The regulation of the British press is an area where this newspaper usually treads lightly. It is not just that The Economist has an interest in opposing irksome rules-albeit a less obvious one than the tabloids, many though not all of them owned by Rupert Murdoch, which have hacked and harassed their victims for years. It is also that there is also no perfect way to regulate the press. Deciding how to balance two forms of liberty-freedom of expression and that from intrusion-is exceedingly hard. But even when the difficulty of the task is taken into account, the government has made a shameful hash of it.
展开▼
