London: Prime Minister David Cameron rejected the idea of a law to regulate the British press on Thursday, risking a split in his government after an inquiry advised legal backing for a watchdog to police the sometimes outrageous conduct of newspapers.
Opposing an independent regulator enshrined in law will delight the British press ahead of the 2015 election but may raise concern inside the coalition government that Cameron lacks the mettle to stand up to media barons such as Rupert Murdoch.
Cameron said he was wary of writing press regulation into law, a snub to the inquiry he ordered in July last year after public outrage at revelations that one of Murdoch's tabloids hacked the phone messages of a 13-year-old murder victim.
"The issue of principle is that for the first time we would have crossed the rubicon of writing elements of press regulation into the law of the land," Cameron told Parliament, watched from the gallery by victims of phone-hacking who have campaigned for tougher rules to police Britain's recalcitrant media....
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06:32 AM, Nov 30, 2012
