Courts Open Floodgates to Twitter Libel Claims!

Part 1 of 2 - Bloggers and Journalists Beware!

The difference between the free speech rules in the UK and the US have been thrown into sharp contrast recently when Californian courts found calling someone a paedo was acceptable if you are the boss of Amazon but that in UK common law it is defamatory for a blogger to describe someone as "nasty", a "bully" or a "vicious bully"! Given the sort of stuff that shows up on Twitter every minute of the day the English/Welsh Courts at least look set to be very busy with claims - especially where trade unions and others with the powder and shot wish to close down bloggers and others who comment on their activities.

In James -v- Saunders the GMB trade union is funding the Claimant who is one of their representatives against a local blog, "In The Public Domain", more popularly known as "The Sandwell Skidder". The blog exists solely to comment on the doings of Sandwell Council and is, therefore, a niche publication read my those with interest in local affairs. The Claimant is also an employee of the Council via a facility time arrangment.

The blog is hard-hitting and has taken many scalps. It is forthright and sometimes scatalogical but has been running for six years without other legal challenge. You can find it at:

http://thesandwellskidder.blogspot.com/

*****

The Skidder is considering forming "SLAB" - the Society of Local Authority Bloggers - to discuss matters of common purpose and to try and seek some protection in numbers going forward. If you are blogger writing on local government issues and are interested please email Jules (Julian Saunders) at thesandwellskidder@gmail.com

*****

In 2015 the Claimant wrote to an unknown person in the Council saying, "yes, he [ie the blogger] needs stopping and we [ie the GMB] are going to do it." Now the GMB are now spending in excess of £100,000 costs and seeking damages of £50,000 to this end and say they will seek an order for sale of the blogger's matrimonial home of 35 years if he doesn't pay up.

The case continues but in a recent reported hearing the High Court in London considered descriptions of the Claimant as being a "bully", "vicious bully" and "nasty" (a phrase used very frequently by Donald Trump no less!) These were contained in various blogposts (although the Claimant did not bring actions in respect of earlier posts) and in a single tweet.

The Defendant alleged that in 2014 the Claimant did, in fact, viciously bully him so that the epithets were true. He recorded details of the actual incidents in a blog post. When using the various terms he sometimes included a hyperlink to that original post. In other cases he did not.

Justice Steyn made a recent preliminary ruling in the High Court that the words are, indeed, defamatory. The Learned Judge seems to have found that (a) perhaps surprisingly, not everyone would have assumed that the description of the alleged 2014 incident  and sequealae was actually evidence of vicious bullying etc; (b) therefore anyone who did use the hyperlink (where used) may have still been none-the-wiser as to the meaning of the original post; (c) people may not have used the hyperlink (where used) in any event and so would have been left with an understanding of what was being said just from the natural and ordinary meaning of the words the blogger used and (d) the hyperlink was omitted on two occasions so that, once again, the reader would be left with just an interpretation of the meaning of the ordinary words used. This, Steyn J said, led the reader away from considerations of the Claimant's alleged behaviour in 2014 so that the imputation was that the Claimant was/is habitually engaged in bullying and nasty conduct and that such an allegation IS defamatory at common law.

The moral of this story (so far) for local authority bloggers and journo's is that precision is everything. If you intend to describe a person as, for example, a bully you need to be absolutely specific as to the (true) reasons why. If you repeat the allegation you must be extremely careful to particularise the exact reasons why you are making the allegation on each and every occasion. The repetition may not look great stylistically but is absolutely essential.

The case continues......

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The Great British Menu

There is something deeply disturbing about our current fetishisation of the NHS. Any hint of an attack on this admittedly fine organisation is likely to lead to death by a thousand tweets. Any suggestion of even the mildest reform leads to screaming allegations of support for "creeping privatisation".

Most of us who are not super-rich have had dealings with the NHS and can recount excellent experiences. Yet for every such tale we all know from our own experience, or that of family and friends, of failings from the insignificant to the outright horrific.

Our medical service seems to offer good value for money. I have no doubt that it IS underfunded and requires a larger percentage of GDP devoted to it, particularly as an ageing population creates additional demand. But there is nothing for the non-statistician to "benchmark" against. If I collapse in the street am I likely to get better treatment here than in, say, Paris or Berlin? The Spanish health service is usually lauded as excellent but how does it compare with ours? If I contract bowel cancer how long am I likely to survive in England, compared, say, with Norway or the US?

I have an NHS hearing aid. The appointment was via a private shop. The tester there was concerned about something and wrote to my doctor who duly sent me to a very busy hospital department. They did look after me splendidly. Now I carry on and get any newer model of hearing aid or batteries via the private shop. Some people see this as an anathema. But do busy - and very expensive - hospital departments really need to go back to dishing out hearing aids/batteries instead of dealing with more serious stuff? Corbyn and his Marxist chums say "yes" but I don't buy it.

The rich and privileged in Britain have the option of private education and medical treatment. Despite all the b*llshit about British sovereignty and "taking back control" we are a nation of pathetic grovellers - sucking up to the ludicrous royals, aristocracy and the otherwise privileged. There is nothing we like more than bending the knee before these greasers. In turn they love to patronise us plebs and talk down to us.

