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Tabloid aggression would be Prime evil

Tim Ingham
Deputy Editor, MCV
February 7, 2008

It's difficult not to admire Tanya Byron’s face. Her wide smile and compassionate peepers would be enough to disarm the most agitated of teenage console fanboys.

Gordon Brown’s mug is in stark contrast. There’s the Pillsbury Doughboy chin, for a start.

And that moistened, sloppy mini-stroke of a mouth, which looks as if it demands a sodium chloride gobstopper just to stop it dribbling on the PM’s size nines.

Why the sudden obsession with the visages of these two industry overlords? Because there’s a very real worry that only one of them will dominate the front page of the red tops next month – and it won’t feature Tanya’s ‘come hither‘ grin.

If Brown’s unappealing countenance is sat beneath a misleading, glory-grabbing ‘crackdown’ headline after the publication of the Byron Review, it will represent the biggest lie the Government has ever told this business.

Brown’s spin is crucial to ensure gutter press fans don’t believe that Labour has ‘crushed’ an industry of grotesque, child-corrupting Machiavellians.

Let’s be clear: games people have given the thumbs up to the idea of one ratings system. No-one has forced their hand.

Byron and ELSPA have done a wonderful job of successfully debunking age-old misconceptions. Remember, this is the woman who proudly told MCV: “I see playing games with my kids as much like reading them a bedtime story.”

If Brown doesn’t want to be seen as a turncoat by all of us who took this Review seriously, he’ll be careful to give us – and Byron – the happy ending we deserve.

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