BRITAIN: The British Home Secretary, Mr David Blunkett, said yesterday the media were "almost on the edge of insanity". He complained that discussing an idea which had been raised before led to ministers being accused of spin and "recycling".
Speaking at an international conference on modernising the criminal justice system, he said: "I have the misfortune every day - and I shouldn't really do it - to read Britain's newspapers and commentaries and leader writers, and we are almost on the edge of insanity."
Referring to reports that his son Hugh had persuaded him to drop email snooping powers, he said: "I read a leader this morning that I had made a decision yesterday because my son had told me to, when what I actually said was I had a son and he was interested in what I was doing as well, which I thought made me a human being but apparently it did not."