Comments on: Prince Philip prostate cancer denied

By: lynda

lynda — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 14:30:33 +0000

HM and HRH have dedicated their public lives…and much of their private lives…to their work. Certainly they are entitled to the privacy and respect that is extended to others of their age group. When there be an illness or health concern allow what we would want for ourselves…dignity and the right to inform, should “inform” be the desired choice.

By: Trudie

Trudie — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 02:03:54 +0000

I personally find it very distasteful for any media outlet to publicly state that a man of PP’s stature is suffering any illness. That is something that is private. At the age of 87 I would be very surprised if he had no medical issues but to put it in the public domain where it is really no ones business goes beyond the pale.

By: John

John — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:27:02 +0000

The second article is more interesting, Dan, and shows that while, we have preserved the right to write, so to speak, the EU is now directly imposing the kind of conditions they have in France where the media is almost totally controlled and unable to report the unsavoury, even illegal, activities of their rulers.

We must resist that at all costs. I doubt this present government has the guts or the fight left in it to do it.

By: John

John — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:16:00 +0000

Dan, the Mosely case was about a motor racing tycoon behaving in a way that could be construed as supporting the Nazis, bearing in mind his father was the leader of the British Fascists before the war.

There was a clear “public interest” (not just something the public is interested in) in looking into it. The judgement was flawed, in my opinion, and will probably be reversed at some stage.

The Prince Harry business concerned a fancy dress party and a lad who in no way could be called a Nazi by any stretch of the imagination. Since he was photographed in the street, it would be very hard to make a case for privacy. The fault, I’m afraid, lay in Harry’s choice of dress.

I agree with the part of the code that states, “Everyone is entitled to respect for his or private and family life, home, health and correspondence.” That is part of a civilized society surely?

In terms of what we report here on RA, there’s a difference between writing “Prince X has cancer,” and “The Evening Standard reports that Prince X has cancer.” The reporting of reports, whether they are true or false, is something that currently has to be banned separately by a judge in individual cases. If that were ever changed so that follow-on reports came under an automatic privacy ban, it would profoundly gag all reporting media.

Therefore this ruling may only criminalize the original reporter. When someone crosses the line, only they should be targeted.

It’s a tricky subject because no news source likes to be left out of the loop when a biggie is breaking.

Tony Blair’s wretched Human Rights Act is slowly strangling free speech in Britain. We await David Cameron’s Government in 2010 to repeal it and put in place a civilized code of privacy which doesn’t interfere with the public interest in criminal matters — the Robert Maxwell business is the one usually quoted.