John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, has urged the press to sign up to a tough and independent regulator, adding that the jury was still out on whether the current system was good enough. He urged the industry to sign up to a regulator that complied with the royal charter. He said Ipso, the year-old self-regulatory body supported by most national newspapers, was “not a million miles away” from complying with the charter agreed in the wake of the Leveson inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.