The Leveson Inquiry has invited evidence and submissions from the public as well as from the core participants. Although not reported widely in the media, last October the recently retired Lord Justice of Appeal, Sir Stephen Sedley, made his own submission to the Leveson Inquiry. In this submission, Sir Stephen proposes his own model of statutory regulation of the media.
Sir Stephen argues that “Britain can boast some of the best investigative newspapers in the world” but that we also have “some of the most intrusive and foul-mouthed newspapers in the world”. He characterises the problem as being “how to keep the plums and curb the duff” – by the latter he means not the tasteless, trivial or debased – with which a free society has to live – but rather:
