – 25 per cent is monopoly control, I believe, and they have one group having 35 or 40 per cent.“It seems to me that there’s nothing very complicated about applying British monopolies legislation to the media”.

Whilst media ownership formed part of the Leveson Inquiry’s remit, Leveson did not make any detailed recommendations on the issue. Many feel this was a missed opportunity. These 5 shocking statistics on the concentration of media ownership in Britain show why:• 3 publishers account for 70% of the national daily circulation• 5 publishers account for 90% of the national daily circulation• 5 companies control 75% of regional daily newspaper circulation• Almost 1 in 4 local government areas are not covered by a daily local newspaper (100 of 406)• Almost 1 in 3 local government areas have just 1 single publisher with a 100% monopoly of the local newspaper market (143 of 406)Source: http://www.mediareform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/A-Case-for-Action1.pdf

3. ON PRESS AND POLITICANS

“Meetings between journalists and politicians should be viewed as a potential conspiracy against the public, even more so meetings between ministers and editors and proprietors.”

The Leveson Report recommended that political leaders publish a statement explaining their party’s policy towards conducting relationships with the press. The Liberal Democrats are the only party to have done this.

Leveson also recommended that party leaders, ministers and front bench opposition spokespersons should “consider” publishing quarterly reports detailing meetings with media proprietors, newspaper editors or senior executives, as well as “a fair and reasonably complete picture, by way of general estimate only, of the frequency or density of other interaction (including correspondence, phone, text and email) but not necessarily including content.”

To date, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government has published all ministerial meetings. The Conservatives produce quarterly reports where the “purpose” of the meeting is given, but is not detailed. There is no evidence of the party producing a “reasonably complete picture” as suggested. The Liberal Democrats have resolved to “put in place policies and procedures which fully comply with Leveson’s recommendations on the relationship between the press and politicians” but these have not yet come to fruition. There are no commitments in the Labour Party’s “Better Politics” Policy Commission, nor any commitments from the Green Party or UKIP.

During the inquiry, Peter Oborne said he was ‘sceptical about more regulation’ but after 12 months of deliberation, receiving testimonies from 378 individuals and 120 organisations, considering four models of regulation, and producing argumentation and conclusions comprising four volumes and 1,987 pages, Leveson’s conclusions were clear. To break the “pattern of cosmetic reform” which had characterized the press for the previous 70 years, he recommended that the press continue to regulate itself, but that it be subject to an external audit every few years. The independent audit body would check that any self-regulator met the 38 criteria set out by Leveson as the litmus test for whether that self-regulator was ‘effective’ for the public and ‘independent’ of the industry and politicians. IPSO – the industry’s snub to Leveson – meets only 12 of those 38. Without a ‘Leveson-compliant’ self-regulator, the press will be free to “treat vulnerable minorities… in an invidious way” and cosy up to politicians. Without action to break up the concentration of media ownership, a handful of companies will continue to dictate the news.

You can hear his lecture hereYou can watch the lecture hereYou can read his full speech below:When I was a young officer in the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union, I was deeply influenced by a great industrial negotiator called Paul Corby.

Paul is one of the best read people I know. He once lovingly handed me the book by the great American journalist and politician, Upton Sinclair, The Jungle.

The Jungle tells the story of the Chicago meat packing industry at the turn of the last century. It graphically chronicles the unsanitary conditions and the exploitation of migrant labour in an industry that was crying out for reform.

At the time, President Theodore Roosevelt described Sinclair as a “crackpot socialist” he said “I have an utter contempt for him. He is hysterical, unbalanced, and untruthful.”

Nevertheless, through meticulous journalism and a beautiful writing style, allied with political campaigning, “The Jungle’ caused such public uproar that it contributed in part to the passage of the 1906 Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act in America.

I thought of the book when Trevor Kavanagh, some of you may know him, of the Sun newspaper described me as a “socialist zealot”. It reminded me of what you can do when you collectively organise against powerful institutions that belligerently refuse to change.

And that’s why I am grateful to you all for being here tonight. Many of you have been derided in national newspapers, in the jungle of national newspapers, because you stood up to be counted. And you are here tonight because you want political parties to hear your message of reform, and I’m grateful to you for that.

So it is a very great honour to deliver this second Leveson lecture. The Leveson Inquiry was a landmark in this country’s history. It was watched online by millions and it exposed two things to the British public and to the world, in a way that had never been done before.

The first was that some of our national newspapers had sunk to depths of unethical and illegal behaviour that disgraced the name of journalism. And that these weren’t just isolated incidents. They were habitual, and sometimes even matters of policy. In the judge’s words, papers wrought havoc in the lives of innocent people.

The second thing that Leveson exposed was that this was the work of a small group of companies – in reality a small group of media moguls, executives and senior journalists – who enjoyed extraordinary power.

Not only were they able to cover up for each other systematically, refusing to apply to their own industry the kind of brutal treatment they dish out on their front pages and comment pages when things go wrong in, say, social work, the NHS or our schools. No, in the little club of the Sun, the Mail, the Express, the Mirror and so on, fearless scrutiny was something you never had to experience yourself. Until Leveson.

But of course their power didn’t stop there. As the Inquiry showed us, these are not organisations dedicated to holding power to account through journalism.

That’s just the myth they propagate, the smokescreen they hide behind. They themselves, in my view, have become the power in this country.

Look at the relationship between Rupert Murdoch’s company and the police if you want to see it. As Leveson showed us, this was so close that it was impossible to tell who was working for whom. All you could say was who they were working against: and that was the general public. You and me.

And look at the relationship between these organisations and the world of politics. I have said many times before, there is a huge amount here that shames politicians. Far too many, across the political spectrum, the main parties - yes, my party included - and beyond, have allowed themselves to be seduced into giving these papers what they wanted. Far too many have compromised themselves to gain short-term advantage.

But the people who run the big press organisations and who edit the big papers led the way. They have operated like a Mafia, intimidating here, bribing there, terminating careers and rewarding their most loyal operatives and toadies. For years they could ‘fix’ any legislation that affected them, in a way that no other industry could. But it didn’t stop there. Their influence was so great that for many, it became impossible to know who was really running the country.

