A free Press aids democracy… but a Keir Starmer-led Labour government will threaten that

THE SUN’S exclusive story about a BBC star’s alleged cash-for-sleaze scandal has topped the headlines for three days now – including the broadcaster’s own ­bulletins.

We know it is not Gary ­Lineker, Rylan Clark or Radio 5’s Nicky Campbell because they indignantly say so.

Which piles pressure on the Beeb to explain why it has been so secretive.

Why was the presenter not questioned about the claims involving a vulnerable teenager — and allowed to remain on air for SIX WEEKS?

It was only when contacted by The Sun that the corporation took any meaningful action at all, despite the crack-addicted youngster’s family fearing their child was in ­significant danger.

What we can say is that our revelations are indisputably in the public interest.

Exposing corruption and abuse of power is what ­investigative journalism is all about. It is the public’s right to know.

It is democracy in action.

Without our hard-won, centuries-old, unshackled free Press, there is no such thing as free speech.

And without free speech, democracy shrivels and dies.

Yet we face a threat to ­investigative journalism and a free Press from a Starmer-led Labour government.

There are ominous signs that Sir Keir plans the most authoritarian and intolerant administration Britain has ever seen.

Cabinet leftie Ed Miliband blurted out his desire for electoral reform — raising the spectre of scrapping first-past-the-post and cutting the voting age to 16 in order to keep the Tories out of power for ever.

Fomented outrage

We will see draconian and deeply unpopular Net Zero polices imposed across the country, after trial runs by ­climate zealots including ­London Mayor Sadiq Khan.

Sir Keir has signalled he will scrap any serious curb on ­illegal people-trafficking, vowing to return to open-door immigration and “defend free movement”.

As Prime Minister, especially with an outright majority, he would be entitled to make such decisions, however unpopular.

But they would undoubtedly expose Labour — and the notoriously thin-skinned Starmer — to furious criticism from voters, and from sections of the media.

For some paranoid ­Labour MPs, that would be unacceptable. Labour, in the words of Dad’s Army veteran Corporal Jones, “don’t like it up ’em”.

Witness the fomented outrage of Labour’s Harriet Harman over the sacking of Boris ­Johnson from Parliament.

Harman presided over the travesty trial after suggesting in advance he was guilty. All in the past? Well, not really.

Enshrined by law

Labour last week announced it would fight Tory plans to scrap an obscure but lethal attack on Press freedom under Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act.

This farcical measure would force newspapers to sign up to a state-backed watchdog or risk paying the legal costs of anyone who sued — win or lose.

This would instantly snuff out Press freedom — and ruin any newspaper which dared to fight.

We have already learned to our cost how grievance-seeking Lefties are shutting down debate on such potent woke issues as gender wars, Net Zero, racism and even the English language and history of the United Kingdom itself.

We have also learned that as our state prosecutor — the ­custodian of crime and punishment — Keir Starmer KC revealed a perverse attitude towards Press freedom.

It was during his stint as DPP that police started the persecution of dozens of Sun journalists, 21 of whom ended up in the Old Bailey on trumped-up charges of ­conspiracy.

It was the biggest and ­costliest police operation in the entire history of Scotland Yard.

The case collapsed and all the victims were eventually acquitted after the then Lord Chief Justice publicly challenged prosecutors with the question: “Have you considered the freedom of the Press?”

Journalists are not saints. Newspapers are not above ­criticism. But in America, untrammelled free speech and freedom of the Press is enshrined by law. Causing offence is not a crime.

We too require a newspaper industry which, in the words of the Duke of Wellington when threatened in 1824 with blackmail, is entitled to “publish and be damned”.