If you want to understand the curious attitude of our government towards media freedom, look at two provisions in the draft Media Bill, published yesterday. One is refreshingly liberal; the other curmudgeonly and authoritarian.

First, the good news. The Bill reads the last rites over the Leveson Report of 2012. A worrying document embodying lofty patrician contempt for the popular press, this had called for highly intrusive controls over it.