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And here is the irony. Members of the political class have been attempting to tame the press for decades. (The Spectator came out against such interference back in 1834.) Yet only now, when many of the public prints lie on their deathbed, do politicians have a reasonable chance of success. The pressure group Hacked Off is desperate to establish political control, and it sees its chance. It has, in Mr Miliband, someone keen to play David to the Goliaths of Fleet Street. As one Cabinet member puts it: Miliband may very well push through the full Leveson regulation with Liberal Democrat support. There is a majority in Parliament for it. Technically, its quite possible: he can insert a clause into a Bill. But first, he needs enough fuss to be kicked up.

The BBC is certainly doing its best, and is treating his spat with the Daily Mail as if it were a national emergency. The debate about press regulation is impossible to understand in Britain without considering the BBCs interests. It loathes Sky, and was keen to stop Rupert Murdochs attempt to buy the broadcaster outright. Murdochs News Corporation had a $12 billion cash pile, and it fancied putting rocket boosters under Sky. Mark Thompson, then head of the BBC, signed a letter begging the government to stop Murdoch. The BBC broke its own rules and became an actor in the drama. Even worse, it never admitted the fact.

Like a medieval army that believes it has to keep conquering or face defeat, the state-funded BBC has started to occupy new terrain and is now a hegemon in providing the printed word. More people get their news from the 18-year-old BBC website than from any newspaper, unfair competition which is crushing not just local newspapers but national ones, too. The chief executive of the Guardian, Andrew Miller, blamed his newspapers short life expectancy on the oversupply of rivals including the Corporation. The two organs have the same outlook, but at least the newspaper cannot force anyone to buy it. The BBC uses the taxman, and 700 of us are now prosecuted each day for dodging the licence fee.

The quality of our national broadcaster is, of course, outstanding. But its selling point is that it is seen as moral, and more balanced than the newspapers so it has a vested interest in stories that present the press as being collectively guilty of a terrible misdemeanour. At times, it seems to delight in the discomfiture of the Daily Mail and, make no mistake, the two are now rivals, battling it out for digital readers. BBC Online even has its own version of the Mail Onlines famous sidebar of shame, with stories headed my Nazi blood and teenage exorcists.

The digital era is transforming the media, turning everyone against everyone else. Newspapers offer television now. Even The Spectator is producing audio podcasts, and the BBC with its massive financial firepower is taking on all-comers. Fleet Street is haemorrhaging power, creating the chance for politicians to strike. Most worryingly of all, a country that has prided itself on free speech for generations now sends police to arrest people for what they say on Twitter. The pace of change is staggering, and the ancient freedoms implicit since Miltons Areopagitica are proving useless in the digital age.

It is quite possible for Mr Miliband to pounce amid all the confusion. He could, in theory, amend the coming Lobbying Bill to vote through state regulation of the press. The newspapers would hate it, but he seems to enjoy fighting them. He could explain future unfavourable coverage as the sour grapes of Fleet Street bullies who have just met their match. And hed be cheered on by Tory MPs such as George Eustice, Camerons former press officer, who says that statutory regulation would prevent papers from printing what he regards as complete nonsense.

The solution is fairly simple. Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary, is planning a British Bill of Rights that would be senior to any jurisdiction from Strasbourg. We have never, before, needed a constitution such basic principles as press freedom have been taken for granted. When the Scottish Parliament was granted powers to regulate television, the press was not mentioned: as recently as the late 1990s it was unthinkable that this old liberty would be extinguished. Yet next week, the Privy Council will consider government plans to do just that.

Mr Graylings Bill of Rights should incorporate a clause about freedom of speech and the press, ideally giving Britons the same protection as afforded to Americans by their First Amendment to the Constitution. It would help judges such as Lord Justice Leveson to understand the importance and definition of a free press. It would help politicians see that the Leveson proposals would, in the words of the New York Times, chill free speech and threaten the survival of small publishers and internet sites. And it would, moreover, put temptation out of Mr Milibands way.

Fraser Nelson is editor of 'The Spectator

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Press freedom and fairness should be enshrined in a British Bill of Rights

The Associated Press A police officer stops a bicyclist from entering a section of New York's Riverside Park South where a man earlier went on a rampage stabbing five people, including a one-year-old, early Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2013. The suspect, who appeared to be homeless and emotionally disturbed, was taken into custody, said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. All the victims were expected to survive, though one of the women was listed in critical condition. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan)

The New York Times/October 3, 2013

NEW YORK (AP) One of the five people slashed by a homeless man on a New York City park bike path says the attacker never said a word.

James Fayette, whose 1-year-old son also was slashed, told The New York Times (http://nyti.ms/1byOD7h ) from his hospital bed Wednesday that it could have been much worse: His son could have been killed.

Fayette had been pushing his son in a stroller when the attacker went on a rampage with scissors Tuesday morning.

Fayette says he put himself between his son and the attacker. Also injured were two joggers and a man walking his dog.

Julius Graham was charged with five counts of assault, criminal possession of a weapon and resisting arrest. The 43-year-old Texas native had been living in a Bronx shelter. He was taken to a hospital for a psychiatric evaluation.

___

Information from: The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com

Copyright 2013 Globe Newspaper Company.

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NYC victim: Bike path attacker never said a word

2 October 2013 Last updated at 08:05 ET

Count up the repeated words and phrases in David Cameron's conference speech and you capture what it was really about.

Labour was mentioned 25 times whereas the Lib Dems just twice , the Coalition once, Nick Clegg, UKIP and Nigel Farage not at all.

