Gavin Phillipson is right to point out the failures in journalistic standards that led to damage to the reputation of Lord McAlpine. But he is wrong to extrapolate from this single case a misleading analysis of how the Libel Reform Campaign’s public interest defence would work in practice. Since the beginning of our campaign, claimant lawyers have raised the scenario of a senior figure smeared as a paedophile as rationale to defend the status quo. That the McAlpine scandal has happened right in the middle of the defamation bill passing through parliament gives us a good opportunity to say why the status quo actually does very little for those defamed.

This is a serious case. Lord McAlpine was not named by Newsnight, nor was he named by a single national newspaper or national broadcaster. However, the phenomenon known as “jigsaw identification” led to the unjust damage to McAlpine’s reputation. The public admonishment of poor journalism at the BBC, with an admission they got it wrong, has done more than anything to repair McAlpine’s reputation. Does anyone — with the exception of his lawyers — believe a cheque for damages will do more than this?

In fact, because our law is so unwieldy and costs 100 times the European average, it acts as a huge disincentive to sue. If Lord McAlpine were a primary school teacher or a nurse, it’s likely that the huge costs of taking on a defamation action (often a six figure sum, if not more, with no legal aid) would act as a deterrent, giving no redress whatsoever to repair reputation.

The Libel Reform Campaign has proposed a public interest defence that, as Phillipson pointed out, would give claimants the right for allegations to be “promptly clarified or corrected with adequate prominence”. If you’re a nurse, for the first time you get guaranteed redress.

Our defence also provides for reckless disregard for the truth of the allegation. If you publish a defamatory comment claiming that someone is a paedophile, without any knowledge of the underlying facts of the case (which would include social media users who named McAlpine), you are clearly displaying reckless disregard for the truth of that allegation. Under our proposals you would still be legally liable.

There is the bigger picture. The reason our clause has been tabled in parliament with cross-party support is that the status quo chills honest debate in the public interest. From the dumping of toxic waste by multinational corporations, rampant tax evasion by major corporations, the dangers from quack medicine, the exposure of international mafia gangs and the funding of terrorism – our current libel law’s lack of a serious public interest defence has chilled publication on all these issues.

Cardiologist and libel reform campaigner Dr Peter Wilmshurst was sued for pointing out possible problems with heart devices. Over the four years he fought his case, patients continued to have these devices implanted in their hearts. Some needed extensive surgery to have them removed because of the fault. This is why we propose our public interest defence. The status quo is totally ineffective and protects the rich but fails the poor – while allowing legal bullying to suppress information that will protect lives.

Over the last decade, from the banking crisis that caused our economy to implode, to the MPs expenses scandal that rocked the establishment, we can see that too little information has been exposed rather than too much. Our libel laws protect few. With support from over 60,000 people and over 100 civil society organisations, it’s time for a public interest defence in libel.

This post was originally published on Guardian Law.

Tayto crisps ask you to: “Discover the Potatohontus Native American Village”. Wierd.

November could take us one step closer to a Liberal Democrat – Labour coalition. The New Statesman reports that Labour could win all three seats being contested on 15 November. Two of the three seats are currently held by Labour, while it is highly possible that Labour could take Corby from the Conservatives.

A Labour gain would move the party just 3 seats short of a governing majority of 326. If Sinn Fein continues to abstain from the Westminster parliament – which according to Michael Crick is under doubt – a Liberal Democrat – Labour coalition is possible with the support of the Green Party, SDLP (the Labour Party’s sister in Northern Ireland), the Alliance MP (the Lib Dem’s sister party) and Plaid Cymru.

The coalition maths is as follows: –

Liberal Democrat – Labour coalition

Labour 259 (258 + Corby win)
Liberal Democrat 57
SDLP 3
Plaid Cymru 2
Alliance 1
Green 1
Total: 323

Against

Conservative 306
Democratic Unionist Party 8
Scottish National Party 6
Total: 320

A razer thin majority, but one that with a water tight coalition agreement and an early election could prove an good interim government. Unfortunately, such a coalition could create a constitutional crisis with the new government having to argue over the legality of the statutory instrument that set the 5 year electoral term. Interesting times…

Strangest photo of the Olympics opening ceremony. An official does what seems to be a salute as Camilla looks aghast and Boris, err, laughs.