All of this the Leveson Inquiry laid before the country. Vividly and clearly the facts. The public gasped as the editors and proprietors condemned themselves at the witness stand. Richard Desmond didn't know what ethics were. Paul Dacre, by his demeanour, showed that he did not think the law applied to him or his paper. Editor after editor – men who routinely claim they are answerable for everything that appears in their pages – told the judge pathetically that they were completely unaware of all the wrongdoing perpetrated on their watch.

It was sickening but it was a relief. And set alongside the heartbreaking testimony of these people’s victims, it created what I believe was an unshakeable determination among the British public that there must be change, and real change.

Never again should those who run our big national newspapers be allowed to abuse ordinary British people with impunity. Never again should they be allowed to subvert the justice system.

Never again should they be allowed to subvert our democracy.

That is the legacy of the Leveson Inquiry, and I am proud to be asked to give this anniversary lecture. My theme tonight, however, is ‘Unfinished Business’.

Look around you at what is going on today. In fact, let me correct that. Look beyond the lies, the covering-up and the distortions in our big national newspapers and look, for example, at what is happening in our courts. An extraordinary series of trials is revealing mountains of new evidence of what these organisations got up to. Evidence that even the Leveson Inquiry or the legendary Nick Davies did not uncover – in fact, in a few cases evidence of things that were firmly denied by witnesses under oath before the inquiry.

In recent weeks, we have learned the following:That a second employee of News Corps UK subsidiary has been convicted of corrupt payments to public officialsThat the judge in the Coulson – Brooks trial was of the view that those acquitted brought the prosecution upon themselves by their conduct• that a second Sunday Mirror journalist has confessed to hacking phones• that Mahzer Mahmood was considered by a judge to have lied to the court• that several prosecutions have been dropped that relied on Mazher Mahmood’s evidence• that all convictions based on Mazher Mahmood’s evidence are being reviewed• that Mahmood is alleged to have known of corrupt payments to police officers [and well done to Panorama for that]• that Andy Coulson faces proceedings for perjury in Scotland in relation to his evidence in the Tommy Sheridan perjury trial. I have said this before and I say it again: the jury in the Tommy Sheridan perjury trial, were not in my view, given all the facts they required.

And the courts have heard sworn statements.…• that phone hacking was ‘common knowledge and industry-wide’• that senior figures at Trinity Mirror actively encouraged hacking of phones• that newspaper bosses referred to their readers as ‘plebs’• that Rebekah Brooks ordered the deletion of millions of emails• that Sun journalists were told that all cash payments (including those alleged and in some cases proven to be made to officials) had to be signed off by Rebecca Brooks• that the Management Standards Committee may have been selective in which of their journalists they chose to “shop” to the police when “draining the swamp”, in order to protect some of the swamp-dwellers higher up in the food chain• that News Corp stopped co-operating with the police when it became clear that co-operation would not immunise them against prosecution• that the CPS are considering charges against 9 Trinity Mirror journalists and executives as we speak• that in all five court cases so far involving the Sun and the News of the World, journalists have complained of the bullying atmosphere at those papers• that the Sun has a seven-foot-high safe full of material ready to be used to blackmail people• that senior journalists at news international now say they thought that paying police for tip-offs was covered by the Editor’s Code• that The Sun bought from a police officer the witness statements regarding a rape complaint (from a member of the public against two police officers) - which included the complainant’s statement, listing her name, address and circumstances of the incident.• that the current news editor of the Daily Mail told a court that it is "very standard journalistic practice" to invent quotes.

It is an astonishing catalogue. And there is much more. Although, as I say, leading journalists such as the editors of the Times, the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph do not seem to think it is appropriate to tell their readers very much about it.

Where journalists are acquitted, of course, our national press reports it lavishly, often with a combination of indignation and hand-wringing.

The papers that – for example – monster Christopher Jefferies just because he had been arrested now claim to be appalled to find that a reporter might be got out of bed by police, that the process of criminal law is slow and stressful, that defendants sometimes have families who suffer. That, remarkably, some people go through all this when in fact they are innocent.

Or that they are suddenly – but selectively - converted to the idea that prisons are not holiday camps, that open prisons perform a valuable role, and that human rights checks and balances should apply to suspects and criminals.

Will these papers learn from it all? When it comes to reporting on criminal cases in the future, will they show a little humanity towards suspects and defendants? Well let’s see.

I mentioned their indignation. Boy are they indignant. Reading what they write, you might be forgiven that the employees of the Sun, the Mail, the Sunday Times were the saints and martyrs of our society. You might believe that they are spotless, virtuous souls constantly persecuted for their heroic work in exposing wrongdoing and keeping our society safe and fair.

Now don’t get me wrong. We have some great journalists in this country and we would be in trouble if we didn’t. I was moved and delighted to see Andrew Norfolk from the Times win journalist of the year last night for his work exposing organised child abuse. He has nobility. And we should never forget that it took courageous journalism to expose corrupted journalism. But we also have far more than our share of bullies and thugs passing themselves off as journalists. These people shamelessly exploit the advantages they enjoy as journalists to inflict cruelty on ordinary people – and to line the pockets of their proprietors and owners.

The British press is not being persecuted. It is not under attack. As Leveson found, and as remains the case, there is no body of opinion in this country calling for the censorship or gagging of journalism, or for state controls or anything like it. Paul Dacre constantly asserts that there is. And I saw that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport claimed as much a week ago.

I would like to ask them both today: Mr Dacre, Mr Javid, who are you talking about? Name these advocates of state control. Who are your supposed censors and gaggers? Let’s not sink to the tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy, slinging around allegations of conspiracies without ever naming names. We know where that led.

What Leveson recommended in relation to press self-regulation was, as he made absolutely clear, NOT state control. Parliament would never have stomached such a thing. But every party in Parliament gave its support to the Royal Charter that – entirely independently of the state - implements the Leveson recommendations. And the result has been the creation of a recognition panel that, in the words of its chair, David Wolfe QC, is ‘appointed by a process which is unique in its independence from Government, Parliament and other influences’ and which has ‘freedom from outside pressure not seen before in a public body’.

