The people who really hate Britain

In these febrile days when the American president-elect has repeatedly threatened the Fourth Estate, both at home and abroad, one might feel an instinctive urge to protect the hard-won freedom of the press that is the cornerstone of any functioning democracy.  Freedom of expression is a right and a privilege often denied to many people in the world.  When it is deployed to incite hatred of the other, especially in the pursuit of financial gain, there would be many who would be nervous of such use.  When it is utilised to assault the rule of law, objective observers would say it has gone too far.
The power of the press in the UK has often been a matter of conjecture.  Some take the 'minimal effects' model of the USA, assuming the newspapers to be paper tigers in decline.  The pressmen assiduously advance this argument themselves - the 'poor little me' aiming for the sympathy vote.  Most students of the press though, if being honest, would recognise the considerable leverage the biggest selling publications can bring to bear on their hobby horses and how they seek to crush those who have offended them.
In the wake of the phone hacking scandal (furiously downplayed by the right-wing press), Hacked Off was formed of those who had suffered unjustly at the hands of journalists, such as previously unknown Christopher Jefferies (leading to the Attorney General censuring The Sun and The Mirror).  The response from print newsrooms of the right-wing though was to write them as a bunch of celebrity luvvie whingers.  The 38 Degrees group has launched a campaign to get The Daily Mail banned from airport departure lounges so foreign people will not think the worst of us as they go home. Now, Stop Funding Hate, the organisation calling on corporations to withdraw their advertising (and hence money) from those newspapers who villify those who do not have a platform to respond (usually migrants) are the target of the right-wing ire, The Spectator calling the activists' aim as a nasty, elitist campaign for press censorship and that intolerance wears a progressive mask.  The irony that The Spectator is calling others nasty, intolerant and elitist is the beyond parody times in which we live.
Like a mafia, unelected journalists know that power isn't given, it's taken and they jealously guard the heights they command.  The current editor of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson, in The Daily Telegraph, regularly attacked the police and prosecution services who were investigating possible wrong-doing by journalists.  He wasn't the only one who furiously denounced the authorities when a journalist was acquitted and quietly ignored those who were found guilty.  When Andy Coulson - who had been convicted of phone hacking - was acquitted of perjury in Scotland, Nelson exalted the case as another example of the persecution of the press, even though Coulson was acquitted on a technicality (his false testimony wasn't relevant to the outcome of the case).  Thus, by implication, Nelson clearly believes that lying under oath is not despicable in the slightest.  This a major affront to the rule of law.
Even more grievously, right-wing newspapers attacked British judges for saying parliament must vote on the activation of Article 50.  Leaving aside the fact that the pro-Brexit newspapers were favouring the tyranny of the executive, after having fought for decades for the primacy of British courts, they deployed Blackshirt language of 'enemies of the people' or 'the judges versus the people'.  Not content with this inflammatory and misleading language, they tried to undermine the ruling by focusing on the judges' personal lives, calling into question the impartiality of the lawmen.  The strength of the pro-Brexit newspapers was illustrated in the cowardice of the government response, Justice Secretary Liz Truss silent on their action and Theresa May, in another example of her weakness, defending them.
Like a mafia as well, in the cabal-like nature, the journalists flit between publications like a nomadic 'old-school' (some might say has-been) football manager not being short of offers when let go from his current employment.  Take Tony Gallagher who bragged about the power of the newspapers in the wake of the Brexit referendum.  He was the respected editor of The Daily Telegraph who moved to become Deputy Editor at The Daily Mail and now currently edits The Sun.  One might say his trajectory of quality is downward but the reach of his voice has increased steadily upwards.  Kelvin MacKenzie, Rod Liddle and Boris Johnson are other high-profile examples of bouncing between the bastions of the press.  Very much an 'old boys' (and girls') club'.
But for all the hue and cry of threats to freedom of the press, such as when the Leveson Report was published, freedom of expression is a one-way street, especially for the right-wing press.  When Gary Lineker complained, without naming names, of the print media reaction to bringing in child migrants from The Jungle camp in Calais, The Sun called upon the BBC to sack him, thus trying to silence a voice of opposition to their beliefs.  He doesn't work in the BBC news department, but he is the popular anchor of football programmes.  The attack on the BBC is another threat to freedom of expression as The Sun didn't ask BT Sport to sack Lineker.
It is of a right-wing pattern to defend their power.  When the newspapers were reeling in the wake of the death of Princess Diana and faced serious threats to their power, they won back public opinion by scapegoating the royal family, deflecting anger away from themselves.  When the Leveson Report was published, the right-wing newspapers said its implementation would turn us in Zimbabwe, even though their recent attack on the judiciary means that they are turning Britain into Zimbabwe through their own actions.
A few years ago, The Daily Mail published a piece calling Ralph Miliband, deceased father of then Labour leader Ed Miliband, "The Man Who Hated Britain", openly saying that Miliband Junior also hated Britain.  When they gave Ed Miliband a right of reply, they re-published the original opinion piece and composed an even more angry editorial dripping in malice.  When it comes to fomenting hatred against the vulnerable, undermining the rule of law in this country and trying to silence the freedom of expression of all those who disagree with them, it is the right-wing newspapers' and magazines' editorial departments who are packed with people who hate Britain.