Penned in

Cynical old hacks like me have been amused by the chorus of establishment applause for the Mail on Sunday’s great Kim Darroch scoop. Our elected masters were outraged, rightly, by threats from the Met’s Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu to criminalise editors who publish leaked memos. Politicians left, right and centre condemned an assault on press freedom. Alan Rusbridger, saintly ex-editor of the Guardian, demanded to know what they taught budding bobbies in police college these days. ‘I would like to suggest a new and compulsory course,’ he said. ‘Let’s call it “The Basics Of Free Speech”. Lesson number one. The police do not tell newspaper editors what to write.’

Others piled in: Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt both defended newspapers’ right to publish. So did Labour’s John McDonnell and Emily Thornberry, claiming to be disgusted even though they support a second Leveson inquiry more draconian than the first. Everyone, it seems, is saying that the press must be free to publish information so long as it does not breach existing laws.

So where were our newfound champions the last time we went around this foetid mulberry bush? Seven years ago, dozens of innocent journalists had their lives put on hold — or careers destroyed — when they were not just threatened by police, but prosecuted on trumped-up charges. Anti–terror cops launched dawn raids, ripping up floorboards from their homes and tearing their cars’ innards apart.

One senior journalist was forced to stand by as police rummaged through the underwear drawer of his tearful 14-year-old daughter. Wedding photos, love letters and even Magic Roundabout DVDs were seized along with laptops and mobile phones.

There was precious little outrage from MPs then. Far from trumpeting about the ‘basics of free speech’, Mr Rusbridger and his newspaper seemed to enjoy watching the victims — including 21 of my colleagues from the Sun — being treated like criminals and bracing themselves for jail.