I’d describe myself as a friend of Progress. I certainly don’t think that the organisation has become “a party within the party”, nor do I think the GMB’s motion at party conference can do anything but hurt Labour.

But Progress does have serious questions to answer on the organisation’s funding. It’s frankly bizarre that Progress called for Open Primaries in selections for parliamentary candidates, yet only in April this year did it publish who funds it. There’s no doubt that Progress is well-funded, to the tune of £368,000 per annum, a clear sign of the vitality of Progress. With this in mind, why does it continue to take donations from groups whose values may contradict those of the Labour party?

Labour’s Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander has spoken out against human rights violations in Bahrain, and even called for the Formula 1 race there to be cancelled:

Bahrain is not Syria. But that does not mean F1 should collude in presenting to the world an image of an island paradise that is far removed from the violence taking place in the streets and villages just walking distance from the race track.

Yet, one of Progress’s donors is Bell Pottinger, a lobbying firm that has worked on behalf of the government of Bahrain. After 7 died following a police clampdown early in 2011, protesters gathered outside Bell Pottinger’s London office with placards reading ‘You can’t spin the unspinnable’. It made little difference, Bell Pottinger’s Chair Lord Bell told PR Week that he felt under no pressure to resign the account. Subsequently, as the situation worsened the account was frozen. Bahrain isn’t the only authoritarian regime Bell Pottinger has represented in recent years, the roll call includes the Yemen, Sri Lanka and a country I feel strongly about, Belarus. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism:

Bell Pottinger boasted to undercover Bureau journalists that it helped engineer the lifting of an EU travel ban on the man dubbed ‘Europe’s last dictator’. Part of the PR team included former British diplomat Sir David Richmond.

Belarus is known as Europe’s last dictatorship. In recent years, Labour Ministers and MPs including Douglas Alexander and Progress contributor Denis MacShane have condemned the dictatorship in Minsk. Yet, Progress has taken money from an organisation that used to work for that dictatorship. It doesn’t make sense.

Progress also accepted up to £7,500 worth of funding from another lobby group, the European Azerbaijan Society (TEAS). As I outline in the report ‘Azerbaijan’s silenced voices’, TEAS is not an ideal affiliate for any progressive organisation:

The London-based TEAS is one of the slickest and most well-funded lobbying operations anywhere in Europe. The President of TEAS is Taleh Heydarov, the son of Kamaladdin Heydarov, described in a US embassy cable leaked by Wikileaks as possibly ‘more powerful than the president himself… Heydarov controls more visible assets and wealth within the country than the president’

The leaked cable explains how Heydarov built his power network (from his position as Azerbaijan’s Chairman of the State Customs Committee, and his current position as Minister of Emergency Situations) which includes a paramilitary unit with anti-aircraft battery, a unit of building inspectors that can stop any construction project in the country they deem to be “unsafe”, and a family Airbus A319 corporate jet. The Wikileaks cable goes on to outline the structure of the company: “Many of the family’s operations are part of the ‘Gilan’, Qabala’… or ‘United Enterprises International’ family of companies”, which are involved in construction, tourism, banking and have monopoly control of the juice drinks market. All of these companies are registered at the same address as TEAS, and TEAS is described as an “affiliate” of United Enterprises International.

The European Azerbaijan Society and Bell Pottinger are not ideal partners for Progress. In order to win the argument over its role within the Labour party it needs to be clearer about the type of donations it will and will not accept – and draw clearer lines. Labour activists and the unions are right to question the Progress of today. I hope this marks the beginning of reform, not the end.

Update: Progress strategy candidates asked about its future funding

I’ve asked the candidates for Progress’s strategy board the following question: –

“Would you use your role on the strategic board to ensure that all donors match Labour’s values?”

You can read their responses to my question here.

Read also: LOBBYIST REGISTER: WE USED TO IMPRISON FOREIGN AGENTS – NOW WE GIVE THEM SIX-FIGURE SALARIES

Lewisham’s Big Olympic Conversation

Now this looks really fun…. A message from your local council:

What are the people who live in your area really like? What’s important to them, and what are their fears? What might you find out about yourself by talking openly to someone you’ve never met before?

Lewisham residents are being encouraged to find out by coming to the Big Conversation on Wednesday 8 August at 7pm in the theatrical Spiegeltent at the Lewisham Big Screen on Blackheath.

