Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Competition: write a response to the government’s ‘consultation’ on press freedom

Since my blog about the new threat to press freedom yesterday, and the notorious Section 40 being consulted on by the government, responses have been coming in thick and fast. A few of you have copied me in to emails sent to Karen Bradley, the Culture Secretary, many of them rather brilliant. More importantly, I’ve been contacted by a software designer who has agreed to make a form that we can use to send a template response to the government’s consultation.

This leaves us with one question: what form of words? One form has been created, here. But all you really need to do is mention Section 40 and a new Leveson report and officials are obliged to record your response.

Here are three responses. If you want to add your own, leave it in the comments section of this blog or email me at editor@spectator.co.uk. I’ll update as we go along and we’ll take a vote later, then pick the winner tomorrow.

ENTRY ONE

Dear Mrs Bradley,

I was appalled to read about the proposed Section 40 which appears designed to debilitate the ability of the press to hold the powerful to account. I understand that a consultation is in process as to whether the press should be told to submit to a regulator funded by a celebrity S&M fetishist. We need a free and, yes, a hostile press to keep you lot honest. Please bin this ludicrous proposal.

ENTRY TWO (a version of the above submitted by someone claiming to be from Impress)

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ENTRY THREE

Dear Mrs Bradley,

Britain does not have the luxury of constitutional right to freedom of speech like the USA. What freedom we do have is under attack by a rich man does not like the idea that a free press published the story of a woman he employed for his orgies.

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