By Alasdair Murray

The system of a Press Recognition Panel under which the regulator Impress operates amounts to state regulation in all but name.

Brian Cathcart (Letters, 19 October) describes Impress as an “independent” regulator and the Press Recognition Panel as “a body which is itself independent of government”. But this is a strange sort of independence: the royal decree establishing the panel sets out detailed rules for who can be a member, how they are to be appointed and how the panel is to operate, and similarly detailed rules for how any regulator must operate in order to be “recognised”.

Moreover, the panel is entirely government-funded, and its decisions have the force of law, since any newspaper that doesn’t sign up to an approved regulator may face punishment in the courts. This is “independence” in name only; in reality, the system amounts to state regulation of the press in all but name.

Alasdair Murray

London