THE PROPOSALS floated by Home Secretary Jack Straw to amend the government's Human Rights Bill to prevent it being a vehicle for a press-gagging privacy law deserve a cautious welcome.

But we await the details of how much of an obstacle his plans are to any erosion of newspapers' and broadcasters' ability to expose the truth in the public interest.

Mr Straw is implying that the courts must give higher priority to freedom of expression when it clashes with respect for private life.

Let that be a cast-iron condition, then, of this planned human rights legislation.

Otherwise, press freedom could still end up being watered down and a privacy law developed by court judgments that turn the priorities around.

For it would not just be a paradox for the press to be gagged in the name of freedom; any back-door privacy law would also be a charter for the rogues and scoundrels in public life to cheat and hoodwink the public.

And any law that upholds that value is not in the public interest.

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