Plebgate

The former Chief Whip, Andrew Mitchell, has lost his libel action against the newspaper that claimed he called a police officer a pleb. It isn't obvious why he went ahead with the libel action after Michael Crick's documentary on the incident demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that corrupt police officers stitched him up. At that point he could have declared victory and gone ahead with his life, instead he put his reputation in the hands of Britain's libel courts.

The verdict seems perverse but by taking the matter to court he has empowered a judge make whatever flight of fancy he finds most agreeable the official version.

In all likelihood Andrew Mitchell did not call the policeman a pleb and the verdict is wrong but libel courts reward the likes of Jeffrey Archer, George Galloway and other chancers, putting your faith in such a court is a desperate and unwise move.

Harigate- Part One Of Three- Wars Of The Roses

This week the Independent concluded their "investigation" into Johann Hari's various misdeeds. Just to go over them they came into three main categories:

• Plagiarism.
• Making things up.
• Anonymous wikipedia vandalism.

I will focus on the 3rd of these in this post (although I will post about the other two later this week and the cover up by the independent. In his graceless non-apology, Hari confesses to vandalising the Wikipedia entries of those who crossed him:

The other thing I did wrong was that several years ago I started to notice some things I didn’t like in the Wikipedia entry about me, so I took them out. To do that, I created a user-name that wasn’t my own. Using that user-name, I continued to edit my own Wikipedia entry and some other people’s too. I took out nasty passages about people I admire – like Polly Toynbee, George Monbiot, Deborah Orr and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. I factually corrected some other entries about other people. But in a few instances, I edited the entries of people I had clashed with in ways that were juvenile or malicious: I called one of them anti-Semitic and homophobic, and the other a drunk. I am mortified to have done this, because it breaches the most basic ethical rule: don’t do to others what you don’t want them to do to you. I apologise to the latter group unreservedly and totally.

First of all it is hardly a "few instances", his list of vandalism under his David Rose identity stretches to almost a thousand entries over the course of years. David Rose was not his only identity, he was also active on other forums and had at least one other pseudonym "Niko".

Furthermore his habit of anonymous defamation did not begin with being unhappy about noticing things were awry in his Wikipedia entry. As Private Eye has shown- he was posting nasty reviews of a University professor, Simon Goldhill,  on Amazon under a pseudonym as far back as June 2000- before Wikipedia was even founded.

It's amazing how consistent different people's stories about Hari are- someone pulling him for some poor behaviour and him claiming the disagreement is about some greater issue which casts him in a heroic light.

Goldhill says he told Hari off for being rude to staff- Hari claims the disagreement began when he defended Mo Mowlam. Christine Odone today claims her squabble with Hari began when she told him off for misusing the New Statesman printer- he claims it was some epic dispute over antisemitism and secularism.

Many of his Wikipedia edits demonstrate a similar level of pettiness- he is desperate to not let people know that he went to an exclusive independent prep school affiliated with Harrow, he is very keen for everyone to acknowledge what a serious intellectual he is.

yet ironically it demonstrates that he is not merely nasty but also rather stupid- his bogus identities had aroused suspicion  for years and the fact he was so incompetent as to use the Independent's offices to conduct the vandalism without understanding things like IP addresses, is beyond moronic.

In addition he appears to have roped in friends to pose as David Rose and Niko when he met real people. Roping in his friends to help cover up his misdeeds is quite significant when you consider his rebuttal of the allegations made about his reporting from the Central African Republic.

It would not surprise me if someone whose entry had been vandalised sues Hari- they may have easily lost writing gigs as a result of his defamation if a lazy editor had used Wikipedia to do a spot of background research.

He would deserve this.

Defend Sally Bercow- Being A Moron Is Not A Crime.

Sally Bercow is so unpleasant that she can actully make people feel sorry for John Bercow whereas Andrew Green of Migration Watch seems like a pretty decent sort of person who has been useful in bringing facts into the debate about immigration.

His sensitivity to being smeared is more than understandable given the nature of the topic but by deciding to threaten the less charming of the Bercows with a libel writ he has managed to make her deserving of support.

