What can we expect from the Leveson report this week?

This week Lord Justice Leveson concludes his report and will announce his findings and recommendations this Thursday. After months of intense interviewing where we have all enjoyed watching the likes of Rupert Murdoch and our good friendly Middle East peace envoy Tony Blair squirm under the questioning from the committees appointed to question these media sorts. With the charging of Andy Coulson and Rebecca Brooks we look to be finally seeing some justice in terms of big names getting outed as criminals as they rightly are they may well protest their innocence till the time the door on their cell is slammed shut but there can be no doubt of what they knew. Andy Coulson who played a huge part in seeing well known socialist Tommy Sheridan jailed for perjury will hopefully see that sentence quashed and over turned in place of Andy coulson going to jail. But one of the big questions will be will the report by Leveson change the way the press report and behave. I don’t think it will in any major way we live under capitalism where the press is still owned despite all the bad headlines for our press it’s still a law to itself in many ways. The political establishment are especially keen to see the press remain unregulated and all the rumours are that David Cameron will give the press a ticking off but go easy on them and give them one last chance. This will be interesting given the backlash from the public after the phone hacking scandals and if Cameron is seen to ignore the findings or simply just pay lip service to the report this could play very badly for the prime minister. I don’t think full regulation is what people want but the public do want to see a fully accountable press in terms of privacy and invasions of this. I don’t think we will get this for as long as the press is not under democratic control of the masses. But Leveson has left his mark on the press and any eventualities that come out this week will be big news without a doubt. The press has had a big warning will it listen? I doubt it but people’s attitudes have changed slightly. The outrage when a dead young girl’s phone was hacked was huge people were rightly angry and wanted revenge will Levisohn take account of the public’s mood on this and make recommendations that fit 2012 and beyond. Whatever happens three will still be a unregulated press of some description who will still try and push the boundaries as much as they can apteral we’d still wish to know if our thieving MP’s are on the fiddle still and exposing their lies where they can. Only a publically funded democratic system of socialism where the media will be under the control of the workers deciding how much media coverage each story gets and ensuring its fairness and unbiased representing the views of the many not just the narrow interests of a few rich individuals can be called anything near a free press until then the idea we have a free press is a simple pipe dream.

For a genuine free press

While many will still be reading various editions of our printed press and think the recent article by Laurie Penny or Owen Jones is of the cutting edge radical form of our printed press we just have to remember who actually owns these papers and who’s interests do they ultimately serve. As I say you may well read a radical left wing piece from the fore mentioned authors but be under no illusions we do not have a free press at all. Notice how many stories were anti N30 last year and how much in favour. I do not have to bring up the statistics to show you workers interests are not represented fairly in our media at all. You may think like I once did the BBC a fine establishment a cornerstone of media ethics. Yes the BBC likes to hold a line of impartiality and in some respects they are but be under no illusion if the state was ever under threat or if workers were taking up their class position against the government of the day of which they did last year on numerous occasions including the biggest strike day for many years on November the 30th. It can be under no doubt who the BBC and others who claim to be independent who’s side they are on. They will line up with the boss’s 9 times out of 10. We must never forget who owns these media outlets and who ultimately controls what they publish and produce at the end of the day. With the recent uncovering of phone hacking within the news of the world and deeper into News international the idea of a free press has remerged. As socialists we do not accept that there can be a free press under capitalism as we live today. Even with a Levison style enquiry the results and recommendations will not be enough to bring a bout a fair and open free press. AS Trotsky said way back in 1938 in the free press and the working class Theory, as well as historic experience, testifies that any restriction to democracy in bourgeois society is eventually directed against the proletariat, just as taxes eventually fall on the shoulders of the proletariat. Bourgeois democracy is usable by the proletariat only insofar as it opens the way for the development of the class struggle. Consequently, any workers “leader” who arms the bourgeois state with special means to control public opinion in general, and the press in particular, is a traitor. In the last analysis, the accentuation of class struggle will force bourgeois of all shades, to conclude a pact: to accept special legislation, and every kind of restrictive measures, and measures of “democratic” censorship against the working class. Those who have not yet realised this should leave the ranks of the working class. Trotsky went on to detail that only under socialism can a free press truly become free, democratic and fair to all The real tasks of the workers’ state do not consist in policing public opinion, but in freeing it from the yoke of capital. This can only be done by placing the means of production – which includes the production of information – in the hands of society in its entirety. Once this essential step towards socialism has been taken, all currents of opinion which have not taken arms against the dictatorship of the proletariat must be able to express themselves freely. It is the duty of the workers’ state to put in their hands, to all according to their numeric importance, the technical means necessary for this, printing presses, paper, and means of transportation. One of the principal causes of the degeneration of the state machine is the monopolisation of the press by the Stalinist bureaucracy which risks transforming all the gains of the October revolution to a pile of ruins. Trotsky concludes that workers need their own press and only a truly independent democratic form of a communication press can succeed and bring the news other day to the mass’s democratically and fairly. It is essential to wage an unrelenting battle against the reactionary press. But the workers cannot leave a task they have to fulfil themselves through their own organisations and their own press, to the repressive fist of the bourgeois state. Today the government may seem well disposed towards workers’ organisations. Tomorrow it may fall, and it inevitably will, into the hands of the most reactionary elements of the bourgeoisie. In this case the existing repressive laws will be used against the workers. Only adventurisms who think of nothing but the moment’s needs can fail to guard themselves against such a danger. The most efficient way to fight the bourgeois press is for the workers’ press to develop. Of course, yellow papers like El Popular, are unable to undertake such a task. Such papers have no place among the workers’ press, the revolutionary press, or even the bourgeois press of good reputation. El Popular serves the personal ambitions of Mr. Tolerant, who himself is in fact in the service of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Its methods: lies, calumnies, witch hunts, are methods a la Tolerant. His paper has neither program nor ideas. It is evident that such a sheet can never strike a resonant chord in the working class, nor win them over from the bourgeois press. So we arrive at the inevitable conclusion that the struggle between the bourgeois presses starts with the eviction of the degenerate leaders from workers’ organisations and in particular from the liberation of the workers’ press from the tutelage of Tolerant and other bourgeois careerists. The Mexican proletariat needs an honest press to express its needs, defend its interests, broaden its horizon and pave the way for the socialist revolution in Mexico. This is what CLAVE intends to do. So, we start by declaring an unrelenting war against the Bonaparte’s pretensions of Tolerant. In this effort, we hope for the support of all advanced workers, as well as Marxists and authentic democrats. Last updated on: 20.4.2007 Under socialism the press would be shared out to those who win the most in elections and beyond if you win a low turn out in elections as pro capitalist leaders would under socialism as their ideas being bankrupt we wouldn’t exclude them we would give them as much as their vote suggests and a section of the press to put their views across. Of course we would be well on our way towards socialism by this point but the freedom of the press goes hand in hand with democratic reforms and rights of the people to present an alternative at any opportunity, even if it is wrong and would throw us back. Exposing this and showing we are open to democracy will shine through and show eared on the correct path to true democratic socialist society. To benefit the many not just the few. Which means the working class needs its own press a weekly socialist paper which we produce known as the Socialist is key to transforming ideas and building a alternative toe the so called free press which is not free at all. Only if it was held in the workers hands the hands of the many could it be democratically free to all.

