The trade-off at centre of 'monster' Leveson report

TELEPRINTER:The Leveson Inquiry report into UK press standards delivered to David Cameron yesterday and set to be published today is "a monster, huge, Proustian in size (if not in literary ambition)", according to Robert Peston, the BBC's business editor.

At the heart of the debate about trading self-regulation of the press for what Hugh Grant calls independent regulation with “a tiny dab of statute” is whether it is preferable for prime ministers and opposition leaders to spend their days “sucking up to newspaper owners and editors”, as Peston puts it, or to risk the reverse.

The BBC star reporter, a former newspaper man, says Sir Brian Leveson’s report will be “written in the style of a court judgment” – the difference between this particular verdict and a court judgment is that the awkward bits can be ignored by Cameron if he so chooses.