Thomas Hughes, writing in The Guardian, uses an international visit of editors to highlight dangers to press freedom in the United Kingdom. Not the freedom to think, or the freedom to write (whomsoever you are): just the freedom of the press. A large corner of a wider field. Yet, the article becomes a whinge about how the Guardian is being harassed under the Snowden affair. Hughes may well be correct that the Guardian has been targeted; but was the Telegraph no less pilloried by politicians for its publication of their expenses. Yet, their information did not potentially threaten the securocrats so they were not prevented from destroying the final shreds of perceived decency in the political classes.
Thomas's articlle would have appeared to be more serious if he had defended press freedom in its totality. But a self-serving encomium for the actions of the Guardian whilst supporting a half-baked system of state regulation that was designed to shield the rich, famous and powerful from scrutiny (why else would politicians support it?) shows why the left-wing press in the United Kingdom does not understand freedom.
The freedom of the press has been circumscribed in the United Kingdom for a long time as the grounds for what is deemed acceptable has narrowed. In Orwellian fashion, freedom to think has been restricted under speech codes and a culture of acceptability in utterance and behaviour. The Royal Charter with its Board of self-selected censors would ensure that the press (or anyone who writes) could only write according to their moral sensibilities. Anything else would not be argued with, only constrained.
The Guardian remains a useful idiot and accompliace in curbing our powers to speak.