Lords’ vote forcing papers to pay legal fees in hacking cases even if they win is a war on free press
The vote is a major blow to democracy from politicians keen to crush investigative journalism
IMAGINE you were sued, won the case but were forced to pay both your costs and your opponent’s. It would be a blatant affront to natural justice.
But this chilling prospect is on the cards after a vote passed in the Lords in the continuing war on the free Press.
It has the potential to cause massive harm to the newspaper industry, especially struggling regional papers.
It will crush investigative journalism and undermine democracy.
Politicians are pretending to act for Press “victims”. Their true aim is to force newspapers to surrender 300 years of free speech for State control.
If papers refuse to submit to a regulator approved by Royal Charter they will be punished by having to fund both sides in any libel action, even if they win, and risk monstrous “exemplary” damages.
Two newspapers would be treated differently for the same “offence” depending on which regulator they belonged to.
It is manifestly unfair and its risk to journalism clear. The choice would be: let the State oversee your content or fund baseless libel cases against yourself.
It will destroy some newspapers and hand undeserved victory to the Press-hating revenge-seekers of Hacked Off.
The last Culture Secretary saw its perils. We hope his successor Karen Bradley and her boss Theresa May do too.
Corbyn’s hate
ONLY a man of wicked beliefs could watch Russian bombers slaughter Aleppo’s children and insist America is the real enemy.
No sane person would put Vladimir Putin and his indifference to innocent lives on a moral plane above Barack Obama. But to Jeremy Corbyn and his acolytes the West is the greatest evil.
That is indeed a guiding principle of the deranged Stop The War group he founded and chaired until last year.
Its vice-chairman Chris Nineham, a prep and public school-educated halfwit, yesterday urged Radio 4 listeners to “mobilise” and “oppose the West”.
And this is why Corbyn will be annihilated at the ballot box. It’s not just the incompetence. It’s the poison in his heart.
Yesterday he couldn’t even congratulate a Tory MP on beating cancer without a snide implication that he might have got preferential NHS treatment.
Don’t be fooled by Corbyn’s “well-meaning geography teacher” image.
He does not mean well.
So silly, Lily
THE Calais migrants were having a grim enough time even before Lily Allen showed up “to shine a light on the situation”.
Do these witless luvvies not read anything or watch the news?
Half our celebs have already been out there.
The Home Secretary is poised to pluck hundreds of vulnerable kids to safety.
Lily wanted to shine a light, all right.
On herself.