Are you ready for Leveson Day, and the ensuing cacophony? - The Guardian (blog)

It would be nice to imagine that Lord Justice Leveson's report represented the end of the matter after 16 months, 86 days of public hearings and 474 witnesses. But there is not the slightest chance of that. On Thursday, if not before, the judge's words will be drowned out by a cacophony of people all arguing over whether the hero of the high court has got it right or not. And all heading for the court of appeal that is supposedly represented by Messrs Cameron, Clegg and Miliband. Which, in its way, is odder still: seeing as everybody sane involved in the press regulation debate agrees that there must be a very high degree of separation between ministers and the media – it should be up to the media itself, not politicians, to come up with the answers.

There are some suggesting that David Cameron would be smart, on Leveson Day, to give the press a little time to try to agree a firm package of reforms – and then wait and see if editors and proprietors can snuggle up and agree. One fears it would be a waste of time. We in the newspaper business can't be trusted to agree on anything. There is, behind the scenes, an almost comic attempt to get all the newspaper groups to sign up to some sort of statement on regulatory reform. But it would be easier to get 10 cats to sashay down Oxford Street in a straight line.

The Express Newspapers mogul, Richard Desmond, can't bear the Telegraph Media Group factotum, Lord (Guy) Black, a key architect of the industry's plan for beefed up self-regulation. So any letter that is sent to him from this camp – which also includes the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) chairman, Lord Hunt, and the Daily Mail editor in chief, Paul Dacre – doesn't have Black's name on it.

Such is the suspicion of Dacre that editors and owners of what used to be known as the broadsheets are reluctant to be seen sharing the same piece of paper. So his lieutenant, Peter Wright, does his best to give the impression that everybody else has signed up when trying to persuade others to sign up.

Meanwhile, the editors of the Financial Times, Independent, London Evening Standard and this newspaper have signed their own letter instead. But there is talk that Hunt wanted to put his pen to that too.

It is tempting to portray this as some sort of Ruritanian civil war, a hopelessly confused conflict that is of no consequence as morning commuters switch from being print readers to smartphone and tablet gamers. But underlying it is a very real battle for power. In one corner is the Mail/Telegraph alliance that has long dominated the PCC (traditionally supported by News International) and which is fronted by Black, that consummate Conservative insider.

If there is a conspiracy to run Britain, or rather the media part of it, it is not to be found with the obscure former FT chairman Sir David Bell, but here in the nexus of relations between Black, Michael Howard's one-time spin doctor (who used to holiday with Rebekah Brooks); Dacre, Britain's most powerful tabloid editor; the Telegraph owners the Barclays, a secretive family of plutocrats who can happily text prime ministers advice; and the publicity-shy Mail proprietor, Viscount Rothermere, who politely dines with them. It would be interesting, too, for Cameron to tell us on Thursday who from this group has been lobbying him in person over the past three months.

In the other camp, of course, is whatever's left of the liberal conspiracy – the FT, Independent and Guardian – whose critics will be quick to note they have the smallest circulations of the national dailies (as if that invalidates their opinion). And perhaps Richard Desmond, although, in truth he is in nobody's corner

The faultline, curiously, is the all-important question about how future regulators are chosen and whether in particular there is a backroom committee – as the PCC funding body, Pressbof, is now – that controls the purse strings or helps choose the chair. Self-regulation, to handle the inevitable complaints about press coverage, could work perfectly well under independent-minded leadership and financing. It is this that will help restore confidence – not a sterile yah-boo about statutory this, that or the other.