What a surprise, then, to find so much happy agreement on Friday, as the papers reacted almost as one to remarks Prime Minister David Cameron made in Parliament on Thursday.

Here was The Sun, which has lately wasted no chance to torture Mr. Cameron while praising his rival, Mayor Boris Johnson of London, applauding Mr. Cameron’s “courage.”

Here was The Daily Mail, taking time out from its daily antigovernment screed to call Mr. Cameron a “freedom lover” poised to “earn a place of honor in our history.” Meanwhile, The Daily Telegraph admired the way Mr. Cameron had “taken a stand on an important matter of principle.” The Independent, which is virtually allergic to the Conservative Party, said Mr. Cameron “was quite right,” and The Times of London said it admired his courage.

To provoke this shower of affection, Mr. Cameron had not solved the European financial crisis, nor had he brought peace to the Middle East. Instead, he had declared in Parliament that he was opposed to the main recommendation in the 1,987-page Leveson report on press culture and practices, unveiled Thursday: the establishment of a new system of press regulation that would be backed by parliamentary statute.

He said that passing such a statute would be akin to “crossing the Rubicon” and would subvert the principle of freedom of the press, and that he did not want to do that.

Mr. Cameron’s stand was opposed by the opposition Labour Party and by the Liberal Democrats, the junior partners in his coalition government. But with the bulk of Britain’s newspapers — which want to keep regulating themselves, without government interference — behind him, Mr. Cameron has a great deal of leverage in the matter.

In a somewhat odd development on Friday, the government said it would work swiftly to draft legislation that, if enacted, would put into practice the recommendations from the inquiry led by Lord Justice Sir Brian Leveson. But it seemed to be doing so to prove that the proposals would not work as law — “to look at what the bill might look like, to demonstrate our concerns,” the culture secretary, Maria Miller, said in a series of remarks to reporters on Friday.

In response, the Labour Party accused the government of setting out to produce legislation so restrictive that nobody could reasonably enact it.

There were others who disagreed with the Conservative stand. The Guardian, whose reporting revealed the phone hacking scandal that led to the Leveson inquiry, said it was in favor of enacting some form of legislation. And victims of press intrusion, many of whom testified at the committee hearings, said they were disappointed in Mr. Cameron’s response.

“Full implementation of Lord Leveson’s report is the minimal acceptable compromise for me and many other victims that have suffered at the hands of the press,” said Gerry McCann, whose daughter Madeleine disappeared in 2007 and whose family was harassed by newspapers.

Before the report was released, Mr. Cameron said at one point that unless the Leveson proposals were “bonkers,” he would support them without reservation.

Speaking for the government on Friday, Ms. Miller did not reveal Mr. Cameron’s current position on the “bonkers” issue.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/01/world/europe/british-press-lauds-cameron-over-leveson-stand.html?partner=rss&emc=rss