Paul Farrelly MP
Paul Farrelly is a mate of Nick Cohen (and Martin Bright) from their days working at the Observer, isn't he? I merely ask.
posted by The Rioja Kid at 10/13/2009 06:33:00 AM
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
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8 Comments:
Let's see if Cohen takes on the Trafigura story, and let's see if he writes about it in a way that the average reader can understand.
Guano
I would guess that he is champing at the bit to do so, but restrained by the lawyers.
INTERESTING. Although if there was a connection, wouldn't the story have been redacted from the Observer rather than the Guardian?
Anyway, I reckon Cohen might get a run at this story soon enough. The Guardian must fancy their chances of a successful appeal now that every single person with an interest will have seen the original question - I'm curious about what argument Carter Ruck could possibly present for keeping it in place.
I would guess (IANAL, but a bit of a libel "buff") that the Guardian are playing jujitsu here. Seems very unlikely to me that C-R took out an injunction actually preventing reporting of the question as this would be wildly counterproductive. But it's probable that the original injunction would have covered reporting of the question, and that the Guardian "planted" the question via Farrelly in order to dramatise how draconian these preliminary injunctions can be.
MacShane on CiF tries to turn the whole incident into a "stop being mean to MPs" rant. I have difficulty putting MacShane into the "independent-minded" category.
Guano
Seems very unlikely to me that C-R took out an injunction actually preventing reporting of the question as this would be wildly counterproductive.
B2 - the Guardian has a recording of Paul Farrelly discussing this matter with the Speaker today. The injunction certainly seems to have been along those lines.
As I understand what was said by Farrelly in the House today (which I'm listening to on Today in Parliament as I type somewhat drunkenly) what happened was that Carter-Ruck threatened further legal action if there was a report. If that's right it would presumably have been on the basis of contempt re the 11th September injunction. The Guardian were going back to court today. No one in a position to know has actually, so far as I am aware, said "there was a further injunction on 11th/12th October which explicitly covered reporting the parliamentary question" or indeed parliamentary questions in general. Rusbridger's tweet which kicked everything off on twitter studiously avoids talking about orders of the court (unlike this, which relates to 11th September) . I strongly suspect the original injunction was wide enough that the point was open to debate, but not absolutely clear.
Liadnan is correct. The basis for the original Graun report was the correspondence from Carter Ruck warning them that the 11th Sept injunction would cover any reporting of Farrelly's question. Yesterday they agreed to vary the injunction to make clear that reports of parliamentary proceedings would be permitted. Not that this was actually their agreement to give, given that parliamentary reporting is covered by qualified privilege in any case.
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