Someting rather interesting emerged from David Cameron's press conference on the media regulation by a yet to be set up government agency this morning. When Prime Minister told his audience he would put proposals for neo Nazi government control of the free press and broadcast news before the House of Commons next week, Mr Cameron used an ambiguity laden phrase.
"Look, we have a hung Parliament," he said. "In the end Parliament is going to have to decide. Parliament is sovereign.”
That may sound fairly mundane after all it is a simple fact that the 2010 general election led to a hung Parliament, where no single party has a majority. This according to Parliament watchers, is the first time Mr Cameron has publicly acknowledged that he is not the man pulling the strings as Prime Minister before him have been.
In other words the Prime Minister has today put himself before the British people and told them about something he wants to do (a Royal Charter for Press regulation), but admitted that he may well not be able to do it, because he didn't win the 2010 election. This goes beyond the obvious political tactics of a Prime Minister preparing the ground for a Commons defeat. It's also a major shift in message from the PM. Once upon a time, he argued that Coalition was actually better than single-party government, because two parties together could do more than one alone. Invoking that hung parliament is a major, if tacit, criticism of Coalition and an admission of its limitations.
Labour and the Lib Dems, both eager to show that their democratic credentials are no more valid that a £50 PhD from an internet 'University' are all for total regulation with criminal penalies awaiting those who published articles or broadcasts dissenting from the official line on issues such as climate change, same sex marriage and the ceding of sovereign powers to unelected supranational bodies. Fortunately a significant minority of the Liberal Democrats still understand what the word liberal means and are threatening to rebel against a bill that would effectively abolish free speech.
The Conservative have been tying themselves in knots over this issue, traditionalists arguing strongly for a free press while those inclined towards Cameron's New World Order style of globalist Conservatism are for a Soviety style regulated media. It seems that in the end David Cameron, having been offered a Godfather style deal by party grandees, with Conservative grassroots support haemorrhaging to UKIP they have told him "Protect the free press if you want to stay Prime Minister".
It's also significant that Mr Cameron committed himself and his party to repealing the Press regulation system that Labour and the Lib Dems might put in place next week. "If that was in place in future, I would want to replace that if I was re-elected," he said.
Perhaps its unsurprising, since it's barely two years away, but Mr Cameron's thoughts are clearly turning to the end of the Coalition and the next election. One of the ties that bind the Coalition parties together has frayed a little more today due to the drift of Labour and the Lib Dems towards Euro-Naziism.