British PM Gordon Brown, the one you Americans haven't heard of, has taken some sensible steps in the violent media debate. While conservative fuckwit David Cameron made stupid comments on the subject not so long ago, equally repulsive figure of fun Gordon Brown has taken a more reasoned approach, merely stating that while censorship of any kind is not on his agenda, he would like to enter talks with industry people about voluntary controls on violent media.

This is perhaps the only sensible stance I've seen any figure of authority take on the subject recently. It's well known that in the UK, the question of what is and isn't acceptable rests solely on the arbitrary tastes of three people, all of whom probably have little regard for 'reality' up in their ivory towers. A recent (excellent) article I read in the very, very good 360 Magazine contained an interview with a high ranking member of the ratings board, and even he had no idea why Manhunt 2 had been banned. Point being that if someone inside the very organisation responsible for certification could not provide any realistic boundaries, how are game developers meant to know when they cross them?

Brown stressed "This is not the government telling people what they should do ... this is society reaching a conclusion with all those people involved about what are the legitimate boundaries", and stated that "This is not an area where you can proceed in my view without trying to establish both what the boundaries are and what is the consensus you can build around these boundaries."

The full article is available here on The Guardian website for your perusal. Amongst the madness of Jack Thompson and the knee-jerk ignorance of David Cameron, it's at least refreshing to see a remotely moderate opinion on the subject.