Yes her comments were offensive and both slimed Andrew Green and trivialised the holocaust but stupidity should not be punished in a court of law.

The Misfortunes Of Bloggers

Two things:

• George Galloway is suing Harry's Place over some ridiculous thing or other. Rumours that he demanded that they pay him in barrels of oil are wholly unfounded. The statement that his lawyers object to was clearly made in jest plus it was after all no more than a direct quote from the constitution of an organisation Galloway respects. David Toube doesn't appear to be intimidated although given that he is aware of the insane rulings of certain libel judges he probably won't be complacent.
  
• Elsewhere I see that Julia M has broken her hand and reading of the diffficulties of going through the week with one hand makes all the more impressed with the courage of Abu Hamza.
  

Google: Enemy Of Libel Laws?

The top google news search suggestions, in the UK at least, when you enter "Tiger Woods" are:

1. Tiger Woods Kirsty Gallacher
2. Tiger Woods Injunction

Hmmm.

Britain's Insane Libel Laws.

The gagging order issue at the behest of Carter-Ruck and their crooked* clients has rightly angered everyone. However blaming Carter-Ruck or any of the assorted gangsters, terrorists and sex offenders they represent for the situation misses the point. It is like blaming individual mosquitos for malaria whilst ignoring the swamp they breed in. In this case the swamp is the UK's grotesque libel laws that are so infamous that the US has passed a law preventing UK libel judgements being enforced over there.

Nick Cohen's article in Standpoint is probably a good place to start.

* I assume they are crooks because why else would they hire Carter-Ruck?

Not A Fanatic.

Inayet Bunglawala complains in the Guardian about being slandered by the Daily Express. He has won a libel case against them and it is clear that the Express did not report his words accurately so that is fair enough. However the subtitle makes a more general complaint that he was unfairly portrayed as a 'fanatic'. This isn't libellous, this is a statement of the obvious, as his wiki page says:

In January 1993 Bunglawala wrote a letter to Private Eye, a satirical magazine, in which he called the blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman "courageous." After Abdel-Rahman's arrest on charges of masterminding the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York in July that year, Mr Bunglawala guessed that it was only because of his "calling on Muslims to fulfill their duty to Allah and to fight against oppression and oppressors everywhere". Five months before the September 11, 2001 attacks, Bunglawala also circulated writings of Osama bin Laden, whom he called a "freedom fighter", to hundreds of Muslims in Britain.^[7]

Whilst his praise for Bin Laden was before the World Trade Center attack it was after Al Qaeda had carried out many other attacks including the bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania which left hundreds of people dead. This doesn't seem like the sort of stuff that a moderate would say.

George Galloway, Not An Anti Semite, Just A Scumbag.

I've just seen at Harry's Place that George Galloway has been granted a libel payout from a small radio station by a pet fiercely independent judge.

A High Court judge yesterday ruled that Respect MP George Galloway was seriously defamed when a radio station broadcast a programme containing a character called “Georgie Galloway”, who spewed out vile and violent anti-semitism.

Judge Eady, who also heard Galloway’s libel action against the Daily Telegraph three years ago, said that the sick spoof character, whose catchphrase was “kill the Jews, kill the Jews”, was “in appalling taste”. It clearly implied that there was a streak of anti-semitism, which was then exaggerated in the spoof character. Eady said that the initial claim by the radio station, Jcom, that its broadcast was not defamatory was “absurd”.

As it happens I do not believe that George Galloway is an anti-semite, he is merely a totalitarian. In other words he hates Israel because it is a democracy in a region filled with Islamist and Fascist regimes. If Israel was instead a hell hole, run by a dictator with a bushy mustache, in a sea of Arab democracies then George Galloway would be the most enthusiastic zionist ever.