And if you don’t want to believe the assurances of a politician or a lawyer, here the words of a great editor, Harold Evans, who said"the misrepresentation of Leveson's main proposal is staggering. To portray his careful construct for statutory underpinning as state control is a gross distortion".

And remember, this body’s function is not to regulate the press. Its only job is to test whether self-regulators set up by news publishers meet the basic standards of independence and effectiveness needed to give the public confidence they will be treated fairly, if they have a complaint. That isn’t state control or anything like it, nowhere near.

But given the record of so many big newspapers – and as I say we are learning more every day – it is the very least that our society should be doing to protect citizens when they are at their most vulnerable, and who are usually not rich enough or experienced enough to take on these big corporations.

In modern Britain we do not stand by and watch the weak being persecuted. We do something - and this is probably the least we could have done.

But it’s unfinished business, because this little group of greedy, cruel men have raised two fingers to Leveson, to Parliament, to their victims and to the public.

They don’t want fairness,they don’t want change.

No catalogue of the wrongdoing they have overseen would be long enough to shame them.

They want business as usual, so they want IPSO.

They have dusted down the utterly discredited Press Complaints Commission, applied a lick of paint and a new letterhead – literally - and a new name and announced to the world with their usual brazen dishonesty that they are complying with Leveson.

Well they are not, as the Advertising Standards Authority found – and told them. In fact IPSO would not get past base camp in any effort to satisfy the independent Recognition Panel. Which is why they are not even applying.

So, on the face of it, they continue to write their own code of conduct and continue to pull all of IPSO’s strings, ensuring that they can ignore the code whenever they choose. (And incredibly the chair of the code committee is the editor of the paper that breaks it most often – by far. You’ve guessed it: Mr Paul Dacre of the Daily Mail.)

And the victims of this are, and will be, ordinary, vulnerable people who are bullied, lied about and intruded upon – the very people you would like to think journalism is there to protect.

But here’s some more unfinished business. IPSO is not the only game in town. Another self-regulator, IMPRESS, is taking shape. Beyond having, in Walter Merricks, a very distinguished independent chair (which as we have seen from IPSO is no guarantee of anything), it appears to be constructing itself in a way that implements Leveson rather than rejects Leveson. And if it applies for recognition which I hope it will, it will change the rules of the game.

When Parliament endorsed the Royal Charter it also approved clause 40 of the Crime and Courts Act. And under that Act if a news publisher denies the public the advantages in terms of access to justice and fair treatment that go with recognised self-regulation, then there is a price to pay.

A paper can’t just say: we don’t offer cheap, quick arbitration in libel cases through our self-regulator, so bad luck, you’ll just have to sue us — if you can afford it.

A press corporation with deep pockets can’t rely on the huge costs of litigation to block justice and protect its wrongdoing. Under the Crime and Courts Act papers that refuse to join a recognised self-regulator offering arbitration will have to pay the costs of those who sue them – whether they win or lose.

In other words, it will become free to sue these titles – though of course you will have to have a case good enough to get to court. That’s the price these organisations will have to pay.

And we must always remember that the papers that are putting themselves in that position are not just behaving unfairly to the public.

They are also knowingly rejecting the historic new protections for freedom of the press that Leveson offers.

That’s right – historic new protections for the freedom of the press. The chill of existing libel laws would be removed by a new immunity for news publishers – and only such publishers – from court costs and from the risk of exemplary damages.

Because what the law now says is that any news publisher belonging to a recognised self-regulator can’t be bullied by wealthy institutions and individuals in the way they have been in the past. Just as the news publisher is obliged to offer cheap arbitration, so the wealthy complainant is obliged to accept it too. And if that wealthy complainant – say, an oligarch or a big supermarket chain– insists on going to court, then it is the complainant who pays both sides’ costs, win or lose.

Now that’s what I call fair – and a brilliant new protection for our investigative journalists. But at the Sun and the Mail they don’t want it. And they don’t want any of their competitors to have it either in the name of “press unity”.

Unfinished business. Here’s some more.

You may not remember this, and of course no newspaper will tell you, but the Leveson Inquiry is only half done. The terms of reference approved by Parliament require a Leveson 2 – not necessarily led by the same judge.

And what job does it have?

It must do all the things that could not be done while prosecutions were pending. Who gave the orders for hacking, bribing and data theft? How far up did it go? Who organised the cover-ups? Why were police slow to act? Did lawyers behave improperly or illegally? How much evidence was destroyed and on whose orders? Has the criminality stopped? What are managements doing about it?

And – as the Watergate reporters Woodward and Bernstein would put it – who knew what and when?

None of this was done by Leveson 1. For sound legal reasons it had to tiptoe around these issues. It would need to take place after the criminal process had ended. But it is absolutely vital that Leveson 2 does begin as soon as the criminal cases are over. It is vital because the papers and others claim the police somehow got off lightly in Leveson. That is because they were not the main subject of investigation in Part 1.

The nexus between the police, acting corruptly and elements of the press, which has begun to be demonstrated by the work of citizen bloggers like Brown Moses, now Belingcat, by Nick Davies, by Panorama and other investigative journalists, and by the campaigning work of people like Alastair Morgan who will not let the murder of his brother Daniel go uninvestigated and remain unsolved. All those people are here today.

But it is vital also because if we don’t see this through we are sending the signal to editors and proprietors, and corrupt police officers and the politicians who let it happen that they can do it all again and get away with it.

And we are sending the signal to their victims that they don’t matter, and that we don’t care how many more people suffer.

Everything we know about the perpetrators tells us that they are not sorry and they have not changed. They’ve never, ever been sorry. They just look for new ways to hide their misdeeds. And it’s got to stop.

And there is unfinished business here too politicians.

One of the things we are elected to do is to ensure the weak are protected from the strong, the poor protected against the rich. We can’t walk away when that job is not done. We must keep working at it.

I see four important jobs ahead for us in Parliament.

