Come on you Daily Mail supporters

Sel. I know.

The thing is Sel that both Milibands have often said how disappointed their father would have been that they had moved as far to the right as the Labour party. I really don't think you can assume that people automatically adopt the views of their parents. Goodness me, if that were the case I would be a Tory!

I agree that it's about decency. I agree that the victims of press libel and other reporter nastiness think punishment of offenders comes too late.

A life term for murder doesn't deter murder either.
Jail terms for robbery and bodily harm don't deter those crimes.
Good grief, death sentences don't deter some of it!

Of course the law doesn't prevent all journalistic depradations. The same applies to all other human evil and badness.

None of this justifies the censorship of freedom of speech either in the press or anywhere else.

And none of the above means I don't sympathise with victims of press depradations.

I think it does mean that people have not detached their perfectly natural feelings from the principle at stake.

Most atheists I know (and I know a lot!) were brought up by parents who at least paid lip service to Christianity and were sent to Church schools.
Blair's father was a Conservative - oh no, so was he!

grannyactivist some of us remember this saga - another nasty and shameful example of the press intruding into private tragedy.

I got away with being a woman (just disliked), and I do not look in the least like a muslim, and I am hetrosexual - but I am not married and I don't have a job, so I am proud to say the DM hates me!

I did this on a thread in the other place and was amazed to be hated so quickly.

Odd really, but my 2+ years' membership of gransnet has given me more exposure to the DM than I'd had in the rest of my life put together. Can't say it's an improvement.

Don't give a rat's fart whether the DM hates me or not. I expect it would. I expect the Grauniad would too, were it asked.

Because I refuse to toe the line. Whatever "the line" happens to be. Prefer to think for myself.

Sel do you think that posting pictures of people accused of murder on the front page of a newspaper, labelling them killers, before they have been found guilty is a good thing generally?

The test to see if the DM hates you was was silly and embarrassingly obvious.

I think that was the point Petallus

What was?

That it was obvious. The DM is not noted for its subtlety.

Whoever put the test together was being obvious surely!

I don't think the test was a valid comment on the DM.

Perhaps I am still missing the point.

Bags - it was just a bit of fun! I think there are many gransnetters who don't 'toe the line', whatever line you mean!

I'm a bit confused bags. What line are people toeing (or not)? Critically appraising any newspaper on the merit of whatever it churns out on any particular day is interesting and stimulating for me. Until a few years ago, I had not been aware of a vast difference between the DM and other right of centre newspapers, but my interest has grown when they have written about issues that have affected me and my family or friends on a personal level, then it dawned on me that there is somethng different going on at the DM, maybe the editorial style of Paul Dacre, I don't know. I read each article with fresh eyes as far as I can, and compare with other newspapers' treatment of those issues.

Just because a whole lot of Gransnetters are currently very critical and interested in what the DM is up to with the Milliband issue doesn't mean they are following like sheep - it could be that there really is something there that so many people can agree on. For me, regulation of the press is needed, not to suppress free speech but to put some boundaries in where needed, because papers like the DM sure aren't self-regulating. The DM or any other paper can tear Ed Milliband to shreds for all I care - politicians put themselves up for scrutiny in the very nature of the job, but dirty tricks on family and friends is never on.

I agree with what your saying, when. But what press regulation can be put in place that will have the effect that is desired – stopping the DM, for example, playing "dirty tricks" – which won't also censor free speech? For me, it's not an issue of press regulation, but an issue of what constitutes a crime and what doesn't, i.e. it's an issue of behaviour regulation. Maybe certain kinds of privacy invasion should be criminal harassment in law and punishable as such.

greatnan, I just don't find 'surveys' like "the DM hates me" one funny or in the least bit 'fun'. I find them stupid. It's a way of attaching labels to people and it surprises me that people want to have such labels attached. That's the only kind of line-towing I'm talking about, when. I feel there's a certain pressure to 'conform' on these things and I don't like it. I think I agree with all the people who think the DM article about Ralph Miliband stinks. What I don't agree about is that the DM should be stopped from publishing articles that stink. I think the Ralph M article and others like it serve a useful purpose. I was trying to argue this earlier on the thread. Who but someone full of silly prejudices is going to be influenced by such an article rather than the well-argued responses from Ed and others? And they'd be full of the silly prejudices whether the article were published or not. The responses to the article, however, might well serve a useful purpose in actually educating people.

Sorry if I'm just adding to confusion. Doing my best! (and hearing my mum's echo to my dad when he used to say that: "well it's not good enough!"

The pressure to conform thing I feel is probably completely personal, btw. But that's who and how I am.

line-toeing!

I even thought that and then typed the other! Grr.

I think part of the problem is that the PCC is so pathetic and you get this kind of thing going on.

"Mr Dacre (editor in chief of the DM) is a former member of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) and current chairman of the Editors' Code of Practice Committee which writes the PCC code of practice for newspaper and magazine journalists."

See that doesn't really chime with freedom of speech for me Bags.

I suppose I think that attaching the "DM hates me" label to oneself is a kind of approval-seeking. Harmless but I just don't like it. Nothing more sinister than that.

mamie, so what you saying is that the PCC should have stronger teeth and be run by non-partisan people rather than newspaper editors? If so, I'd agree.

To me, that's the same as saying that certain actions by reporters should perhaps be regarded as crimes, if they are not already.

Bags - I thought 'the DM hates me' thing on FB was just a joke against the Daily Mail, designed to show up the DM's own paradigms.
I don't know anyone who actually prides themselves on the newspaper they read, or would want to be labelled in that way.

Bags, you might not have found it amusing, but I think you must be careful about any hint, however unintended, that you are the only member who can think for herself. I really don't think the history of Gransnet confirms the view that most of us 'toe the line' . I would say there are very many highly individual and intelligent members, on both sides of the political divide, who are more than capable of thinking for themselves.