IT is a sad day for freedom of speech and freedom of the press when politicians introduce measures into Parliament to control newspapers.

It is a sad day when a few rotten apples have behaved so badly that politicians feel they can step into the moral vacuum and create a structure which keeps an industry in line.

And it is a sad day when innocent people – the Dowlers, the McCanns – have been so mistreated by those rotten apples and so let down by the police, who failed to curb criminal wrongdoing by some national newspapers, that a new charter is required.

We have to hope that Britain never comes to regret the sad day it allowed politicians to meddle in the workings of the press.

However, having shed all those tears, we’ve probably arrived at the least worst option.

Hopefully, it will not prevent the press from exposing scandals, like that of MPs’ expenses, or scandalous behaviour, like that of Chris Huhne, but equally it is to be hoped that it will rein in the excesses of the national newspapers.

The public probably haven’t been following the twists in the Leveson debate with any great interest. After all, the economy is what is uppermost on most people’s minds.

So it will confuse them no end to see all three political parties claiming triumph for yesterday’s outcome.

To our eyes, David Cameron has successfully stood out against a press regulation statute but he was never strong enough to get all he wanted through Parliament. In fact, he sounded like a character out of Alice in Wonderland, saying that there is no statutory underpinning and yet the charter needs two small statutes to get it working.

Therefore, a coalition of Labour and the Liberal Democrats has won the day, and Labour leader Ed Miliband was cheered like a victor yesterday.

Winning a few political points, though, is a small victory if in the future it turns out that press freedom has been curtailed.