Conservative MP for Surrey Heath and Education Secretary at the time of the Inquiry. A former journalist at the Aberdeen Press and Journal, the Times, the BBC and the Spectator. Told the Inquiry that sometimes "individuals reach for regulation in order to deal with failures of character or morality, and sometimes that regulation is right and appropriate but some of us believe that before the case for regulation is made, the case for liberty needs to be asserted as well".
First issued 1961. Fortnightly satirical and current affairs news magazine, published in London and edited by Ian Hislop since 1986. Hislop told the Inquiry that Private Eye was against regulation. It gave two pages a week to criticising national newspaper journalists and Hislop declared that he would therefore not expect a fair hearing from a press complaints body. The activities in focus at the Inquiry, such as phone hacking and police taking money, were already illegal, he said, adding that what was required was the enforcement of existing laws.
