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[teejay1]

If you think that's getting your head bitten off, you're oversensitive.

Ah, there we are, the standard response of the aggressive internet user. Rather like a bully saying 'I was only playing when I smashed your face in, you should have known that', or a prankster saying they were only having fun and it should have been obvious.

Just for the record, I am all for privacy and dignity at a time such as this. In no way do we have a 'right' to know anything. However, the manner of what happened is entirely relevant to the discussion we were having here, never mind the press, the other day. We know now, for example, that it was not natural causes and neither was it an accident. It now seems clear that the lady intended to die, because she tried in a manner that frankly, was likely to work.

I think this case is one situation where a full enquiry needs to be held, looking at all aspects of the case. Never mind the press, the public, whatever, I think the family are owed the chance to find out exactly what happened, to know if it could have been prevented in any way.

[tennis_girl]

I didn't personally attack you. My comment (unedited, mind you) was "Great. Because how she died is really relevant."

If you consider that a personal attack, you have other issues.

[Iluvandy]

  Sorry - public don't "need" to know anything. They will however take an interest, one way or another, in whatever the media slings at them. This is much of what Leveson is about, trying to govern what appears in the media. Doomed to fail in a free society, unfortunately -  even a distortion of the true facts is fair game for a press with an agenda.

And their agenda is to sell papers and if we don't buy any of the gutter press it won't survive.

[blueberryhill]

If the general public didn't seem to have a seemingly  insatiable desire to lap up all things royal.....oh well.
Bring on the revolution!

[Caz]

Ah'm no goin' till ah've finished ma whisky!

[Iluvandy]

I haven't bought a paper for about three years, gutter press or otherwise. The way I see it is that with 24 hour a day news, the internet and so on, I don't need a newspaper, especially one trying to tell me what to think, how to feel, who to like, who to vote for and so on. I'm capable of formulating my own views.

As for the royals, I'm not quite sure how we got on to picking on them, but there we are. In my opinion the hoax call was nothing to do with an insatiable appetite for all things royal, it was more to do with people thinking that intruding on people's privacy is funny. Maybe people will now see that it isn't.

I am a royalist. I'd much rather the system we have, where we have politicians we vote for, but a head of state who is a figurehead, outside of politics and everything that goes with it, rather than a politician having too much control. The very idea of Mr. Cameron, or any of the others for that matter, as president makes me shudder. People go on about how much the royals cost the taxpayer, all that, but how much does the government cost each and every one of us each year? How much did they cost us when they were screwing their expenses?

Speaking of costing us, the Leveson report. Months of enquiry and not a damn thing will change, because politicians will make sure it doesn't, all in the name of free speech. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in favour of censorship at all, but somehow the media does need to be made to realise that there is such a thing as public interest. It's quite simple to me. A footballer screwing someone else's wife is not my business. A politican screwing his or her expenses is my business. It seems to me that the Press Complaints Commission, and all the other ways the press have overseen their own behaviour over the years, has failed, so now it is time that something is done that is underpinned by law. I just think it is an utter nonsense to suggest that there will be any conflict of interest between the law being involved in the process of ensuring the press behave decently and the press looking into political wrongdoing, especially when the wrongdoing is a legal issue, such as fraud. It just seems to me that the government doesn't want to change anything because if they do they'll have to be seen to behave themselves, so as to avoid allegations of hypocrisy.

I agree with almost everyting you say teejay except the head of state bit.    We could have a head of state who is non political as in Ireland.   I remember that lovely Mary Robinson and then Mary McAleese.    I don't know too much about her but she seems to make a very good head of state.    I object to having the same family and you are stuck with whoever it is good or bad.     And I want to be a citizen not a subject so it's a republic for me.

[tennis_girl]

The unfortunate event that occurs when poor gun control laws exist happened once again in America.

27 dead in an elementary school shooting. First thing I had to do was write to my representative and remind him that Congress and its inaction is once again responsible for allowing clearly sick people to hold a weapon capable of such destruction.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20730717