The format is very simple – it’s a conversation over dinner. Guests sit with someone they’ve never met and are served a simple meal along with a ‘menu of conversation.’ The menu offers a choice of questions designed to help them open up and think about their life in new ways. The questions will be based on the Olympic and Paralympic values.

Since January 2011, Lewisham Council has been working with Theodore Zeldin, the philosopher and historian who pioneered conversation dinners. Zeldin will return to Lewisham on 8 August to host the borough’s biggest conversation dinner yet.

This is a free event. Seats will be allocated on the day, so it’s best to arrive early. Guests can bring friends along, but should remember that they will be seated with someone they don’t know.

Theodore Zeldin was awarded France’s Légion d’Honneur in May 2012 in recognition of his many works on French history and habits.

“Laws are like sausages – it is best not to see them being made”; a phrase commonly attributed to Otto von Bismarck seems apt for attempts to reform our archaic libel laws. The last wholesale attempt to get libel law right was in 1843, making Robert Peel our last “libel reforming” prime minister. Depressingly, the sausage cliché is younger than much of the parliamentary law that dictates what we can and can’t say. It’s hard to overstate how chilling to free speech the current law is.

Libel tourism

In 2010, President Obama signed into law the US Speech Act protecting Americans from libel judgements made in the high court here. John Whittingdale MP, the chair of the culture, media and sport select committee described this as a “national humiliation”. Our publication rule laughably predates the light bulb, originating in a case won by the notoriously litigious Duke of Brunswick in 1849. Thanks to this case, if you unknowingly copy a libellous statement and publish it on your blog, you could receive a threatening legal letter.

Thankfully, the government will be taking action on “libel tourism” and updating the publication rule for the internet age with the defamation bill that is currently passing through parliament. However, in some ways, the bill is a missed opportunity, with no new public interest defence and no action taken to stop corporations suing individuals.

Getting libel reform right means giving citizens a new public interest defence. Such a defence would have protected libel victims such as Dr Ben Goldacre, Simon Singh and cardiologist Dr Peter Wilmshurst – all of whom were dragged through the courts after writing on important matters of science. A strong public interest defence will protect NGOs and academics from libel actions when they speak out on the dumping of toxic waste by multinational corporations or rampant tax evasion by banks. This defence is crucial – it’s near-impossible for scientists to prove the absolute truth of their research in particular where there are constant breakthroughs in our knowledge.

It’s chilling to think that Wilmshurst was sued for pointing out possible problems with heart devices. In the four years he fought his case, patients continued to have these devices implanted in their hearts. Some then needed extensive surgery to have them removed because of the fault. If his concerns hadn’t been silenced by his four year libel case, doctors may not have recommended this treatment.

Public interest defence

A new public interest defence will also protect NGOs and citizen journalists who have got a minor fact wrong, but are willing to correct or clarify it. As it stands, with no new protections, the bill would not have helped many of the cases that spurred 60,000 people to sign the Libel Reform Campaign petition. It was the intention of the government to get this right. Justice minister Lord McNally told Singh at a packed Libel Reform Campaign meeting that he’d be reforming the law so that scientists couldn’t be dragged through the courts again. His hard work on this issue is being undermined by the lack of this defence.

The defamation bill will do little to stop corporations suing individuals. This may be for ideological reasons, but in a globalised world where big corporations increasingly dominate the public space, letting them sue individuals is manifestly unfair. Across parliament, Conservative MPs such as Peter Bottomley and David Davis, Liberal Democrats Tom Brake and Julian Huppert and Labour’s Rob Flello and Paul Farrelly have questioned whether large companies really do need to resort to suing citizens.

With PR teams and laws to stop anti-competitive practices, firms do have alternatives. The law of libel was never originally intended to cover non-natural persons. The law is there to compensate damage to an individual’s reputation and the psychological impact this has. But companies don’t have psychological integrity, ie feelings. Should they get damages for defamation?

A huge effort has gone into the Libel Reform Campaign so far. 60,000 supporters have lobbied their MPs in person, held pub meetings, events in parliament, roundtable discussions with lawyers and international human rights groups, a huge comedy gig in central London with help from 60 civil society organisations. On Wednesday comedians and friends of science Dara O’ Briain, Dave Gorman and Brian Cox will join us in parliament to lobby MPs. It’s not too late for the government to strengthen its defamation bill.

