It is clear to all but the very stupid that the new system should only apply to big media -with print operations that might also have a digital presence. Maria Miller should urgently clarify how this will be achieved.Tom's leader and deputy leader - the key figures in working out how to implement Hacked Off's demands - will be so pleased! But this intervention is in line with what Hacked Off pronounced yesterday. Tom Watson is just repeating Hacked Off's line.
Will Oliver Letwin even understand it? Maria Miller, invisible media minister, had apparently never heard of Hello magazine. Has she ever read a blog, I wonder.
Well done, Miliband, Harman and Clegg - you really didn't think this through, did you. Well, we knew that. You couldn't even transcribe Hacked Off's demands properly. Doesn't say much for your powers of analysis, does it. And as for the 500+ MPs who voted for this, wake up and try engaging any brain you may have.
But this would still leave the press under a statutory cosh. Rupert Murdoch had the nerve to tweet yesterday evening that the Charter proposals were an unholy mess. That's true, but his newspapers deserve most of the blame for starting this whole process.
We need a press unfettered by politicians. Clarissa Tan has has blogged on the insidious peril of self-censorship. It's an important point.
So this dangerous farce should by no means be over.
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