Today, at about one o’clock in the afternoon, a man vaulted the barrier that penned in the Free Tibet protestors in front of Downing Street. As expected, he was swiftly tackled by police officers and wrestled to the ground. What happened next may have seemed innocuous and may even have been missed by most of those present, but it is highly significant. A news crew approached the scene, TV camera in hand, to film the arrest, but it was not to be. A Metropolitan Police Officer grabbed the cameraman and manhandled him back, away from the arrested protestor while others prevented some individuals with cameras from taking photographs of the scene.

There was no reason for this rough treatment of the press, no call for it, and yet it happened. Here, in the United Kingdom, a nation that prides itself on being free and democratic, the police used physical force against journalists. It is the sort of thing that might happen in China.

Here we have, or are supposed to have, a free press, but this cannot happen if the police feel that they have the right to hinder reporters or restrict their access to stories, however, slight that hindrance, however small the story. Only with an unrestricted press can we hope to hold the government to account and the police should not have the power to take that away. No-one should. Clearly it is not only in China that the government wishes to control the media.