Thursday 12 January 2012

Toby Young: 'Leveson like a Stalinist show trial'


Toby Young in this week's Spectator compares the Leveson Inquiry to a "Stalinist show trial" and urges the red-tops to fight back and make a glorious last stand.

He writes: "Maybe the internet will destroy the tabloid press willy-nilly, just as it will destroy the broadsheets in due course, and anyone who thinks otherwise is being naive.

"Nevertheless, I hate to see the red-tops go down without a fight. Watching one tabloid editor after another abase themselves before the inquiry is a dispiriting sight, reminiscent of a Stalinist show trial in which those who've fallen out of political favour admit their guilt before being led off to the gallows.

"How much more satisfying it would be to see the red-tops engaging in a last hurrah, using every weapon at their arsenal to ridicule Lord Justice Leveson and his army of pompous lawyers.

"Yes, it might have been tantamount to to signing their own death warrants, but if you're going to die anyway, why not go out in a blaze of glory?

"It would have been the tabloid version of Rorke's Drift. And perhaps it would have brought the public to their senses, and encouraged them to rally behind then tabloids and remember our national sense of fun."

Young concludes: "Meanwhile, the show trial continues, with another vanload of ink-stained wretches waiting in the dock."

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