Tory bid to gag re

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It begins with a nod in the direction of the class nature of the press.

"It needs to be said from the outset that even if every single technique mentioned in the book is deployed to maximum effect it cannot guarantee favourable or even fair treatment.

"The British media is firmly locked into (or in the BBC's case, linked to) British capitalism. In the first place there are all the implications of formal ownership."

He goes on to describe some of the press coverage of the 1978/9 pay strikes, including the Evening Standard's identification of an IRA bomb at Canvey Island with secondary picketing.

For this he scolds the "usually sensible" Evening Standard.

Capitalism apart, the world McShane inhabits is one where questions of sensibleness and reasonableness are paramount.

Sacrifice

It is one where trade union officials must make any sacrifice, no matter how great, to ensure that they do ing for a major TV interview than being rung up at home by a gaggle of undisciplined members bellyaching about some strike or other).

claim The media, we learn, can be extremely helpful during negotiations in putting pressure on the management.

Of the TGWU pamphlet on the Ford claim PH( Murray With only extremely lowkey opposition (spearheaded by the Guardian newspaper and backed up by Liberal and Labour peers) the Tory government is pressing ahead with its reactionary Protection of Official Information Bill.

Designed to replace the widely discredited and virtually unused Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act, the new Tory Bill is far from a liberalising reform.

Despite bland assurances from Tory Lord Chancellor Lord Hailsham, that "nothing which is legal now will be rendered illegal by this Bill", , the néw legislation opens up the prospect of investigative journalists, civil servants and unwitting members of the public being prosecuted on the say-so of a government minister.

Ministerial decision

It would make it an offence to reveal information which a Minister-after the disclosurecertified as likely to cause injury to defence international relations.

And publication of any information relating to the security services and intelligence • would automatically become an offence-raising the prospect of a journalist possibly being jailed for up to two years for disclosing the time the head of MIS takes his coffee break.

Publicly available

This would be an offence even if the information in question was already publicly available in this country or abroad.

And there would be no means of appeal against the Minister's pronouncement that the disclosure of a piece of information was likely to cause damage.

In addition, in a specific attempt to plug the loophole through which journalists Crispin Aubrey and Duncan Campbell and ex-soldier John Berry had escaped in last year's mammoth "secrets" trial, the Tory measure would make it illegal to accumulate and collate small pieces of information in order to piece together an overall picture of government activity.

The new law would, in short, gag the British press and of course the workers' movement at a time when the Tories must be secretly preparing for a wave Whitelaw of intensified confrontation.

It would become illegal for a militant to complain that his phone was being tapped; public discussion of the role and activities of the Special Branch and other political police would be suppressed; the Guardian would be prosecuted for its revelation of the jury-vetting scandal and similar issues; civil servants who publicised details of government preparations or damaging figures to expose the effects of cuts and other attacks would face jail sentences; and all of the implicit threats of the discredited Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act would be made explicit in a revamped law clearly passed ready to be used.

Publishers

As the defence lawyer at the ABC trial T.nrd Hutchinenn 41 ДСКА, LUIM 1L pointed out in the House of Lords (where the Bill received its second reading last week) the new law "suspends a i sword above journalists' heads"

Even newspaper publishers have emerged as unanimously

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MeShane nuts union bureaucrats through their paces on the TUC "Using the Media" course SOCAMEEERESS ninetis ÷:_÷