The first is that we all – every party including my own – need to comply with the Leveson recommendations on the contacts we have with senior journalists, editors and proprietors. There is a lot of talk about the public’s right to know, well given the shabby history, the public has a clear right to know when their elected representatives are mixing with these people and why.

All parties need to do what the judge asked on that point.

The second job that falls to politicians is to ensure that we have real plurality in our news media and that no one company or individual is able to buy or build a market dominance that denies the public that plurality. I expect you know who I am thinking of when I say that, but he’s not the only one. There are huge online news providers, and they will probably be just as big a threat to a free and diverse media in the future. It is the job of our Parliament and our government to ensure, in the interests of democracy, that we have real space for a range of points of view and approaches in our news media, that it is not just the domain of a handful of big corporations.

And third, we must be on the look out for any opportunity to protect the freedoms that public interest journalism requires to enhance our democracy. That means for example safeguarding the role in UK law, of the European Convention on Human Rights, which the newspapers frequently rely on to protect their legitimate interests, sometimes without any apparent recognition of the irony of their position.

It means for example seeking to amend the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 – the hacking law – to provide the same safeguards for journalists’ sources that exist in PACE – judicial oversight of a serious crime threshold.

I have been struck by the unlikely but welcome alliance to deliver that between the advocates at the Sun, the drafters and organisers at Hacked Off and the Parliamentary amendment-tablers of the Liberal Democrats backbench. Now that is a weird and scary combination, but it is a welcome one.

It has always been a source of amusement to me that in Tony Blair’s 400 page memoir, he admits to only making two mistakes, one of which is the Freedom of Information Act. "You idiot” says Tony in the passage describing the Act. “You naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop,” he goes on to say."

There is really no description of stupidity, no matter how vivid, that is adequate. I quake at the imbecility of it.” he says of his decision to support the legislation.

It’s funny because I love the Freedom of Information Act. In recent years it has helped me establish that we have UK military personnel stationed in a US Airforce Base in Djabouti, thought by many to run the covert drones programme in Yemen and Somalia. It has allowed me to establish the contents of the ministerial wine cellar and that when 1200 of my constituents were having their kitchen and bathroom refurbishment cancelled by cuts at the DCLG, David Cameron was spending £30,000 to refurbish the kitchen in the Downing Street flat.

If I can do this, with this legislation, imagine what a proper journalist can do with this Act. It is a powerful leglisation, but it has holes. I want to see a future Labour government give something back to journalism by increasing the statutory obligations on public institutions and private ones contracted in the public sector, to disclose information in a more timely fashion.

And finally, we in Parliament must see through our promises to the people and to the victims when it comes to press self-regulation. To do what Lord Justice Leveson said we needed to do if the press rejected his recommendations in the face of parliamentary approval of them. I am a Labour MP, and I want my party to commit in its manifesto to take action if the independent recognition panel produces what is called a ‘failure report’ late next year. That is to say, if it concludes that the conditions sought by Lord Justice Leveson have not been met.

A manifesto commitment is vital. Voters, and also the victims of press abuse, have to know where the parties stand on this – before the election. Nothing less is right or just.

We have had a rare all-party consensus on this. Now all the parties must be open and clear. Do they still believe in the Leveson recommendations and the Charter, or are they quietly getting back into bed with the editors and proprietors? I think the public has a right to know.

John Major said at the Leveson Inquiry, when commenting of the serial failures of previous attempts at effective independent self-regulation, up to and including Calcutt in his time. “It is politicians who are in the Last Chance Saloon”.

I want my party to accept the John Major challenge.

That is why I will be campaigning for a commitment in the Labour manifesto to see Leveson through. I hope the other parties will match it, and if they don’t I know the public will judge them harshly, because they will be letting down the victims they promised to protect, and whom they have a duty to protect.

Finally, I want to send this message to the editors and proprietors.

You are in the business of exposure, but now, at last, it is you who have been exposed. Every day, more of your wrongdoings are being laid bare. And every day you make your position worse by trying to hide the evidence from your readers, by your special pleading, by your lies and your attempts to intimidate.

In your pages you never hesitate to lecture and attack others on all sorts of matters, sometimes justly and sometimes not. But you never judge yourselves and you can’t admit that others have that right – even our courts and our public inquiries.

Well your time is up. Your lies don’t work any more. The public is not fooled. It saw clean through you back in 2011, after the terrible scandals of the McCanns, Christopher Jefferies and the Dowlers, and it still sees through you today.

All your efforts to trick the public into believing that there is some threat to freedom of expression have failed. There is no such threat in Leveson, in the Royal Charter or among my colleagues in Parliament, and you have not produced a shred of serious evidence to show there is.

Where there is a threat to freedom it comes from you. You have shown again and again that you don’t care about freedom of expression.

You have never told the truth about your wrongdoings and you do all you can to suppress the reporting of them.

You don’t care about the freedom of journalists to report on systematic intrusion into all our lives by the security services. If you did, you would not have called for the prosecution of the Guardian in the Snowden affair.

You don’t care about the freedom that ordinary British people should enjoy from cruel treatment by your employees. Nor do you care about their right to have access to justice.

The only freedom you care about is your own, to do exactly what you like, without consequences.

Your time is up. And I want to name you: Rupert Murdoch, Lord Rothermere, Richard Desmond, Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, the board of Trinity Mirror. Yes there is unfinished business, but you make no mistake, it will be finished.

British journalism will be raised from the mire into which you and others have sunk it and British citizens will be given the protections to which they are entitled. And as Lord Justice Leveson showed, this can and will be done while the same time freedom of expression in this country is enhanced.

WATCH THE LIVE STREAM HERE (From 7pm)

and Evan HarrisWhen newspapers complain about ‘the other hacking scandal’ that is supposedly being neglected by the police, they frequently accuse Lord Justice Leveson of turning a blind eye to the evidence, or even of ‘suppressing’ it.(You will find examples of this in the Independent, the Sunday Times (£), the Telegraph, the Mirror, the Daily Mail, the Daily Mail again, and the Daily Mail again.)

That smear is exposed today as totally unfounded, thanks to the publication in full by the Exaro investigative journalism website of a previously partly censored police document – a 2008 report by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) about rogue private investigators.

