JK Rowling News

The Harry Potter author JK Rowling has said she is "alarmed and dismayed" by the Prime Minister's reaction to the recommendations from Lord Justice Leveson:

I am alarmed and dismayed that the Prime Minister appears to be backing away from assurances he made at the outset of the Leveson inquiry.

Without statutory underpinning Leveson’s recommendations will not work.

We will be left with yet another voluntary system from which the press can walk away.

If the Prime Minister did not wish to change the regulatory system even to the moderate, balanced and proportionate extent proposed by Lord Leveson, I am at a loss to understand why so much public money has been spent and why so many people have been asked to re-live extremely painful episodes on the stand in front of millions.

Having taken David Cameron’s assurances in good faith at the outset of the inquiry he set up, I am merely one among many who feel duped and angry in its wake.

You can read her statement on full on the Hacked Off website.

• UK
• JK Rowling
• Leveson Inquiry

• The Guardian's Theo Tait: "The Casual Vacancy is a solid, traditional and determinedly unadventurous English novel."
• The Daily Telegraph's Allison Pearson: "The Casual Vacancy, JK Rowling’s first adult novel, is sometimes funny, often startlingly well observed, and full of cruelty and despair."

• The Evening Standard's David Sexton: "The problem for Rowling's legions of fans will be that she has forgotten to include any basic likeability in her characters here or any real suspense as to what will happen - or deliberately chosen not to supply it."

• The Daily Express's Emma Lee-Potter: "The book isn't flawless. Her writing style is direct and uncomplicated rather than literary and she has an annoying habit of shoving slabs of explanatory detail into brackets."

• UK
• JK Rowling
• books

• UK
• JK Rowling
• books