The threat of a Scottish Winter

Well, there is a first time for everything and this is the first time that Calton can say that he wholeheartedly agrees with Patrick Harvie MSP. The Green Party Co-Convenor talks a lot of sense when he says that "If the will exists in Scotland to see the Leveson proposals implemented, it should not be beyond our ability to ensure that professional, commercial media organisations are properly regulated, but individual citizens are not caught up in the same system." Amen to that. As regular readers will know, free speech is very dear to Calton's heart and so, while he condemns the excesses of the press which led to Leveson, he does not believe that the type of legislation being proposed by the McCluskey Report is either desirable or practical. Of particular concern is the way in which McCluskey attempts to bring all 'news-related publishers' under the same umbrella, regardless of whether they are a not-for-profit, personal blog, such as this one, or part of Murdoch's empire. Although the Report acknowledges, in para 43, that individual blogs would not necessarily have to contribute to funding the new Regulatory Body, the threat is there and would be sufficient to close down many blogs, including this one, if enacted. That would indeed bring about, not just a Scottish Autumn, but a full-on Scottish Winter.