The report was posted on the SOCA website last year in a ‘redacted’ or edited form, but Ian Hurst, a former intelligence agent who testified to the Leveson Inquiry about the alleged hacking of his computer by journalists, acquired a copy of the full document and sought to add it to his main testimony.

Newspapers have repeatedly claimed in recent weeks that the redacted sections of the report concealed sensational evidence of the large-scale commissioning by industries other than the press of private investigators who used illegal methods. They say, again and again, that the judge saw this evidence and failed to act on it.

Here is an example from the Daily Mail:

‘Not only have the police failed to hold any lawyer, businessman or other non-journalistic culprit to account. When Lord Justice Leveson was shown SOCA’s secret document, he decided it was outside his remit. He doesn’t even mention it in his door-stopping report of more than 2,000 pages. ‘A policeman called out to investigate a burglary who comes across an armed robbery would presumably take some notice. Lord Justice Leveson sailed on unperturbed, apparently not greatly concerned that he had stumbled across a similar scandal [to press phone hacking, but] much greater in scope.’

Now that Exaro has published the full, unredacted report we can see that it simply does not contain the evidence that newspapers have been saying it does. In fact, far from laying a trail of suspicion away from the press and towards other industries, the previously-hidden passages of the report appear to lead straight back towards the News of the World.

As for Lord Justice Leveson, he explained last year that he had no grounds and no power to act on this matter, and he repeated that last month. The unredacted document vindicates him entirely. So what does the full SOCA report say? It is a description of rogue activities by private investigators, based on evidence gathered by a number of police operations up to September 2007. It appears to have been written as part of a discussion about the case for statutory regulation of the private investigation industry.

It says nothing new about the commissioning of illegal activity by industries other than the press. There is one paragraph on this subject, stating that besides the media, the principal clients of private investigators are: people involved in domestic legal proceedings, criminals, debt recovery companies and loss adjusters checking insurance claims.

This passage was not redacted when the report was first published last year, and indeed is clearly copied from a report published by the Information Commissioner’s Office as long ago as 2006. In other words, this information has been in the public domain for years.

Newspapers have made much of claims about the involvement of ‘blue-chip companies’. Exaro has now confirmed that the full SOCA report does indeed name two blue-chip companies, British Telecom and British Gas. But far from claiming that either had done anything illegal the report says they were targets of rogue private investigators. So was HMRC, it says.

Looking at the redactions as a whole, it is clear in almost every case that there was a reasonable explanation for SOCA’s decision to conceal information.

Comparison between the Exaro document and the version of the report currently on the SOCA website, shows there were 29 redactions in all. Twelve of these simply removed the names of the police operations which had yielded the relevant information, a step designed to make it difficult to link details given in the report with particular cases. This would prevent compromising investigations that were still under way or before the courts.

Of the remaining 17 redactions, 11 removed descriptions of methods used by private investigators. For example, there were several references to a brand of software used to hack computers, and it is easy to see why SOCA did not want to advertise this.

That leaves six. One was a reference to an attachment that is no longer attached and the remaining five dealt with specific details of private investigator activity and in particular their costs.

There is therefore nothing in the unredacted report to justify claims that there is a huge hidden scandal involving blue-chip companies that employ private investigators to break the law. And when Lord Justice Leveson saw the report he would have found no grounds – within his inquiry remit or outside it – to make it all public, to act on it in some way or to encourage more police action.

Once again, newspapers have smeared the judge and smeared his inquiry. Their motive is clear: to undermine the credibility of his recommendations on self-regulation of the press, because editors and proprietors are determined to avoid even the modest measure of accountability he has proposed – and which Parliament has endorsed.

There is a final point, which takes us back to public concern about the conduct of the press.

Of the references to specific police operations that were concealed by SOCA’s redactions, we can now see that most of them were to Operation Abelard II. It is clear that many of the worst activities identified in the report – for example, corrupting police officers and telecoms employees, electronic surveillance and the interception of live phone calls – had been discovered in the course of Abelard II.

What was Abelard II? An investigation into the murder in 1987 of Daniel Morgan, a partner in a private investigations firm that worked closely with . . . the News of the World.

The Home Secretary recently set up the Burnton Inquiry into the Morgan case. Its remit includes examining ‘the incidence of connections between private investigators, police officers and journalists at the News of the World and other parts of the media and alleged corruption involved in the linkages between them’.

Read the Exaro reports by Peter Jukes and Mark Conrad, and view the unredacted SOCA report, on the Exaro website.Professor Brian Cathcart is Executive Director and Dr Evan Harris Associate Director, Hacked Off.

Commenting on newspaper reports criticising the Leveson Inquiry for not investigating allegations of phone hacking in industries other than the press, Dr Evan Harris, Associate Director of the victims' campaign group, Hacked Off said:"Hacked Off is opposed to illegal information gathering in all forms, whoever is doing it. Any criminal conduct, by lawyers, insurance companies or anyone else, should be rigorously pursued by the police."

However, it is wrong to criticise Lord Justice Leveson, as some newspapers have done, for not focusing on phone-hacking by people outside the press. Papers cannot be allowed to muddy the waters in this way and to excuse large-scale wrongdoing by journalists on the basis that 'everybody was doing it'."The Leveson remit, laid down by the Prime Minister, was clearly limited to the culture, practices and ethics of the press, so the judge was not free to range over a variety of industries. The inquiry's investigations, moreover, exposed a great variety of press abuses besides phone-hacking, including the theft of personal data, surveillance, intrusion, the fabrication of stories and bullying.

“In fact the inquiry's discussion of phone-hacking was restricted because of ongoing criminal investigations and civil claims. Hacked Off is confident that the full story of press phone-hacking, and of the corruption of public officials, will be thoroughly investigated in Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry, which the Prime Minister has pledged will begin once the current court cases have run their course.