In the meantime, Guardian readers can email their MP to ask them to put pressure on ministers. Wholesale libel reform only comes around every 170 years – anyone who cares about free speech cannot afford to miss this opportunity.

I originally wrote this article for Guardian Law on Wednesday 27 June 2012.

Currently on Adam Curtis’s blog there’s a fantastic BBC documentary on Norman Mailer’s failed bid for the Democratic nomination for Mayor of New York City in 1969.

One voter is asked, what does he like about Mailer? His answer reminds us that even at the high water mark of the bi-partisan era of American politics, voters held exactly the same concerns over candidates and political parties.

VOTER: “He’s different. He thinks… He’s willing to argue… He’s not willing to kowtow to the party bosses… We’d had so much of the ordinary politics for New York”

It’s worth watching in full.

Hat tip: @witteringwest

Sanctions against councillors who express an opinion are overzealous. Finally, a judge has stood up to such nonsense

This article was originally published in The Guardian on Wednesday 9 May.

Last year, I was reported to the standards board of Lewisham council for tweeting concerns that last summer’s riots were spreading to our area (which they did – you can read my tweets here). I was bizarrely accused of inciting riots.

The intervening weeks weren’t much fun. I wondered whether the board would publicly reprimand me, leading to my possible suspension from my political party, or whether I’d be banned altogether from the council chamber for six months – unable to vote on issues directly affecting my constituents. In the end, the claim against me was thrown out. But every year, claims are brought against councillors. One individual made 170 complaints about their local authority and elected members, at a cost to taxpayers of £160,000. Not a single one of their complaints was upheld.

You’d expect councillors would be encouraged to speak out on behalf of their voters. But over the past decade a new culture encouraging “standards” has deadened lively public debate in local government. In 2007-08 of 3,547 allegations investigated by the now abolished Standards Board of England & Wales, only nine ended up with sanctions applied against councillors. The investigations weren’t just a complete waste of £10m a year of taxpayers’ money; the threat of investigation and subsequent negative publicity had a negative effect on free speech.

The code of conduct, written by the dead hand of bureaucracy, pays little thought to the importance of free speech. Councillors are expected “not [to] conduct yourself in a manner which could reasonably be regarded as bringing your office or authority into disrepute”. And to “show respect and consideration for others”.

These clauses are so broad as to be meaningless. What they do is give your opponents a powerful toolkit to use against you. Across the country, where councillors have been reported to local boards, their opponents have printed mischievous leaflets saying that an “investigation” was under way into their behaviour. Many complaints taken through the Standards Boards don’t come from voters, but from other political parties that use these boards for their own advantage.

Since the abolition of the Standards Board of England & Wales by the coalition, local boards comprising of independent members and councillors have overseen the conduct of the elected. It has saved money and weeded out some of the most ludicrous cases, but confusion continued as to the boundaries of free expression. One of the most infamous cases concerned a tweet by former Cardiff councillor John Dixon while shopping in London: “I didn’t know the Scientologists had a church on Tottenham Court Road. Just hurried past in case the stupid rubs off.”

After being reported for a breach of the code of conduct (from a Scientologist living in East Grinstead, Sussex), Dixon was cleared as his tweet was made in a private capacity, not as a councillor. Yet, the public services ombudsman for Wales who referred the case to Dixon’s local board for judgment, said Dixon “may” have breached the code. The ombudsman’s witless judgment is worth quoting from: “I am, however, concerned that a member who has served his community for over 10 years and has recently attended training does not appear to understand the provisions of the code, particularly paragraphs 2(1)(b), 4(b) and 6(1)(a). I also note that Councillor Dixon has not shown any remorse for his actions.”

Finally, a judge has stood up against this type of nonsense. Mr Justice Beaton’s decision in the high court declared that elected politicians should “possess a thicker skin and greater tolerance than ordinary members of the public”. His ruling that political speech is protected under article 10 of the Human Rights Act is a judicial rebuke to these inquisitions.

This case concerned Councillor Lewis Malcolm Calver’s blog, which contained sarcastic comments on the council chairman. Hardly the most scurrilous blog written about local government, but it landed Calver in trouble with the Adjudication Panel for Wales, which ordered he undergo training and publicly admonished him for “snide comments” (no, really). Thankfully, Calver’s victory will now establish a higher threshold for cases against councillors to proceed at standards boards.