Murdoch, the real capitalist media barron

As the Murdoch empire lurch's from one crisis to the next Rupert Murdoch and his cronies invlved at the top of news corp and news international have not learnt their lessons and continue to plague ordinary working people.


The fall-out from the Murdochgate scandal has continued following the arrests of ten top editors and journalists who currently work for or have worked for the Sun newspaper.

These arrests are part of the police investigation "Elveden" into suspected bribery and corruption of police officers. It will come as no surprise to anyone aware of the methods of News International that journalists routinely paid police officers for information. Bribing a public official is a criminal offence, but that never stopped the Sun or the News of the World in the past.

Trevor Kavanagh, the associate editor of the Sun has claimed there is a witch-hunt against the paper and News International. He blames elements of News Corp, who owns News International, for handing over a portion of the 300 million internal company emails to the police that led to the arrests.

There is growing evidence that some within News Corp, who are involved in a power battle with Rupert Murdoch, are looking to get rid of large parts, if not all of the toxic News International.

Kavanagh complained that Sun employees had been subject to dawn raids by up to 20 police officers who went through children's clothes drawers looking for evidence. No doubt the Met police, who lost a police commissioner and deputy commissioner already due to the scandal, are trying to prove their independence from the Murdoch Empire.

However, Kavanagh was not so forthcoming in his criticisms of police methods when socialist Tommy Sheridan was the subject of a widely condemned police and state vendetta. This included having his home raided and young child traumatised. He was arrested outside his place of work and faced years of persecution, not least by the Scottish Sun and the now defunct News of the World, who he defeated in a defamation case in 2006.


The Socialist party continues to call for a genuine democratic public inquiry, involving representatives of the trade union and labour movement, into the actions of the Murdoch empire. This must include the handing over of all documents, emails and other information to allow a full expose of the relationship between News International, the police and the political establishment.



There is no doubt the political elite, the metropolitan police and our cosy media barrons have got far to close in recent years. This is no surprise to me as as a socialsit it is clear to me that the capitalist currently own all of the media, control and influence the police and have a strangelhold over all 3 major political parties. This is no coincidence that Murdochgate flared up to me as there was always dodgy going's on in the media world and the political elite including Tony Blair who chased after Rupert Murdoch for years practically begging him to support his party in their rise to power in the late 90's.

The hypocrisy of Ed Milibanda nd the Labour party to now try to distance themselves from the Murdochs is frankly sickening considering the sucking up they did in their time in government and after. Even untill recently Ed Miliband met with senior representitives of News international. He only opposed and jumped on the phone hacking scandel bandwagon when there was public support for it. Not before. Confirming my thought that the political elite media and police are all in it together with eachother covering eachothers backs whenever there is the need.

It is simply the capitalist world playing its hand.