“The recommendations and conclusions of the inquiry thus stand, no matter how many other industries or professions engaged in phone-hacking or similar activities. To suggest otherwise is like suggesting that no one may be convicted of tax fraud because 'lots of people are doing it'.”Key links(Press reports cite a SOCA document published in 2012, but dating from 2008, which explains that blagging, data-mining, bribing, phone-hacking and computer-hacking were fuelled by demand from other industries - such as insurance companies and divorcing couples - beyond the press. This duplicates information set out earlier by the Information Commissioner in his report, What Price Privacy? What Price Privacy was extensively cited in the Leveson Report, in a section over 100 pages long, and he recommended urgent action to tackle the illegal trade in private data, whoever the perpetrators.)1) What Price Privacy (ICO, May 2006) details where illegal data-mining took place.2) What Price Privacy Now (ICO, December 2006) sets out the scale of the press use of one blagger (whose work was exclusively for the press): over 300 journalists from numerous papers, commissioning several thousand illegal searches.3) The six-page report published by SOCA in 2012 on which most of the weekend's news reports were based. It mirrors much of what is in What Price Privacy. One section makes a fleeting reference to the media “seeking material for ‘scoops’ about high profile figures (p4)4) LJ Leveson made a ruling about the admissibility of the evidence referred to in press reports, which has been mentioned in the press, which has been published for well over a year which made clear that specific allegations were outside the scope of part 1 of the inquiry. Leveson ruling on Ian Hurst evidence.5) Leveson Terms of Reference6) Leveson report Volume 3 pp997-1115 dealing with blagging and data mining and referring to What Price Privacy7) Leveson executive summary and recommendations including stronger sentencing for section 55 breaches.

The Times today publishes a letter from 11 highly distinguished UK broadcasters, [paywall] including the former Director General of the BBC, Greg Dyke, the comedian, Rory Bremner, former Today Programme Editor, Kevin Marsh and the director and producer Peter Kosminsky, rebutting the claim that effective regulation poses any threat to freedom of the press."

Far from being something to be feared," the letter argues, "regulation underpinned by statute often acts as a buttress to and a shield for journalism that takes on vested interests and asks awkward questions."

The broadcasters' intervention in the debate over the future of the Leveson recommendations follows a forthright attack by ex-Times and Sunday Times editor Sir Harold Evans on the reaction to the Leveson Report by some sections of the press, which he described as cynical and arrogant.The Times letter in full:

Sir,Delays in implementing the Leveson recommendations have been justified in some quarters by warnings that effective regulation would inevitably threaten free speech.We are broadcasters with long experience of working within a far tighter regulatory system – underpinned by legislation – than Leveson envisages for the print media. While we make no comment on the detail of the Leveson plan, we would point out that our industry has a proud record of independent, challenging journalism - calling the rich and powerful to account without fear or favour. Our experience of programme-making tells us that effective regulation, far from being something to be feared, often acts as a buttress to and a shield for journalism that takes on vested interests and asks awkward questions.We can say what we want and make the programmes we want within a regulatory framework that is enshrined in law. The suggestion that such regulation is inevitably anathema to free speech, or automatically places us under the thumb of politicians, is wrong and insulting to us as fellow journalists.Yours faithfully,Michael Apted Rory Bremner Nick Broomfield Simon Chinn Greg Dyke Peter Kosminsky Angus Macqueen Krish Majumdar Kevin Marsh John Willis Brian Woods 

Add your support to Leveson's recommendations by signing the Hacked Off petition here, and encourage your friends to do the same.

You can read Sir Harry's full speech here.

For the first time, a working draft of a bill by officials at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, produced to illustrate the full legislation needed to implement Leveson's reforms, is being placed in the public domain. The content of the DCMS bill is very similar to that of the Leveson bill drafted by Hacked Off and to the Labour bill, putting to rest the myth that legislation in this area is too complicated or overly prone to amendment.

The consultation is sponsored by victims of press abuse, including Gerry and Kate McCann, Christopher Jefferies and Jacqui Hames. It includes a short option of a ten-question survey or a longer, more detailed analysis.

Hacked Off aim to use this consultation to develop the best possible Bill to implement the Leveson recommendations on press regulation, giving Parliament a ready-made means of putting into action the results of a long and thorough public inquiry. All of the details can be found here.Professor Brian Cathcart, Director of Hacked Off said:

This consultation shows that the legislation required to implement Leveson is simple and poses no threat to free speech.

It asks the public, whether they be ordinary citizens or experts in the field, which they consider is the best approach between the bills. It also invites suggestions on how the bills could be improved.

It's worth remembering that not one of these bills would deliver anything remotely like statutory regulation of the press. Instead they would set up a body that is independent of both press and government to administer periodic ‘MoT’ tests to a new press self- regulator, to ensure it meets basic standards and gives proper protection to the public.

Leveson intended Parliament to respond to his recommendations in an open, above-board manner, so that the public could have the greatest possible confidence in the outcome. In that same spirit, we invite comment on the different drafts of the Leveson legislation which we are releasing today and will publish the results after the consultation has closed.

We want to see the Leveson recommendations on press regulation implemented faithfully, in the manner he put forward. His proposals are sensible and cautious and should be adopted without delay.

Click here to view all of the draft Bills that have been published in response to Leveson's report, and to take part in the consultation.

Six weeks after the publication of the Leveson report it might appear that nothing much is happening, but that is not the case. Though Leveson’s call for a transparent, public process for the implementation of his recommendations has been largely ignored, there is none the less activity on several fronts.

The press is busy. This at least is consistent with what Leveson proposed: he said the industry should set up a new self-regulatory body lacking the faults of the Press Complaints Commission. The views of editors and proprietors have been the subject of a number of reports, notably concerning a document that emerged from their Delaunay restaurant meeting, analysed here by the Media Standards Trust.Under the Leveson scheme this new regulatory body will ultimately have to pass the test of recognition – in other words it must clearly meet the criteria for independence and effectiveness set out in the report. Until the moment comes for that test there should be little reason to comment on what editors are planning: as Leveson saw it, they just ought to get on with the job.

The government, too, is busy, and this is more problematic, not least because the government is a coalition and the two parties have taken different positions. This means that nothing being done about this in Whitehall is technically government business. The culture secretary, Maria Miller, and the policy minister, Oliver Letwin, are pursuing activity that is Conservative party business, while the Liberal Democrats have their own position.

