Acres of today's Observer have been given over to Nick Cohen, whose work I frequently appreciate and enjoy, and his whingeing about the libel law. Like trespass, libel is actionable per se? Well, yes. Of course it is. Quite right, too. The law of libel assumes that a gentleman's word is his bond? Well, yes. Of course it does. Quite right, too. The Internet has effectively given the English libel law a global reach? Well, yes. Of course it has. Quite right, too. The only problem is that Legal Aid is not available for libel actions. It ought to be.
There is an occasional suggestion by the sad, mad people who try and post splenetic comments on here, that I might be subject to a libel action. They are sometimes quite specific as to who might sue me. To which my answer is that I will not be, and certainly not by the person whom they suggest. On that latter point, especially, I absolutely guarantee it. As that person has proved, in fact.
If the current judicially imposed arrangement on privacy were enacted into the statute law, but with the burden of proof in libel actions placed on the plaintiff, then who could object to that? And why? Making the privacy law statutory as the price of reversing the burden of proof in libel actions. That would be the deal. The corporate media cannot expect their own way all the time. As for freedom of information, repeal the Official Secrets Acts. Just do it.
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You’d out him on every traditionalist website in the Catholic world plus all their print editions where applicable. He'd be ruined and he knows it. You've won this one, beaten him hands down.
ReplyDeleteAnd that was the only comment that I shall be allowing up on the middle paragraph of this post. The top and bottom ones, fine. But the middle one and Mabel's comment say all that needs to be said.
ReplyDeleteThe only British blogger ever to have been subject to a libel action is another of your enemies. Unfortunately, merely referring to his private life on his paper's website and suggesting that all opinion on that paper was filtered through his eccentric prejudices, though true, would not cause one of its biggest names to pen a desperate post on the US presidential race seeking to prove that that was not so. You have got away with that one somewhere else and well done on it, but you could not do it there. A great pity.
ReplyDeleteKamm occasionally mutters about suing you because of your blog roll links about him.
ReplyDeleteHe can have no reputation to defame, since, as an employee of Rupert Murdoch, he is a member of a criminal organisation, in the same position as a member of the Mafia or, in their day, an associate of the Krays. I expect that the same would apply to any solicitor or barrister whom he used. By definition, in fact.
ReplyDeleteBoo, hoo, the laws of another country apply in that country, even to Americans. No wonder Euston Nick, successor of Encounter and the Congress for Cultural Freedom, is so vexed. Anyone else can be picked up anywhere and shipped off to Gitmo, or even put to death on the spot, at the whim of Uncle Sam. But if new technology makes it possible to libel you in England from a computer in America, merciful heavens forbid that you should be able to sue before an English court.
ReplyDeleteVery Kamm, in fact. Who seems to accept, at least that any jury would find that a Murdochoid had no reputation to damage. Nor does one of those, like him and Cohen, who lied this country into war in the service of two foreign powers. Deep down, might he even realise it himself?
You are right, the real scandal is that access to the libel law is confined to the rich. That is what should be put right. Make it possible for everyone to teach these people a lesson when the need arises, which in that case it hardly ever would. They would all be out of a job if they could no longer libel poor and middling people. They never do anything else.
In America, with hardly any libel law, they have writers, public intellectuals, contributing to dozens of serious publications.
ReplyDeleteOver here, even with the libel law, we have Oliver Kamm, Damian Thompson and the rest of the tabloid trash.
Having recently departed Murdoch Towers and wiped the dust from my feet, I can confirm that Kamm is notorious for badgering the legal boys about the possibility of suing over Lindsay's links. The rest of us think they are marvellous.
ReplyDeleteOn Jaded Jared's point, rumour has it that the great man is already working on that one, that part of the Lindsay-led emergence of a paleo-Lab fightback against the neo-Labs in 2012 and into 2013 will be some sort of New Left Review/Marxism Today, but from the perspective represented by this blog and his forthcoming book. I hope so.
Imagine if you could afford to sue Harry's Place. You'd be a very rich man after their many flagrant libels of you.
ReplyDeleteBad Times Over, do get in touch - davidaslindsay@hotmail.com
ReplyDeleteI will. Jaded Jared, take note. It is no longer worth talking about Kamm and Thompson. Look at Mr Lindsay's comment about Thompson recently allowed up, and still there, by the paper of which Thompson is still a director. That is how even his own staff regard him. The future belongs to us.
ReplyDeleteThus writes a truly bitter failed hack. "No-one would publish my serious commentary, they wanted tabloid rubbish instead." Maybe Jaded Jared is right and you really would be happier in the US?
ReplyDelete