UNUSUALLY, I find myself with something to cheer about. It seems that Britain has not quite – or not yet – completed its descent into totalitarianism and the police state.

The subject is free speech, and particularly freedom of the press. Following the Leveson Inquiry, MPs voted overwhelmingly for a savage curtailment of press freedom. One of the new regulations would require newspapers to pay libel costs even where they win a case, should they not have previously offered a low cost means of resolving disputes.

So, as a long-serving foot-soldier for press freedom, why am I cheering this morning? Because the BBC has just told me that the culture secretary has not yet signed the document which would bring this pernicious ruling into operation. Look again at what those MPs voted for, and rub your eyes. I confess I didn’t think Englishmen – not even Englishmen as craven, unscrupulous, self-seeking and devoid of moral fibre as most of our MPs – could perpetrate such a crime. They really did decide and vote for a rule which will legally oblige a newspaper to pay compensation to someone who complains he has been libelled – even if it is proved that there was no libel.

So if a newspaper prints a story claiming that a town councillor has had his hand in the till, or that some celeb has had his hand in some other celeb’s wife’s undergarments, and it turns out that the particular story is entirely true, the paper would be legally obliged to pay the lying complainant’s solicitor’s fees and court costs. This would be to punish the innocent and reward the guilty.

The false complainant would profit by his lies and the editor who told the truth would be penalised. This is so obviously unjust, iniquitous and contrary that I am astonished to discover a democratically-elected government – even one as corrupt and venal as our current rulers – could vote to sign such a rule into law.

And this is why, for the time being at least, I can remain cheerful: the culture secretary has not put his name to the document which would enforce this iniquity. Nor should he. Not today, not next week, not ever.

Press freedom is important. I would even say that, in a secular society, it’s the nearest thing to a holy sacrament. We need a free press in order to preserve all our other freedoms. Without a free press, governments, bureaucrats, self-appointed authorities of all kinds would be able to bully and coerce its critics into silence. Politicians would get away with murder. Without a free press, for example, the MPs’ expenses scandal could never have been exposed. And now these same MPs, so recently caught stealing public funds, are bursting to handcuff the press once more. If they succeed, Britain will become a place as foul as Stalin’s Russia or the Nazi Reich

Newspapers are a pretty untidy business and their methods of news-gathering are often dubious. But not as dubious as the methods of all those governments which control the mass media. These governments are thereby enabled to hide their own misdeeds and criminalise public scrutiny. The freedom of the press is what guarantees our liberty – or at least some measure of freedom. The free press can hold governments to account and this is ever more necessary, given our current debased and corrupt political class.

There are more than enough laws currently on the statute book to ensure that reporters and editors cannot invent the truth. Truth is the issue. And the guardian of the truth is a free press.