Miller and Letwin are working on a royal charter scheme devised to get around the problem created by David Cameron’s stated reluctance to set up the recognition body by statute – something Leveson declared essential. (The recognition body, under the Leveson scheme, has the job of protecting the public interest by checking that the new regulator meets the criteria.)

Miller and Letwin have found – awkwardly for the prime minister, you might think – that even if they adopt the medieval device of a charter, they will still need to legislate, and not just once but twice: first to make the chartered body independent of government control and second to give effect to the measures in relation to court costs and damages proposed by Leveson to encourage the press to participate in self-regulation.

Meanwhile a process of cross-party consultation is under way. Miller meets Harriet Harman from Labour and Lord Wallace from the Lib Dems once a week or so, and there have been exchanges between the party leaders too. No minutes of these meetings have been made public.

Finally and importantly, some things are also happening in a more public way. Leveson intended parliament to respond to his recommendations in an open, above-board manner, so that the public could have the greatest possible confidence in the outcome. Despite Cameron’s intervention, that route is not closed.

Last Friday the House of Lords debated Leveson and, although the press coverage was predictably distorted, no one listening then or reading the transcript since could be in any doubt that the overwhelming preference of members was for straightforward statutory underpinning of the recognition body along the lines Leveson recommended and Cameron has opposed.(It’s worth stressing that the statute in question would not set up the press self-regulator, merely the recognition body that would administer periodic MoT tests to thate self-regulator. The recognition body, which Leveson said must be independent of government and the industry, would have no role in press regulation.)

Both the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties support this statutory underpinning, as do many Conservatives both in the Lords and the Commons, as well as most of the smaller parties. The House of Commons is likely to revisit these matters in the next few weeks, and all signs are that members will then show that they share the views of the Lords.

Hacked Off has proposed a draft bill which parliamentarians could use to carry Leveson’s ideas into law, and it adheres as closely as possible to the spirit and language of the inquiry report. We are inviting comment on it, and on different drafts proposed by others, so please participate in the consultation when it is launched this week.

Hacked Off has had discussions with Miller and Letwin both about our draft bill and about the charter proposal. Those discussions continue, but our position remains that we want to see the Leveson recommendations on press regulation implemented promptly and faithfully, in the manner he proposed. His proposals are sensible and cautious, and are based on a thorough, fair, open investigation of all the possibilities involving all stakeholders.

Since the failings of the political establishment were among the causes of the inquiry, and since the conduct of politicians was found wanting in the report, it is right that political meddling with the outcome should be avoided. Politicians, in other words, should undertake to do what the judge proposed, and in the most open and transparent manner. The more they depart from that position, especially by engaging in discussions behind closed doors, the more they risk compromising the outcome – and the less confidence the public can have in the new regulatory regime.

Public confidence will be reduced even more if politicians give editors and newspaper proprietors any influence over the shape of the recognition body. Leveson has offered the press yet another chance to set up a regime of voluntary self-regulation, but it was no part of his proposal that they should also dictate the nature of the body that is supposed to ensure that this time their self-regulator is independent and effective. That path leads directly back to the world of the discredited PCC, where the press were always able to fix things so that they could mark their own homework.

Brian Cathcart is director of Hacked Off. He tweets at @BrianCathcart.The Hacked Off petition calls for Leveson's recommendations to be implemented. Add your voice to the victims of press abuses and sign it now, and encourage your friends to do the same.

Today, Hacked Off publishes the Leveson Bill, a short parliamentary bill to put into law Lord Justice Leveson’s recommendations on press regulation. You can read the bill in full here.Produced in consultation with victims of press abuse and supporters of Hacked Off, the Leveson Bill has been drafted by Hugh Tomlinson QC, the chair of Hacked Off, and legislative expert and specialist Parliamentary Counsel Daniel Greenberg.

Designed to reflect as closely as possible in legislative form the recommendations in the inquiry report, the bill:

• Enshrines the freedom of the press in statute for the first time, making attempted ministerial or other state interference in the media explicitly illegal,
• Specifies the standards which the voluntary independent press self-regulator will have to meet to satisfy public demand for a system that is effective and independent of Government, Parliament and the newspaper industry,
• Proposes a transparent, democratic system to appoint a Recognition Commission to verify on behalf of the public that the press self-regulator is doing its job properly,
• Gives legal effect to Leveson’s ‘carrots and sticks’, incentivising publishers to join the self regulator through access, under specified circumstances, to reduced costs in court proceedings and protection from exemplary damages,
• Is a faithful representation of the Leveson Report, sticking so far as possible to the intention, content and language of the Inquiry conclusions, with the bare minimum of wording changes and additions required to meet the requirements of legislation.

The Leveson Bill will now be put forward for public consultation with victims of press abuse, supporters of Hacked Off, civil society groups and other interested parties, with a view to providing the best possible basis for the legislation that Lord Justice Leveson declared essential to underpin a regulatory system that breaks the historic pattern of failure.

From tomorrow, an interactive form of the consultation documents will be available online to anyone who wishes to be involved in the process.

Hacked Off’s inclusive and consultative approach stands in stark contrast to the secretive and opaque activities of ministers, editors and newspaper proprietors in the weeks since the Leveson Report was published.

Professor Brian Cathcart, Director of Hacked Off said:Lord Justice Leveson conducted a thorough and painstaking inquiry, hearing all the evidence on all sides, and he delivered a thoughtful and balanced report, making clear recommendations on the best way forward. His report was very critical of the press and also of politicians, so neither group is in any position to quibble with his findings.

The right thing to do now is to implement the judge’s recommendations on press regulation in full and without delay. Our draft Bill – the Leveson Bill – offers a plain and straightforward way of doing that. This is not a bill for press regulation as Hacked Off or anyone else would wish it: it is a bill to underpin voluntary press self-regulation in the way Lord Justice Leveson wanted it.

There are other schemes and ideas in the air, including other draft bills and a proposal for a Royal Charter.

