Tuesday 14 September 2010

Where Are Our 'Journalists'?

Helen Szamuely, Your Freedom and Ours, has yet another excellent post on the subject of the 'one in - one out' policy of our present 'mish-mash' of a government.

In her post Helen links to an article in the Telegraph, which yet again is another 'cut & paste' job in effect repeating the press release from the EEF.
"The EEF, which represents manufacturers, said the decision to leave out EU legislation from the Government's recently launched "one-in, one-out" rule meant the burden of new environmental and employment regulation could rise unchecked."
 It is logical to assume that any journalist worth his/her salt would by now know that EU legislation cannot be amended but is there any mention of this in the article? And why not? A spokesman for the Department for Business also chose to ignore this point in their statement:
"This is the first time we have a controlled policy on introducing new regulations with the groundbreaking One-in, One-out rule. The Government has decided to begin the new system using a more focused, practical approach, with the intention of extending the scope of the policy in due course."
It is of course realised that government departments have to 'sell Europe', but should newspapers also be involved in this subterfuge? If newspapers wish to be praised for 'informing their readership' then perhaps they should do just that by pointing out inaccuracies in statements handed to them for publication.

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