In April 2009, the Press Complaints Commission will have a new boss, Baroness Buscombe. Peta Buscombe is a former lawyer of broad experience, most recently as Chief Executive of the Advertising Association, where she earned the respect of a number of admirers.

In many ways she looks more suitable for the job at the PCC than the incumbent, Sir Christopher Meyer, former British Ambassador to Washington, who has never really recovered from indiscretions and his own inner thoughts revealed in DC Confidential – a book about his time in the US.Lady Buscombe has a reputation for being a toughish cookie who doesn’t hang back when a there’s a job to be done; the media watchers will be anxious to know if her sympathies will be with the public or the press.

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With a characteristic flourish of hyperbole, twisted logic and demi-truth the Sun proclaims that

“Yesterday was a dark day for British freedom.”

Their sister ShagRag, the News of the World has just been ordered to pay £60,000 in damages and £200,000 in costs to Max Mosley. That was a lot more than their legal boss, Tom Crone had bargained for and everyone in Wapping is feeling jumpy.

They say: “A judge representing power and privilege laid down the law on what newspapers can write about powerful and privileged public figures.”

In fact a judge interpreting the law ruled that to promise to pay a woman £25,000 to film events in a private dwelling in which a number of consenting and willing adults were engaged in unconventional sex constituted a clear breach of privacy, and awarded accordingly.

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