The ongoing debate about press ethics is fascinating...

...and it's quite surprising and shocking in some ways to be caught up in it. I haven't really read a newspaper all through the Christmas and New Year period, and so, as I am taking part in a debate this evening at the Frontline Club, I thought I'd better catch up with what's been said about me and of me in the past few days!

So let's get a few things straight.

I have never, ever, said anything unkind, critical, derogatory or unfair about Dawn French. What on earth was that fuss all about? I did write an article in the Daily Mail about how great she was looking, after losing so much weight. The article was entirely supportive and affectionate and I don't believe I implied she'd had surgery, I just said the world was speculating because we're all dying to know how she did it - but I guess that because I am known to have had a gastric band myself, people may have concluded an implication where there was none.

Next, I see that the Guardian diary point out that, some 20 years ago, I crossed the privacy barrier myself when I grilled Denis Healey about the Sun's front page article which reported that his wife, Edna had had a private hip operation. Yes, I did so because I sensed possible hypocrisy. (Healey at the time was lambasting Margaret Thatcher about foregoing the NHS and having a private hand operation.) But it is indeed interesting that some people could (and possibly Healey did) see this as a breach of privacy - because it was about his wife, and not him.

Which makes the press ethics debate even more interesting: Without agreed guidelines and appropriate discipllnary measures we have ALL been allowed to write using just our own judgement. Some journos take their responsibility seriously and others wield the power of free speech without a care. That means self regulation isn't good enough.

That, to me, is why we need a regulatory body. But I'm not saying its remit will be easily drawn up.