Foreign Libel Cases Are Still Held In London
Despite the new Defamation Act on which I talked in this post, individuals and companies, who are not ostensibly UK-based, continue to fight libel actions in the UK. Here’s a case reported on the BBC web site.
I can’t say I object to this, as I suspect a few nice fees are trousered by a few lawyers and hopefully, they’ll spend it in the UK to give employment to tailors, builders and a few other trades.
The problem comes, when these sort of cases are pursued against a small individual, like an impoverished blogger, who perhaps has said something like Liberace couldn’t play the piano.
It’s Now The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
As this sign at Stratford station shows, the Olympic Park has now been given its name for posterity.
It’s Now The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park
The web site has an unusual URL of noordinarypark.co.uk. Let’s hope it lives up to the name.
A Multi-Currency Toilet
On my trip this morning I needed a pit-stop and as I had to surface at Green Park station to find of the maps, I used the excellent toilets there.
A Multi-Currency Toilet
Note how the entrance gate sensibly accepts both pounds and euros. They’ve even put the instructions in a selection of languages.
A Multi-LingualToilet
We need to do more things like this, to make London as tourism-friendly as possible.
Tiles At South Kensington Station
The tiles at South Kensington station seem to be being cleaned and repaired.
Tiles At South Kensington Station
The station is one of those that needs serious refurbishment and various proposals have been made.
Considering the station’s important location, with respect to the museums and Albertopolis, upgrading can’t come too soon!
Underground Maps By Lego
Five Underground maps have been made in Lego.
They are at South Kensington (1927), Green Park (1968), Piccadilly(1933), Kings Cross (Future) and Stratford 2013) stations.
The only map, that was difficult to find was the one at Stratford, which was at the Eastfield entrance to the station. It was also the only one inside the ticket barriers.
The map at Kings Cross is the first in an Underground station to show Crossrail integrated with the Underground.
A Visit To The World’s Best Therapist
I had a bit of a shock this morning, as the news said that somebody I might know had died in tragic circumstances.
So I decided that I needed to explore some parts of the London Underground. I intended to have breakfast at Leon in Kings Cross station and then I intended to see if I could find the Underground maps in Lego.
I then visited all the maps before I finished up at Stratford, from where I took the Overground home.
As I often do, I met some interesting people, including a young lady accompanied by her charming baby, who with her partner had taken a train all the way back from Istanbul and soon were going to Denmark overland. Where do I find a lady of a compatible age to myself, who likes trains, architecture and football? Especially, to accompany me to Odessa to see the Potemkin Steps, watch England in Kiev and then come home via Warsaw and Berlin.
i certainly felt a lot better, as I say down to watch the cricket. But I still don’t know if I knew the person, who died.
The End Of The Beginning
Last night, I went to the celebration party of the Libel Reform Campaign at the FreeWord Centre in Farringdon. For a start, I liked the board outside the venue.
Free Word Of The Day
Ostensibly it was to celebrate the passing into law of the Defamation Act of 2013.
But there is still work to do. They gave out a flyer last night, which stated these loose ends to be tied.
- We need clarity that the new statutory public interest defence will not lead to the importation of the problems of the Reynolds defence.
- We are still awaiting new court procedures which must provide for early strike out of trivial claims along with the Government’s plans for costs protection.
- We need the regulations and procedures to accompany section 5 on internet publication to deliver an effective defence.
- The Northern Ireland Assembly has failed to adopt the Defamation Act.
My support has only been moral and financial in a small way. But if you read this blog you will find many stories where libel has been inappropriately used to suppress views or information.
As the post yesterday about Nespresso showed, big companies and powerful individuals, are not slow to use the law to protect their interests.
Hopefully though, the Defamation Act 2013 will have removed one of their most effective weapons, the inappropriate and threatening use of the law of libel.
We are in for some interesting times, as the lawyers of the powerful, search for new ways to suppress the truth.
But perhaps the biggest lesson of last night, was that a well-organised campaign, with the support of decent and right-thinking individuals, acting in the public interest, can successfully drive from conception to execution, by using the Internet and the media, and motivating the general public to push their legislators hard.
Similar tactics were used by the Lighter Later campaign, but sadly that well-run campaign I supported, was killed by the dinosaurs in Parliament. The difference was probably that, the Libel Reform Campaign had the backing of all three political parties.
The trouble is that some groups may use similar tactics and methods to stop projects and ideas, that most believe should be implemented. Two that come to mind are the cancer database announced yesterday and HS2.
If I was to propose a campaign, it would be one to make the UK fully metric. That will never happen.
The Anonymous Widower 