Guardian prevented from reporting Parliamentary Question

[Nemo]

Apparently, in a very worrying development, the Guardian has been prevented from reporting on details of a Parliamentary question. Another example of jealously-guarded rights slipping away virtually unnoticed.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Goes to Google...

After a cursory Google, not sure this is the right page:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmagenda/sa91012.htm
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmagenda/ob91012.htm



Hmm... it *might* be in here, somewhere... http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmordbk2/cmob2.htm

 

[Nemo]

Won't whatever it is be in Hansard anyway?

Presumably. But unless things like that are reported, very few people will actually notice they're there.

 

[claphamboy]

The only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves the London solicitors Carter-Ruck, who specialise in suing the media for clients, who include individuals or global corporations.

So, who do you think Carter-Fuck are trying to protect here?

I am sure it'll all come out in the end.

 

[perplexis]

That's deeply, deeply disturbing.
Could it be the case that a law firm has somehow obtained sufficient clout to overrule the right to report on Parliament?
I don't want to understand how whatever it is has come about as it will thoroughly depress me.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Well, in that case, they should clap Rusbridger in irons for tipping people off that the question will be in Hansard soon.

 

[perplexis]

So, who do you think Carter-Fuck are trying to protect here?

I am sure it'll all come out in the end.

Themselves, at a first guess.
Second guess would be entities involved in trading dubious commodities with dubious entities, probably at significant cost to the UK tax-payer.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Trafigura, anyway.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

private eye carried a story very similar in the latest edition about shackling the press under very dubious circumstances.

 

[perplexis]

Well, in that case, they should clap Rusbridger in irons for tipping people off that the question will be in Hansard soon.

So it will appear in Hansard? Then why the article? Surely even the Guardian isn't so far gone that they'd publish such a pointless piece?
OK, maybe it is....

 

[Nemo]

Could it be the case that a law firm has somehow obtained sufficient clout to overrule the right to report on Parliament?

Judging by the article, I suspect that the papers' right to report Parliament like that is case law based on the Bill of Rights, and some jumped-up judge (I've a fiver on Mr. Justice Eady) thinks that someone's alleged 'rights' somehow trump the right of the citizens at large to know what our elected representatives are up to. I fear we shall all have to start reading Hansard.

 

[Nemo]

So it will appear in Hansard? Then why the article? Surely even the Guardian isn't so far gone that they'd publish such a pointless piece?
OK, maybe it is....

There must be a reason why they were injuncted.

 

[perplexis]

There must be a reason why they were injuncted.

One imagines so.
But one also imagines that at 8am tomorrow, when the relevant edition of Hansard appears, this will have become a pointless injunction.
Baffling.

 

[Cloo]

Sinister, but not surprising, the way things are going. This government has been fairly intent on sneaking past things like this that the general public don't take much note of but are actually very significant.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Sinister, but not surprising, the way things are going. This government has been fairly intent on sneaking past things like this that the general public don't take much note of but are actually very significant.

That's a rather silly thing to say. It's an issue with libel law, not with government policy or strategy.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

My best guess would be 61:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmordbk2/91013o02.htm

Although 3, 4, 8 and 11 also look interesting.

Haven't checked the others yet.

 

[Paulie Tandoori]

My best guess would be 61:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmordbk2/91013o02.htm

the winner!!!!

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

So, who do you think Carter-Fuck are trying to protect here?

I am sure it'll all come out in the end.

Trafigura, anyway.

I refer my honourable friends to the answer I prepared earlier:

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=9815546&postcount=16

 

[agricola]

There must be a reason why they were injuncted.

The reason is that we live in a country of increasingly draconian libel law where people are able to get injunctions - and start and win proceedings for libel - in circumstances that defy any kind of rationality. I had thought that after Napier's injunction against the Eye was overturned (by Eady no less) that things were getting better, but then we have this.

To injuct anyone from reporting what is a published Parliamentary question is not only morally wrong, its probably legally wrong as well. Lets hope some MP has made the Speaker (twat though he is) aware of this development so an emergency statement detailing the question, the injunction and the outrageousness of it can be made in the House as soon as possible. At present they are discussing Water Charges, so it should be possible to do this at once.

 

[Pickman's model]

I refer my honourable friends to the answer I prepared earlier:

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=9815546&postcount=16

surely "the answer i gave some moments ago" at which point you get asked a supplementary question.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/paulfarrelly

I'm not sure that getting your hacks elected to Parliament to ask questions on your behalf is fair game. It smacks of Ian Greer and Neil Hamilton.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

That's a rather silly thing to say. It's an issue with libel law, not with government policy or strategy.

Isn't it a convention though, that parliamentarians are protected from defamation proceedings for what they say in parliament?

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

surely "the answer i gave some moments ago" at which point you get asked a supplementary question.

Hear, hear. Yes, you're quite right.

But shouldn't you have started that post with:

Order! Order!

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Isn't it a convention though, that parliamentarians are protected from defamation proceedings for what they say in parliament?

Yes, parliamentary privilege. I thought that Cloo was mixing up the courts and the executive, though, in a tinfoil hattist manner.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/paulfarrelly

I'm not sure that getting your hacks elected to Parliament to ask questions on your behalf is fair game. It smacks of Ian Greer and Neil Hamilton.

But then again, I guess it all depends on whether you think that MPs are there to represent their constituents (and wider society) and hold government to account, or whether they're supposed to be part of the establishment and not issue the slightest murmur?

 

[cybertect]

Kafkaesque

QFT

 

[claphamboy]

My best guess would be 61:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmordbk2/91013o02.htm

A search on that page only comes up with a mention of Carter-Fuck on item 61, so I reckon you're bang on.

 

[agricola]

I refer my honourable friends to the answer I prepared earlier:

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=9815546&postcount=16

A lot of that was in the latest Eye (1246). In short, Trafigura have paid out $30 million to the Ivory Coast after a sub-contractor for them dumped toxic waste in an incident that may have (they dispute liability, though the UN stated they were to blame) left 15 people dead and thousands injured. A great deal of the Eye reporting is because our international development fund (a privatized entity called CDC, which is an incredible scandal in itself) is investing, with Trafigura (via a third company called Anvil, which is accused of assisting in a massacre in the Congo) in a copper mine in Tanzania.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Yes, parliamentary privilege. I thought that Cloo was mixing up the courts and the executive, though, in a tinfoil hattist manner.

That's the phrase I was looking for. My brain's fried at the moment, I can't think of the simplest things. I think I'm getting old. I'm over 40 now, it's downhill all the way into decrepitude.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

But then again, I guess it all depends on whether you think that MPs are there to represent their constituents (and wider society) and hold government to account, or whether they're supposed to be part of the establishment and not issue the slightest murmur?

I'm just suggesting that he should be representing Newcastle under Lyme, rather than doing the Grauniad's dirty work for them under the understanding that he can scuttle back to King's Place if he loses his seat.