Bad libel

“If you’re not a liberal when you’re 20, you have no heart. If

you're not a conservative when you're 40, you have no head."

   ...many people I know, myself included, seem to venturing further left as they grow older. Perhaps this is the Thatcher generation growing up? Green wrote a brave blog post earlier this year, in which he describes how he is no longer a Tory.   The mood in the meeting room that night was triumphant. Twitter had overturned the injunction by Carter Ruck on the Guardian, perhaps things were not as bleak for Simon Singh as previously thought?  David Allen Green thought that the court hearing could have been "the most important constitutional case of our generation". But Carter Ruck blinked first.    Simon Singh was going to face a similar ordeal the day after. He's a science writer who wrote in the Guardian that chiropractors made false claims as to the efficacy of their treatments, specifically in relation to curing asthma in children. He used the word 'bogus'. Whereas the rest of his article may have been fair comment, the use of this word provoked the British Chiropractic Association to sue for libel. Unusually they did not sue The Guardian, the paper that published the article, but Simon Singh personally.   Nick Cohen spoke to the meeting about how London has become the centre for libel tourism, where the international rich can seek redress in our courts, even if the supposed libel has not taken place in this country. He cited the example of Roman Polanski who sued the magazine Vanity Fair for libel, for they had suggested that he had made sexual advances to  a Norwegian woman on the way to the funeral of his murdered wife Sharon Tate. Cohen is scathing: 
"Polanski was a fugitive on the run from justice but he won against Vanity Fair. Polanski does not have a reputation to uphold, he's a self-confessed paedophile rapist." British justice bent over backwards for Polanski, enabling him to testify via video link form Paris, for if he came to Britain, he risked being extradited to the United States for his rape of a 13 year old girl thirty years ago.  The judge found for Polanski saying we must not judge him on morals.  Cohen finished by joking that since the Simon Singh case, he was staggered by the sight of geeks in arms. "The thing about scientists" he said to laughter from the room full of beards and specs "don't make an enemy of them. May the force be with you."  Ben Goldacre spoke next. He fought a libel battle not so long ago and knows exactly what Singh is going through. He said that health was a particularly important area for freedom of speech. Peer review, criticism from others in the profession, is an essential part of medicine. The most popular and referenced medical papers were generally critical of certain drugs.  Speaking frankly, Goldacre owned up that what Singh said may have been unfair. But that was not his intention, it was a "slip of the pen". But for this he is being persecuted through the courts. 
"It is ridiculous and dangerous for a discussion about the  pros and cons of a treatment to be held in an atmosphere of fear.
   
Simon is lucky, he isn't alone and  has fought the action. But with the libel laws at present, people are basically being told to 'shut up'. 'Shut up' is the argument of people with no arguments"  Simon Singh stood up to speak to a huge cheer. He talked of the expense of libel in Britain; it is a hundred times more expensive here than anywhere else in Europe, meaning only the rich can afford to sue for libel. Another worrying aspect of our libel laws is that the United States are having to change their laws to cope with our  libel laws.  The Americans reformed their libel laws in 1964, during the Civil Rights movement.   One of the issues is that along with the fact that Singh is being sued personally, he is not being sued by an individual but an association with all the structure and support that bestows. It 's David versus Goliath. We saw this in the Mclibel trial, the longest ever in British courts, lasting two and a half years, which was a PR disaster for McDonalds,  backfiring badly.  As a lawyer from the city, David Allen Green explains, clients come with complaints. They don't know the technicalities, they just want someone to shut up. Some times it's copyright, sometimes it's contempt of court. It's ridiculously easy to sue for libel.  The Lords say that companies which have shareholders can sue.   There are four degrees of libel, Green explains:  
Being Sued
Articles being spiked
Articles heavily lawyered
and perhaps the most worrying, articles which are not written at all, the result of self-censorship.
           
'Just as politics cannot be separated from life, life cannot be separated from politics. People who consider themselves to be non-political are no different; they've already been assimilated by the dominant political culture--they just don't feel it any more.' Pramoedya Ananta Toer

The situation now, with bloggers, Facebook and Twitter, with everybody writing and reporting, harks back to the 17th century fashion for pamphleteering. As Cohen says
 "The net makes hacks of all of us. The law sees all of us as publishers."

The campaign for libel reform is not just about science. We are not getting good journalism as a result of libel law. It is a maxim that you can say what you like about politicians, mostly they are fair game. But The City, which has collapsed this economy, has been untouchable. In 2008, a Danish newspaper investigating Icelandic banks, received a writ, preventing them from reporting what they found. We all know what happened to the Icelandic banks.

Singh gets up and answers questions: 
"Is the Guardian supporting you?"

Singh: 
"The Guardian were helpful for the first six or seven weeks. They offered the right of reply or clarification to the BCA. But they wanted a full out apology. The Guardian agreed. However I can't apologize for something that I believe is true. I can't have my wiki page saying that I caved."

Ben Goldacre: 
"Three months my life was dominated by my libel case, sitting in the dock. It cost £535,000 for my defence. We won but still after costs we were £175, 000 out. It took a year and a half of my life altogether."

Singh:
"I've kept in touch with The Guardian. The problem for them was they were not actually being sued, I was. I understood their position: If they backed me, even if we won, they would lose at least £175k. They thought 'If we lose, we lose a million. This is during a time when we are laying off journalists.' How could they justify that? At that time they were being sued by Tesco, Elton John, Ben's case, too much going on at that time. If the Guardian helped with the defence, they could be implicated."

Local newspapers don't even bother writing about anything controversial anymore. They can't afford it. 

More news on the Simon Singh case and Superlibel can be read at the JackofKent blog. 

Personally I don't find it a particularly outrageous claim that chiropractors can help childhood asthma with manipulations of the body and massage. In France kinesitherapists do this all the time, paid for by the French National Health. I'd certainly rather that than an inhaler which is what British GPs hand out at the drop of a hat. But then I'm not a scientist, I'm just a mother, who relies on her own instincts, knowledge, observation and connection with her child to determine what is best for her health. In the past, I've found I am generally right and the doctor is generally wrong.

(1) Although looking further into this quote it appears it might be a mistake to attribute it to Churchill.