None of these complies with the Leveson Report and all are likely to water down or distort his proposals. Only the Leveson Bill can deliver the considered and balanced new scheme designed by the judge to safeguard press freedom while at the same time protecting the public from press abuses.

Hacked Off calls on all MPs, and peers and every group or individual interested in these matters, to read the bill, participate in the consultation and give this process their backing, so that we can put behind us 70 years of editorial unaccountability and abuses. This is the best way to achieve a free and vigorous press that does not wilfully trample on the rights of citizens.

Read Brian Cathcart in the Guardian for more information.Add your voice to the victims of press abuse, and encourage your friends to do the same. Sign and share the Hacked Off petition to support Leveson's recommendations.

When the inquiry started, Lord Justice Leveson ruled that journalists could tweet from the hearing room, enabling them to share publicly emerging information with the public instantaneously. The Leveson Inquiry also tweeted updates. Hacked Off provided some of the most comprehensive online coverage during the hearings to ensure the public were informed. We will continue to do the same as he announces his recommendations today, and as the legislative process continues.

We expect to start the Q&A to start at around 5:30pm. If you'd like to have your question answered by a victim of press abuse or one of our experts, tweet it to us with the hashtag #HackedOffQA. We'll try to cover as much as we can.

In the meantime, please follow our Twitter updates throughout the day, and have a look at our must-read blogs on the right.

Lord Justice Leveson has delivered his report after his 16 month inquiry into the culture, practice and ethics of the press. Jacqui Hames, a former policewoman and Crimewatch presenter who was placed under surveillance by the News of the World in 2002, has delivered the following statement on behalf of victims of press abuse and the Hacked Off campaign.

We welcome this carefully prepared and thorough report.

The Judge has rightly condemned the outrageous conduct of the press in the recent years.

The crucial point is the importance he places on the complete independence of regulation from politicians and from the editors and proprietors, who run the wholly discredited Press Complaints Commission.

He has proposed a system of voluntary and independent self-regulation.

The proposals made by the industry do not come close to this ideal.

What is needed is a regulator which can properly and effectively protect the victims of press misconduct.

He has recommended that this be backed by legislation to protect the public and the press.

These proposals are reasonable and proportionate and we call on all parties to get together to implement them as soon as possible.

The press must be given a deadline. The Inquiry is over. Now is the time for action.

In the Observer, the headline on Peter Preston’s media column declares: ‘While Leveson’s in his bunker, the media’s in chaos’. Dominic Lawson writes in the Sunday Times under the headline: ‘Forget a press gag, it’s Twitter we must police.’

Meanwhile the Mail on Sunday editorial declares: ‘It is striking that, as Lord Justice Leveson is expected to recommend statutory regulation of newspapers, there is still no plan to create an effective external watchdog for the BBC...’All of this artfully misses the obvious point: the BBC has taken responsibility. In the Savile affair the BBC was quick to establish two external inquiries into what had happened, and in the McAlpine affair the corporation's boss resigned. That, in a relatively extreme form, is what accountability looks like.

Now look at the press. After the disappearance of Madeleine McCann a dozen newspapers printed between them several hundred front-page libels against the child’s parents and others. (We are certain they were libels because the papers later admitted it.) No editor resigned, and so far as we know not a single journalist was so much as reprimanded.

The worst offenders were the Star and Express papers, which admitted printing no fewer than 110 articles that were absolutely unfounded. Their editor in chief of the time, Peter Hill, was later asked whether anyone was disciplined or reprimanded and he replied: ‘I reprimanded myself, because I was responsible.

‘ Did he resign? No. Did any of his friends in the editorial chairs of other national newspapers demand that he resign? No.The wrong committed against the McCanns was at least as grave as the wrong committed against Lord McAlpine. But no one in the press took responsibility and there was no mechanism to hold them to account and ensure (as is demanded now of the BBC) that such a mistake can’t happen again. The papers that printed falsehoods just carried on as normal and, predictably, before long they were at it again, printing falsehoods en masse about the Bristol teacher Christopher Jefferies.

Now look at the Savile affair. The press is unregulated and we are constantly told that this is necessary so they can be fearless and hold bad people to account. (Though clearly this doesn’t include bad people in their own midst.) Where were they when Jimmy Savile was preying on young women? Like almost everybody else, regulated or otherwise, they were applauding his charity work. The papers might claim he was protected from exposure by the libel laws, but that protection ended with his death in October 2011. So on that date did they have years of pent-up, libel-gagged investigations ready for publication? No. Not in October 2011, and not ever. In the end it was state-regulated ITV that unleashed the scandal.

As for the BBC, there are allegations it had the story late in 2011 but failed to air it. This caused a scandal and within days two externally-led inquiries were established to look into what had happened and into the long-term background. The BBC, in other words, took responsibility. More than that, it aired the allegations against itself in a Panorma programme.

Contrast this with the behaviour of News International over phone hacking. The very latest date on which we can be sure the Murdoch management was in possession of good evidence that phone hacking had been widespread at the News of the World was early 2007. When did they establish an externally-led inquiry? Never. When did they publish a journalistic investigation of their own wrongdoings? Never. Instead, for four years they peddled the lie that only one rogue reporter had been involved, and it took the combined efforts of dozens of hacking victims, suing in the courts, to winkle out the evidence that forced a confession.

And while News International failed to take responsibility over hacking so, once again, did the editors of most of the other national papers, supposedly bitter rivals. They not only failed to investigate the scandal of hacking in their own midst, they also conspired to cover it up by mocking and marginalising the story, or simply keeping quiet.

It is true that one editor, Andy Coulson, resigned over phone hacking in 2007. What the world did not know at the time was that this was no ordinary mea culpa resignation, because Coulson received a substantial six-figure pay-off. People who resign don't normally get pay-offs, though people who are sacked often do. Either way, Coulson didn’t so much fall on his sword as fall on a bed of cash.

When it comes to responsibility and accountability, the national press has a lot to learn from the BBC.Brian Cathcart is director of Hacked Off. He tweets at @BrianCathcart.To find out more about the events that led to Leveson, download Brian Cathcart's Penguin Special, Everybody's Hacked Off.