Contemptuous

Having read Clive Coleman's piece in the Times earlier this week, headlined online as ‘Kick out our contempt laws’ and less insistently in print as ‘Will the internet kill off our creaking contempt laws?’, I was only too aware of the pressure being put on the Contempt of Court Act by technological advances.

However, reading the tabloids on many days, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the laws are already nothing more than quaint memory of an up-tight past. This morning was no exception, with the News of the World following up Friday’s recovery of Shannon Matthews and the arrest of her supposed captor with this rumor-mongering relating to the man being questioned by police, which leaves few aspects of his character and previous behaviour unquestioned.

Shouldn't the press leave it to the courts to decide rather than forcing their hand?

So this must be a fast news day

Not having watched the news since late last night while trying in vain to find a channel showing the Oscars ceremony, I was astonished this evening to turn on to to the most astonishing single day's news I've seen for a long time.

With the the uncovering of increasingly horrific details in a series of cases involving the abuse of those in care at the Haut de la Garenne children's home; Kirklees Council staff and police working in droves to search for evidence of missing girl Shannon Matthews; the discovery, which would undoubtedly have delighted RD Laing, of the serious possibility that antidepressants simply ‘do not work’ and are a fraud perpetrated by drug companies; and the rather lighter news of a first live broadcast from North Korea and an Oscar win for a universally popular British actor have left literally only a few seconds of airtime for the irrational and surely election-losing move by Hilary Clinton's campaign team who released a picture of Barack Obama in Oriental dress.

It seems likely that for once tomorrow I won't be the only one in my newsagent queuing up with an armful of papers.