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The argument is fuelled by the signs that some countries, such as Ireland, need higher interest rates than the level currently imposed by the needs of the big economies such as Germany, still only part-way into its recovery. The costs of the one-size-fits-all policy are plain to see, while the more diffuse microeconomic benefits are slow and hidden.The steady subterranean reshaping of the European economy is only partly unveiled from time to time by an announcement such as this week’s merger of the German and London stock exchanges, which will price companies’ shares in euros. Public support for the new currency is unlikely to take root until the structural benefits of lower costs and greater competition become a bit clearer. Even so, there is scant likelihood the sceptics’ hope of an early break-up will be fulfilled. The genuine political tensions aroused within Euroland by the weak currency do not remotely amount to the prelude to a divorce.There is also a good chance that the euro’s puzzling fall will turn into an equally extreme and mysterious recovery when the financial markets go into reverse.The big question is not what will happen to the exchange rate, or even why, but rather when.. It’s almost exactly a year since we last met in Warwick. The last 12 months have been the busiest on record for legislation affecting how the media operate in this country.

Some of this legislation threatens the operation of a free media in this country

It’s almost exactly a year since we last met in Warwick. The last 12 months have been the busiest on record for legislation affecting how the media operate in this country. Some of this legislation threatens the operation of a free media in this country.
The list is long and growing. There has been the Local Government Bill, the new Data Protection Act, the Freedom of Information Bill, the Terrorism Bill, and now the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Bill. The interception of e-mail is something we are going to be hearing a lot more about in the future.In the courts, there have been injunctions against newspapers.

We have had judges instituting restrictive reporting bans in their court. We have had court cases where the press benches have been restricted to all but two reporters.But in the debate I want us to ask some hard questions of our own profession. Do we always do enough to push the arguments about the freedom of the media to report in the public interest? And when there are opportunities to report, to probe, to investigate, do we always take them?Let’s start with the Freedom of Information Bill. When it was first announced, we all welcomed the Government’s intention to introduce this Bill It was something that many of us felt was long overdue. But what we have actually got is something less than what was promised.But did we as editors do everything in our power to make this Bill as strong as possible? Has this issue really attracted the heavyweights from the national press in the way that, say, the threat of privacy legislation did? This time, have too many editors shrugged their shoulders and said “I think we’ll leave this one to The Guardian, thanks all the same”?And when we finally do get the Act – flawed though it may be – are we as journalists going to make the fullest possible use of it? Are we going to push to see every relevant file and kick up a fuss when we can’t? And are we going to let the public know what information we can now get – and, as importantly, what we still can’t get? This won’t be that easy.But if we are serious about freedom of information, then we have got to use the system to its limits and then some more. We have got to shake it “till the bits start to drop off”.The new Data Protection Act has, in the hands of some police press officers at least, become the Data Denial Act.

In this new make-believe world, road accidents no longer happen and there certainly weren’t any people involved in it, or at least not without their permission. And this seems to be a recurring theme of much of this legislation.A piece of legislation starts off in pursuit of an entirely laudable aim such as the right to privacy or freedom from terrorism. But it then gradually becomes widened and broadened in its scope so as to become a genuine obstacle to the free disclosure of information. As a result, those in power are able to protect themselves from the glare of scrutiny. Their level of accountability is reduced, and the net effect is profoundly anti-democratic.Next on the list we come to the Local Government Bill. The arguments that have been used to justify this have, I have to say, bordered on the bizarre.