About the first one – I can (just about) understand the public interest in a politician or judge having their personal lives open to such scrutiny. It seems reasonable (for example) that a politician who was tough on drugs should be a non-drug user themselves, so any shots of them snorting coke would be in the public interest. Max Mosley, distasteful or not, is not in that position. His private life has no impact on the running of F1 motorsports.

I hadn’t noticed the:

The News of the World will not be gagged by the rich and the powerful. Or judges. Or the courts. Or politicians.

Such brave words from a crappy, third rate tabloid. What they mean is, they dont care about the law of the land while they complain about others failing to follow the law….

Ironic, really. Shame they (and 75% of their readership) will never quite get it.

They compare Mosley’s case to that of a serviceman wounded in Iraq who got a bit less — well sure, but he knew what he was getting into, whereas Mosley was just randomly invaded by hacks as he went about his admittedly unorthodox day. He wasn’t awarded enough, I think. If it was me, I’d happily award him the entire income (not profit) of the News of the World’s sales for the day he was featured, plus every day with a high-profile followup piece. Including advert revenue, including online for that story in perpetuity. That’s the only way to stop this being profitable, and in any case, that’s surely what he’d have got had he published his tale under his own terms.

Then they say “The News of the World will not be gagged by the rich and the powerful. Or judges. Or the courts. Or politicians.” Isn’t that the kind of attitude that gets people refused bail?

I further guess he says things like “If a politician, a judge, a bishop or any public figure cannot keep their promises to a wife, husband, etc, how can they be trusted to honour pledges to their constituencies and people they serve?” because there are no good arguments in favour of his position.

You’d think that would be a clue that he might be wrong, but that seems to be so much wishful thinking.

Without public debate or democratic scrutiny, the courts have created a wholly new privacy law.

The idea this has created a new law is insane, all the judge has done (as he said himself in the summation) is to apply the current laws. The News of the World (and for some reason the CofE apparently) are obviously trying to drum some more moral outrage out of their readers.

Shame on them all. They should, all, be banned.