THREE months after the Leveson Report was published, we are in a right old mess over the future of press regulation.

The Prime Minister has walked away from cross-party talks on the issue and set himself up for a Commons showdown on Monday, when he may well be defeated by a coalition of Labour and Lib Dems.

David Cameron cannot bring himself to agree that, despite the outrage of the phone-hacking scandal at the News of the World, press regulation should be underpinned by legislation.

Neither can we. The Chris Huhne scandal is the latest example of why the press – for all its failings – needs to be free from political interference.

What happened at News International was abhorrent. But it was the responsibility of a minority of national journalists who are now being dealt with by the full force of the law – and rightly so.

The vast majority of journalists – not least those working on local newspapers which are naturally more accountable to their communities – operate within the boundaries of decency while striving to expose wrongdoing and make things better.

MPs will now be asked to vote for a Royal Charter which Mr Cameron insists will create the world’s toughest regulatory system, allowing the imposition of “exemplary charges” on newspapers which refuse to sign up and go on to commit serious breaches of the code of conduct.

It will probably be rejected in favour of legislative underpinning and that will be a sad day for free speech.

The fault will lie squarely on the shoulders of a relatively small number of rogues who didn’t have the moral compass to appreciate that what they were doing was fundamentally wrong.