I'm a bit puzzled by the fuss about the Leveson Report

Unless I'm very much mistaken there are already laws and legal redress applicable to the main points of debate.

For example, it is illegal to bribe public officials and especially police officers.
Also it is currently a breach of the telecommunications act to hack into other peoples phones and emails.
And a great many lawyers become wealthy acting for plantiffs in cases of defamation.

So why does anybody in their right mind think that it might be a good idea to legislate us into the kind of facist, police state that we have been fighting on and off for several hundred years?

The simple truth is that the only people who really believe in gagging the press are people who have the most to lose. And if Hugh Grant resents press intrusion into his private life so much perhaps he should try to behave himself.

Of course I know there are far more serious cases of press invasion. But I believe that considerably stiffer penalties would deter the kind of criminal acts perpetrated in the Dowler case for instance. The threat of prison is more of a deterent to the likes of Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson than it is to the average East End blagger.

Without freedom of the press we would almost certainly never have known about the MP's expenses scandal and maybe not even the Savile case.

Really all we need is for the press to be taught the difference between what is in the public interest and what is of interest to certain sectors of the public. Long terms of prison would give rogue reporters and editors time to reflect thereon.