Enough!

So I see that having strong-armed the BBC into handing over nearly £200,000 of licence fee payers money under threat of legal action, Lord McAlpine (he is not a peadophile) and his lawyers are now trying to do much the same to ITV.  Because, of course, like the BBC, ITV didn't name him as a peadophile.  However, Philip Schofield did wave a piece of paper at the Prime Minister on This Morning, claiming that it contained the names of several alleged peadophiles he'd culled from the web, some of whom the PM knew. But he didn't actually name any of them on-air, not even McAlpine.  But apparently not naming someone is no defence against being sued for defamation these days, it seems.  Employing the same argument as used with the BBC, McAlpine's lawyers claim that by saying, (or even implying, in Schofield's case), that a member of the Conservative Party might be a peadophile, This Morning encouraged people to go online and search for 'Tory peado bastards', or similar terms, which brought up McAlpine's name.  Now, I'm not a lawyer - thank God - but surely such an argument is utter bullshit, clearly designed to stifle any form of journalistic discussion of controversial issues?

Which is why I'm disappointed that the BBC caved in so easily.  This really needs to be tested in a court of law, otherwise any disgruntled rich person can start suing broadcasters and publishers who withhold (for legal reasons) the names of people involved in stories, on the grounds that not naming them will result in others searching the web and coming across libellous rumours written by third parties, (who are the ones actually doing the libelling, but are more difficult to identify and sue and probably don't have any assets anyway).  Franz Kafka would have been proud of such (il)logic.  Which is why I'm hoping against hope that ITV has the balls to tell McAlpine to fuck off and that they'll see him in court.  Really, enough is enough.  I'm sure it was very upsetting for Lord McAlpine to be falsely accused of being a nonce, (although, perhaps if his lawyers had acted previously about the rumours, which have pervaded the net for the better part of a decade, this whole business could have been avoided), but these actions against the BBC and ITV are merely opportunistic and simply give the impression that he is just another greedy Tory bastard.  That's right, fat boy - I've just called you greedy (and fat), not to mention a bastard and, worst of all, a Tory!  Go ahead and set your lawyers on me, for what good it would do - it's called 'fair comment'.  Git.