However whilst he doesn't hate Jews for being Jews, his hatred of democracy is such that he is wiling to back anti-semites to the hilt, even if they explicitly wish to exterminate the Jews. For instance take his boast back in 2006:

I glorify the Hizbollah national resistance movement, and I glorify the leader of Hizbollah, Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Nasrallah is a man who has openly stated his desire to exterminate all Jews, not simply Israel:

If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide. (Daily Star, Oct. 23, 2002)

So if George Galloway openly supports someone who openly wishes to exterminate Jews then how is it libellous to satirise him as saying “kill the Jews, kill the Jews”? George Galloway does endorse the racial genocide of Jews for being Jews, due to his adoration for fascists such as Nasrallah. If Nasrallah wanted to exterminate the Welsh, the Zulus or the Melanesians then Galloway would endorse him so he isn't an anti semite, but merely a grubby little totalitarian wannabe who is willing to support anti semites in accomplishing their goals.

Stealth Editing.

This morning Comment is Free published an article by Anne Perkins about politicians wives who stand by their husband after he's been caught cheating. It originally contained the line:

In recent American politics there has been Mrs Craig standing next to Senator Larry ("I am not gay") Craig, and Mrs Vitter beside her erring senator-husband David. Of course in British politics the list is long and getting longer all the time: Mrs Mark Oaten, Mrs Rhodri Morgan, Mrs Tim Yeo, Mrs David Mellor.

There was a slight problem here, Rhodri Morgan has not been exposed for having an affair, in all likelihood she confused him with another prominent Welsh politician the badger watcher Ron Davies. Needless to say Mrs Rhodri Morgan has now found herself replaced by Mrs Jeffrey Archer in the gallery as the Guardian's libel lawyers went into convulsions.

Personally I think Mrs Mark Oaten is deserving of special praise for standing by her man considering the stink that was emanating from his brief case.

Quote Of The Day.

Following the Tommy Sheridan's arrest on suspicion of perjury Mr Eugenides recaps the socialist swinger's libel case against the News of the World:

Despite being one of those cases to which one was tempted to apply the famous dictum of Henry Kissinger that it was a pity they couldn't both lose, in the end the newspaper came off second best. Tommy was awarded damages by a jury of dribbling, credulous fuckwits his peers in Edinburgh

Indeed.

Still the case did at least inspire me to write a screenplay based on the trial which I've modeled as a sequel to the Henry Fonda classic 12 Angry Men. Obviously with so many studios bidding over the rights to film my script I can't give the whole thing away for free right now, but don't worry, 12 Angry Men...tal Retards will be hitting a cinema near you soon enough.

Earthquake In Blogdom, Not Many Care.

Recently there has been a minor furore among a small section of the British left wing commentariat. Essentially Nick Cohen (who often talks bollocks) was attacked by Johann Hari (who always talks bollocks) in an extremely dishonest way, some of the lies were gone over by Oliver Kamm (who only rarely talks bollocks). The capacity of the left for infighting is spectacular but predictable.

Not riveting stuff so far as I'm sure you'll agree, however it does get interesting, the left wing blog Harry's Place put up a post going into the debate and suggested that journalists who develop a reputation for making things up, as Hari clearly did, will find that it damages there careers.

I would link to the post or the follow up, but that is sadly impossible as they have been threatened with a libel suit by the fraudster It is a disgusting attempt to stifle criticism and it is noticeable that many others who have brought up Hari's penchant for fiction have not been sued. They include:

Private Eye:
a) Documented his lies about taking ecstasy
b) Ditto about seeing a protester being shot dead in Genoa
c) Talking to the Iraqi public before the war when in fact he admitted elsewhere that he couldn't get anyone to talk him, well hardly anyone.


Oliver Kamm:

"I've never admitted, or even merely stated, any such thing - and note that that's an attributed statement, not a paraphrase. To advance his criticism, Johann has just made up the evidence.".


Counterpunch's Carol Lipton: "
"Joseph was "explaining that his trip had shocked him back to reality". Yet Hari never states to whom Joseph did the "explaining", or where. He recounts Joseph's story as if it were his own"


National Review's Jay Nordlinger:

Highlighted the similarities of Hari article to an old Stephen Glass piece who was later exposed as a fraud. Suggested The New Republic's editors had been worried about it.


