We live in a very fast moving world and very fast moving times. As a result, we tend to move quickly from issue to issue. While the News of the World is preoccupying all our campaigning capacity this week, it is as yet unclear whether anything will actually change. Murdoch will probably still be allowed to buy BSkyB.

I am usually full of admiration for the measured and interesting work of Steve Richards. But I fear he’s called it wrongly today in his celebration of the demise of News International’s power over politicians and the police.

Certainly at the moment it feels like we’ve won an important victory. Advertisers are deswerting the sinking ship, and Cameron has ostensibly announced an inquiry. But the fact is most of the key players in this saga are just playing for time and hoping it will blow over.

Admittedly. that has been their strategy for some time now, and while originally it seemed to be working, this week has shown it as foolish. So far…

We are a fickle public. I can’t help but think of the outcry over the behaviour of the paparazzi after the death of Diana. It was a mere 5 months later that photos of Britney Spears being carried from her home in an ambulance were available in every news outlet (no I’m not linking).

The press – having finally decided it is safe to comment on this scandal – have unanimously decided that Cameron’s equivocation harms him. I say it’s too early to tell. It may well be that Cameron is unconfident about speaking under oath about Andy Coulson. But equally, Cameron may just be making the assumtion that this will blow over, and that the News International stable will once again rise to be a powerful ally and more importantly a dreadful enemy. For both moral and partisan reasons, I hope Cameron has miscalculated. I hope all the commentators are right. I hope that as Steve Richards says, this is a turning point.

But for that to happen, we need to distinguish between the initial outcry and a sustained fight. News International and others with a stake in tbhis affair will keep the pressure on politicians day in, day out. If civil society moves on and forgets to push back, distracted by the next shock, the next campaign, the next outrage, their pressure will win.

For the sake of brave politicians like Tom Watson and Chris Bryant – who battled on when this was their fight alone despite extraordinary pressure to do otherwise – we need to keep up this fight. We need to follow the example of the people of Liverpool in thier longstanding boycott of the Sun after their disgraceful coverage of the Hillsborough disaster.

If we don’t, I have a horrible feeling that Richards declaration that “Nothing will ever be the same” will ring hollow a lot sooner than we might think.

Tags: Chris Bryant, David Cameron, News International, Steve Richards, Tom Watson

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 7th, 2011 at 14:32 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.