The prime minister wants to turn the political argument into what he calls a straight red/blue fight. His message was summed up in a single soundbite attacking "Red Ed and his Blue Peter economy all sticking plasters and quick fixes... cobbled together for the TV cameras".

Tory market research reveals that voters are more moved by doubts about whether Labour would ever do what they promise, rather than the attacks on "a return to 1970s socialism" which moves Tory supporters, the Tory press and big business.

There were 15 pleas to "finish the job." David Cameron and George Osborne are determined to kill the idea that they think the economy is now fixed. He reminded the country that after three years of cuts the deficit was still huge. They believe that having lost the Plan A/Plan B argument Labour is trying to change the subject to a debate about living standards. They are determined to wrestle it back again.

What's described as the new Tory mission - building a "land of opportunity" - was mentioned 13 times.

The party hopes that it captures an optimistic vision; their commitment to reform education and welfare as well as the economy; and their belief in helping all and not just the few. It will be interesting to see if the phrase lasts any longer than many previous Conference phrases that die almost as soon as they're uttered.

What will stay in the memory from this Conference is the Tories' laser-like focus on the threat from Ed Miliband which they once laughed off.

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Cameron: Word count reveals all

Noon, Friday, Oct. 4, Lon Chaney Theatre(screens with Mad Ship); 7:30 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 5, City Auditorium

For a short film whose first line is "I don't do anal," Six Letter Word is remarkably sweet and limitedly edgy. The title refers both to a boy's fixation with crossword puzzles and the autism responsible for it.

Writer/director Lisanne Sartor, who made the $25,000 movie for her final student project at the AFI Directing Workshop for Women, notes in some press materials that the film was inspired by her own experiences coming to terms with her older son's autism. That said, she's quick to point out that she's "not the unlikely mom in the film."

That would be Zoe, played by an adept Rumer Willis (daughter of Bruce and Demi), who in order to support her autistic child, Jax, performs sex work. In the opening scene, she meets Pete (an also-solid Josh Braaten), who just wants someone to hold while falling asleep.

Then she surprisingly re-meets Pete, as he's a school therapist to whom her mother Marilyn insists Jax be taken for a diagnosis. That's where she hears that Jax "doesn't need fixing, he needs help adapting."

Click here for complete Indie Spirit Film Fest coverage.

Which pretty much sums up each character in the film, as tensions play out between the family members and between Zoe and Pete, thankfully not in any predicted sentimental or sappy way.

Sartor makes no side judgment on Zoe's profession (hence the opening line), avoiding a pitfall digression. More so, she keeps the focus on what a mother is willing to do for a child, as well as on the affliction itself. It's a tight 16 minutes of student-level filmmaking with some mid-level Hollywood actors contributing weight.

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Six Letter Word

[TamilNet, Wednesday, 02 October 2013, 00:59 GMT] UN Human Rights chief Ms Navanetham Pillay, in a press interview in Colombo towards the end of her recent visit to the island, has said that no one she had met there used the word genocide. TamilNet comes to know that there were specific instances in which responsible civil society members meeting her had told her about genocide in the island, using the very word genocide in English. Ms Navi Pillay held her civil society meetings under Chatham House rules. In Vanni she told people that they could whisper in her ear. Has she misused such conditions to suppress what had actually been told to her, in order to shield an imperial design that accommodates genocide by the Agent State? Why should she hide the fact that the island Tamils in deed spoke to her on genocide, asks the civil society in the island.

Ms. Navi Pillay gave an exclusive interview to Easwaran Rutnam, the editor of Colombo Gazzette, on 31 August.

The Tamil Diaspora tends to often raise the issue that there is genocide taking place in Sri Lanka. During your visit have you seen something to that effect or is it an exaggeration, asked Mr Rutnam.

Navi Pillay replied: Well nobody used that word to me; not in authorities or civil society. Genocide is particularly a legal word. I [inaudible] people since I was judge on the genocide tribunal to say that there has to be proof of an intent to destroy in whole or in part a nation, a group. This is what happened in Rwanda. That is a clear case of genocide. However its not for me to judge. Its only after proper investigations the judges, based on the evidence, can conclude whether and what crimes were committed.

At least two respectable civil society members who met Navi Pillay have told her in clear terms that what had taken place was genocide and what is taking place after the war in 2009 is structural genocide committed on the nation of Eezham Tamils, TamilNet learns this week from first hand sources in the island.

If the former international judge, who has investigated Rwanda and has found it a clear case of genocide, now as the UN human rights chief chooses to suppress even submissions on genocide by Eezham Tamils in the island, then that itself is a matter for investigation, commented civil society circles in the island.

Washington and New Delhi that architected the war and the aftermath in the island do not concede that the Sinhala State has committed genocide and is committing structural genocide.

The upper layer of Tamils being pro-imperial is the obstacle to the Tamil struggle for liberation and self-determination, Tamil political analysts say.

If Ms Navi Pillay thinks that genocide in the island has to be proved through proper investigations why shouldnt she call for it now itself, rather than waiting for the end results to prove irrefutable, but then irredeemable genocide, ask civil society circles.

Ms Navi Pillay's predecessor Ms Louise Arbour went as the chief of the International Crisis Group (ICG), after her tenure in the UN. The ICG, under her leadership was in the forefront in denying the genocide committed on Eezham Tamils. At a later stage, when world public criticism was mounting on, the ICG came out with a similar statement like that of the present statement of Ms Navi Pillay that genocide has to be proved by legal means as though it is somebody else's job and not of their concern.

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Sri Lanka: Question raised on truth of Navi Pillay statement