The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting:

a) Reported distortion by Hari about Palestinian infant mortality rates, Hari implied that they had risen dramtically under Israeli occupation when in fact they had fallen substantially. As they say "facts do not get in the way of Hari's need to tell a good story about alleged Jewish callousness.".

b) They add "For Hari, a gripping story trumps a truthful representation of the situation. He relates how the Islamic Jihad terrorist he interviews “described how he slashed the throats of four female Israeli soldiers in an illegal settlement in 2002, and he chuckled as he described how they cried for their mothers.”

However, the terrorist’s gruesome deed appears to be an idle boast; no such incident occurred. "

Nick Cohen:
"My book What’s Left? is about deceit and the rich world’s left, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the most deceitful piece to be written about it in any journal in any country should appear in a magazine of the intellectual left produced in New York (“Choosing Sides,” by Johann Hari, Dissent, Summer 2007)."

All of these people have made accusations about Hari lying that are far clearer and unambiguous than anything that was said at Harry's Place. All of them have access to the funds needed to fight a frivolous libel action. Therein lies the difference, this is an attempt to bully critics into silence and it should not succeed.

Hari not only lies a lot he even lies about how he conducts libel suits on people who highlight his lying. He claimed that " I'm glad the site accepts that what they said has abolutely no evidence for it at all, and had to be withdrawn immediately". He knew full well that they removed the post because they could not afford to defend a frivolous suit. He even lies about his attitude towards libel laws claiming that "I've always defended the libel laws if they are used properly - to prevent people saying outrageously, howlingly untrue things about you.". In fact less than a month prior to this contretemps he had written that "The only legitimate restriction on free speech is where it involves a direct incitement to kill.". Sadly Harry's Place have made no attempt at causing Hari physical harm.

I'm not particularly worried about suffering a libel suit myself for the simple reason that there is a 99% probability that he is lying about that also.


Update: Dumbjon has also written about this, including Hari's boasting about getting people to drunk to refuse sex.

Alan Hart Guest Blog: I'm Going To Sue Everybody.

In light of the actions of a shadowy cabal of zionists to discredit me for daring to criticise Israel, (because it is very rare for Israel to be criticised by the press usually) for kidnapping Alan Johnston, blowing up the WTC, shooting Bambi's mother, making derogatory remarks about me whilst standing to my left at the urinal and writing the script for Basic Instinct 2: I feel I must resort to legal action. So I rang up my old friend the libel lawyer George Carmen, after explaining my situation to him I was informed that he had in fact died several years ago, possibly murdered by Israel. Anyway I'm still going to sue anyone who suggests that there is anything anti semitic about propagating theories as to how zionists are responsible for terrible events even when there is no evidence to say so, and that they do this through shadowy conspiracies that also control the press.

Anyway here is my 'to sue' list, complete with the amounts I want from them.

• Dumbjon, £150000, for 'Cui Bonehead'.
• Tim Worstall, £50 for claiming that I, a former Panorama journalist, am deranged. Also £3000000 for claiming that I use hairspray.
• Mr Dangerouslysubversivead, £400000, for refusing to give me his address so I can sue him.
• Fresno Zionism, £300000, for suggesting that I hate Israel just because I accuse them of murdering journalists and blaming it on the Palestinians. It would have been more had they not complimented me on my rather fetching comb over.
• Blognor Regis, £450000, for highlighting a malicious smear against myself in a hitherto obscure publication 'Wikipedia'.
  

Update: DSD has blown his chance to be sued, that'll teach him.

"Yeah She's A Whore"

I was reading the story about the Toulouse rugby player, Trevor Brennan, attacking a fan, the Guardian reports that:

One eyewitness yesterday claimed that Brennan, who runs a bar in Toulouse, reacted when fans began to chant that his pub was a load of rubbish. Toulouse contend that a section of Ulster fans was chanting: "Brennan, your mother is a whore," a version backed yesterday by the player's uncle, George Brennan.

[italics mine]
She might well be a whore but it seems like bad manners for the uncle to publicly back the claim.

Hanging Around.

One of the overlooked facets of the recent Saddam hanging is the fact that George Galloway has a lost an indefatigable friend. What's more it came as a terrible surprise to him, the day before Saddam went to the gallows George was informed that one of his closest allies would be swinging that night but naturally he assumed that it was a reference to Tommy Sheridan's plans for the holiday season.