Leveson: A free press is vile, says Peter Lilley MP

A free press is "vile" but the only alternative of state-regulated newspapers was worse, claimed a former Conservative cabinet minister borrowing a line from Winston Churchill.

Peter Lilley, who said he was "no lover of the press", spoke as the prime minister confirmed that cross-party talks on the Leveson press reforms had broken down.

Mr Lilley described himself as a "serial victim of press harassment and libel" and told Andrew Neil how he regularly larges sums of money from libel cases to charitable causes.

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