There has for years been an extremely effective way for citizens to express their concerns about a councillor’s language or behaviour: by not voting for them. And no one would question that there should be locally set standards for those in public office. However, enforcing the nebulous concept of “respect” is a charter for those who oppose a particular policy or party to drag local politicians through the mud of an official investigation. The sanctioning of penalties against elected officials, for behaviour that is not illegal, has gone on for too long. It has taken the judiciary to finally stand up for the free speech of those elected by the public.

For 70 years American citizens have known what foreign governments are up to in Washington thanks to a lobbyist register: with current lobbying scandals it’s about time we caught up in the UK.

The first lobbyist register

The first lobbying scandal was over 70 years ago. In July 1934, the Special Committee on Un-American Activities reported that Carl Byoir and Associates, one of the founding firms of American public relations, were receiving $6,000 a month to spin for the new Nazi government of Germany. Byoir’s distribution of anti-Semitic literature and the sheer scale of the money involved scandalised congressmen, whose earnings of $9,000 a year paled in comparison. In 1938, the US Congress passed the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) which required “public disclosure by persons engaging in propaganda activities and other activities for or on behalf of foreign governments, foreign political parties, and other foreign principals.” FARA has given us a fascinating snapshot of historic lobbying. In 1942, Britain spent more than the rest of the world combined on lobbying and propaganda activities in the US – a huge $1,350,000.

What Americans have known for 70 years, Britons are still to discover. The activities of foreign governments and their proxies in the UK are entirely unregulated. As a free speech charity, you may not expect Index on
Censorship to be particularly concerned about lobbyists – a group of people whose job it is to argue a point. Yet their work is critically undermining the work of international organisations that campaign for human rights, by airbrushing the worst excesses of autocratic regimes.

Dictators paying for lobbyists

Whilst we treat MPs to the occasional cup of tea, foreign governments are paying for British MPs to enjoy five-star accommodation on trips euphemistically called “fact-finding missions”. The same regimes hire parliamentarians whom the electorate have booted out, on large salaries, to lobby their former colleagues. NGOs cannot compete. The six-figure salaries regularly used by lobbying firms to gain access to parliamentarians across Europe are impossible for us to match. The degeneracy of the lobbying trade is often staggering. Since we began our campaign on this issue, we’ve been approached behind the scenes; one young lobbyist told us that the worse the client, the more fun it becomes. Lobbying is often dull work, dealing with the minutiae of lightbulb regulations: at least working for a foreign regime is intellectually challenging. Another told us that one lobbying firm was prepared to take on Gadaffi’s regime as a client. That is, until the go-between wanted a cut of the contract in cash, in a suitcase.

Whereas once authoritarian regimes would have used their foreign ministries to spin their message, these governments now want the best PR and lobbying teams money can buy. London is at the centre of this trade, with, in recent years, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Sri Lanka, Bahrain, Mubarak’s Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others leading their lobbying operations from our capital. Whereas Potomac Square Group, a US lobbying firm working for the autocratic government of Bahrain, has to declare their monthly $20,000 retainer, London’s Bell Pottinger’s contract (in part suspended) does not. The US firm also has to declare the correspondence it has with US politicians – while lobbyists working on behalf of autocratic foreign
governments can persuade our MPs without declaring a thing. Recently, Index
pointed out that all but one of the main sponsors of a Parliamentary Early Day Motion praising Azerbaijan’s independence (with no mention of the country’s poor human rights record) had enjoyed a trip to the country including accommodation in luxury hotels costing £3,500.

The opaque lobbying of MPs on behalf of foreign governments is corrupting our politics. While in opposition, both Coalition partners made welcome noises on regulating lobbying – but campaigners weren’t inspired with confidence when the civil servant in charge of regulating the industry tweeted that she hoped one of the campaigns, Unlock Democracy, “would die. I am prepared to help it along.” While she met with representatives of the lobbying industry on four separate occasions, she refused to meet campaigners calling for reform. The political reform minister Mark Harper’s assertions that all parties are being treated equally is harder to swallow in light of the recent “cash for access” allegations. And the government’s consultation on a statutory register of lobbyists doesn’t even consider the option of FARA-style regulations. If the Coalition seriously wants to clean up British politics, and stop London’s reputation as the international capital of spin for despots, it needs to implement its own FARA.

This article was originally published in the Daily Telegraph on 10 April.