All the news not fit to print - by Richard...The system doesn't work any more - by Richard...

All the news not fit to print - by Richard...The system doesn't work any more - by Richard...

Headed: "A stupid business" the editorial for the Sunday Express is a corker. The only thing is, it is from 10 November 1940. Bear with me, though, as this has important lessons for today. But first the editorial, which concerns Frederick George Leighton-Morris (pictured above), who is going to jail for three months. Asks the paper, rhetorically, "What's George been up to?" And therein lies the story, as retailed by the paper:

He was told by the police that a delayed action bomb had fallen into the house next door. So he clambered out of his bed and got through the hole which the bomb had made in his neighbour's roof. He found the bomb standing up like a beer bottle on a bed among the debris. The bomb weighed a hundredweight.

George picked it up and staggered downstairs with it (dropping it once on the way). He got it out in the street and began to walk towards St James's Park with it, meaning to dump it in some safe place where it could hurt nobody when it exploded.

However, the unfortunate George then came to the attention of the Police, who promptly arrested him. They told him he had no business entering the neighbouring flat and took him before the Magistrates. The justice, confronted with this obvious criminal, fined him £100 (over six month's wages for a workman) or the alternative of three months in jail for his "bad deed".

Said the magistrate, a Mr Fry: "It is intolerable that any private individual should be allowed to meddle with a bomb in this way ... No person other than those in authority can be allowed to decide in what part of London a delayed-action bomb should go off".

He gave Leighton-Morris 28 days to pay, posting £100 bail. Mr. Leighton-Morris' defiant comment was: "Even if I had a hundred thousand in the bank, I'd rather do three months than pay the fine".

There are some other important details in the story. The "house" was a block of flats in Jermyn Street, and Mr Leighton-Morris, 30, had health problems that gave him four years to live. He had been rejected for police and fire service because of "groggy heart and wanky lungs" (that's what the Time report says) and was not afraid to give his life to save others.

The Express having paraded him on the front page of its Saturday copy (below left), saw the point – hence the editorial (reproduced, right: click to expand to readable size). And what followed was a classic example of how the system used to work. Other papers picked up the story, followed by Pathe News, and it became something of a cause célèbre.

Questions were then asked in the House – with an outraged MP directly addressing Winston Churchill on the matter. The prime minister noted that the episode had "certainly attracted as much attention in Government circles as out of doors" and, without making any announcement on the subject, he said, "it is probable that some statement will be made at an early stage".

And announcement there was. There were no weasel words about not intervening in the judgement of the courts. By the 18th November, the Home Secretary had intervened and reduced the fine to £5. Meanwhile, the neighbours had had a whip-round and collected the £100 to pay the fine, presenting Mr Leighton-Morris with a cheque, which he decided to keep as a memorial.

His friends and neighbours then held a grand party in his honour, having put two fingers up to the authorities, whence the final part of the story emerged.

A friend had been with Leighton-Morris as he removed the bomb, lighting his way down the stairs, and had gone to fetch taxi when he had been arrested. He had said to his friend, "Where shall we take it?", and his friend had said jokingly, "Let's take it to the Corner House and give it breakfast".

And the point of the story? Well, that is how the system used to work – in my recent memory – up until about the mid-nineties. Officials would do something stupid or insensitive, and the courts (as they so often did) would back "their" officials. The media would then intervene, there would be a right, royal rumpus, there would be "questions in the House", people would rally round, Ministers would act, and the issue would get sorted.

But nowadays, unless it is a sleb, the media is most often uninterested. Then, on the few occasions that journos do run a story, the officials do not care. They either ignore it or bluff it out. Then, rarely do MPs take a personal interest and, when they do, ministers most often dead-bat it and refuse to take action. The spiritual heirs of Mr Leighton-Morris go to jail.

Booker and I noticed the change in about the mid-nineties – in the dying days of the Major administration. When previously we had run stories, things used to happen. That got less common, and the situation got far worse in the Blair and then Brown administrations. It has not improved with The Boy.

Generally, some officials will always act like morons and courts will back them up. They did then, and do now. So there has to be a long-stop - a safety valve - a quick and effective means of cutting through the "red tape" and sorting out obviously stupid or unjust acts. We do not seem to have this now.

That is why society now is more brutal and unfair, and that is why Booker's stolen children campaign goes begging. The system doesn't work any more - and we all know what happens when the safety valve doesn't work.

Superficially, there is an element of sameness about the column this week, as Booker yet again addresses the vexed issue of "stolen children". This story, though, is possibly more ghastly than some he has written, all the more for the subjects being anonymous.

I forget now how many months Booker has been beating this drum, and no one could now deny that there is a case to answer by social services, the police, the court system and the legal profession – to say nothing of the politicians.

Most of all though, there is an issue here about the media. This is the industry which professes to be concerned with people's rights and in freedoms yet not a single newspaper has followed up on Booker's work and developed a campaign – which is what is desperately needed.

It is thus left to Booker to plod on, in his own little ghetto, becoming the last repository for desperate parents, who are increasingly directed to him as the only journalist prepared to listen to their stories.

Equally, Booker is the only journalist prepared to take on Rajendra Pachauri, although in less detail than one would like, as so much of his space is taken by the "stolen children" saga. And as long as he is the only one writing the stories, that is how it is going to have to be.

He also finds a small space to take a swipe at Amanda Deeks, the fully paid-up member of theparasite class, once again a lone voice, also pointing out that we are still having to borrow £140 billion a year. This means that the Government is borrowing 20 percent, or one pound in every five, of all it spends.

That the newspapers cannot get to grips with such issues is perhaps why they are now part of afailing industry, with Autonomous Mind pointing out that they are fishing an increasingly shallow pool as readers turn away from them.

The only paper actually to increase circulation is the Mail on Sunday, the small rise of one percent attributable to its "Weekend Reward Club" scheme launched last month. This works by offering shopping vouchers and other incentives to those who buy the paper. That says a great deal about the content.

Worst hit of the Sundays is The Observer, which has lost 11.6 percent of its circulation, year-on-year, but the "heavies" such as The Sunday Times and The Sunday Telegraph aren't doing so well either, losing 7.8 and 6.7 percent of their circulation, respectively.

This is not the whole picture though, as all the papers have strong internet presences. But even here they are under competition from the likes of Huff-puff, which offers exactly the same lightweight tat for a fraction of the production cost – unsurprising as most of the news content is "harvested" from MSM sites.

The demise of the News of the World is going to distort the Sunday circulation figures for a while, but there is no disguising the fact that the industry is haemorrhaging readers. Perhaps if they started offering real news, and pursuing subjects of real importance, instead of leaving them to the Booker ghetto, they might fare better.

And there's a thought – a newspaper that actually offers serious news. Whatever next?