Which brings us to the Great British Menu where cooks prepare ridiculously expensive and elaborate dishes and serve them with ludicrous "props" to members of some "deserving" organisation. Last year the grub was doled out by the licence fee-payer to the poor starving mites at that ultimate bastion of British snobbery, Wimbledon Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club. (My last post here showed that the whole top Wimbledon Board were white in multi-cultural sarf London!)

This year an elitist "banquet" is to be served to our most egalitarian body. The shtick of the programme - repeated ad nauseum and almost as often as the words "sous vide"* - is that the meal is for the "heroes" of the NHS. As in BBC magazine programmes like "Midlands Today" a nightly sob-story is reeled out - here to illustrate just how, er, heroic individual NHS employees are. This becomes as cloying as a BedPanna Cotta. The rich BBC in full de haut en bas mode have literally decreed "let them eat cake" - and lobster, and venison etc etc.

There is no balance to this inane glorification of an often flawed organisation. I am still waiting for the episode where a "hero" of the medical negligence department explains how his/her workload has expanded exponentially as life-ending or life-changing errors wreck lives and the budget to cover legal costs etc in 2016/17 was £65 BILLION in England alone!

On top of all this we have the presenters condescendingly telling NHS staff just how marvellous they are. But are they themselves patrons of the service they laud to the skies?

I can't comment on Andi Oliver but fellow judge Oliver Peyton married one of the Polizzis - a granddaughter of hotel tycoon Charles Forte. It seems improbable that the famous and wealthy clan are unfamiliar with private medicine and, indeed, when Peyton had addiction issues he hurried to the Celeb's expensive private clinic of choice, The Priory.

The other judge, Matthew Fort is an old Etonian. Having benefited from a private education it is unclear whether he also avails himself of private medicine.

Back in the early days of the NHS one Tory MP often railed against what he called "the unlimited expansion of the Health Service." He preferred a contributory funding regime instead of "socialist" funding via increased taxes etc. He was very much against the proposal for a full-time NHS GP service. He would, no doubt, be horrified at the size and cost of the NHS now. Who was he? Step forward the member for Cl*theroe, Richard Fort - father of.....

So, BBC, do the presenters of this whole charade use private medical services or the NHS? I think licence-payers should be told!

* ie "boil in the bag".

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All White at Wimbledon?

Sometimes - just sometimes - you feel you may have touched a nerve....

Last year I was corresponding about a matter with the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club ie "Wimbledon." They were very efficient and prompt in replying to me and so I took the opportunity to ask how many BAME people were on their top board. There was no response other than a link to a list of names. I thought this was odd and have now taken a look.

Wimbledon runs a magnificent operation but remains a bastion of  English elitism - fawning to our ridiculous royals at every tick and turn etc. The rules provide for all white gear on the courts but is it also "all white" around the boardroom table? "Yes" would appear to be the answer (though it has been as easy as one would imagine to track all board members down).

See if you can spot a non-white face amongst this lot:

Head Honcho - Philip Brook:

Cabinet Sec to War Criminal Tony B-liar - "Lord" Gus O'Donnell:

"Come On Tim" - Tim Henman

The Honourable Bruce Wetherill (son of former Speaker of House of Commons) Ex-Public  (ie private) School - hope I have the right photo here but this guy is definitely not BAME:

Ashley Tatum - left - at Public (ie private) School Old Boys LTA:

Richard Stoakes:

Simon Jones L.V.O.:

Debbie Jevans (Sport England):

Alexandra Innes (had a bit of trouble tracking this one down but hope I have the right person):

Ian Hewitt:

(Richard) Michael Gradon:

Sally Ambrose (I struggled with this one as she appears to hide her light under a bushel if I have the right person. She is described as a "buyer" on ALETC documents and this Sally Ambrose was a top buyer at M&S and is now at the, er, White Company):

In a city where 40.2% are "non-White" there does not appear to be a single BAME person on the top Board. You will have probably noticed that women also constitute just a quarter of the  top flight. Come on Wimbledon - you can do better than this!

Coda:

This Board have a say in who gets VIP passes at the Championships. Despite the elitism they do sometimes slip up and let scum in. And so last year they gave two tickets plus lunches to a vicious thug who, inter alia, hounded a man to his death with vile and completely unfounded allegations. Step forward the now slimline former porker Tom "Ten Bellies" Watson MP.

Watson declared a package worth - and I kid you not - £3,790 for his jolly day out. Given his size at the time it is unclear whether he had two seats to accommodate his massive buttocks or whether he did, in fact, take a guest?

At least now that Watson has given up any pretence that he lives in his hell-hole Sandwell constituency he didn't have far to get back to his south London home. Bless!

Hopefully, the Board won't have repeated the invite this year but then you know what the Establishment is like....

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Twitter: @CrowMultimedia

Smell The Corbyn Coffee!

Jeremy Corbyn has never run anything but his own mouth and the only "work" he appears to have ever done is jack-hammering his honourable member into numerous women. He is thick, lazy and a political dinosaur determined to destroy the democratic infrastructure of this septic isle.

Apart from money he has taken from the brutal, torturing, homophobic Iranian regime he allegedly only has his parliamentary salary, pensions etc and yet he was unable to fill in a simple tax return a couple of years ago and was duly fined. That should fill you with confidence for a man who wants to head the government.

Jeremy Bernard is an economic imbecile who did not know that bonds are debt instruments. Bearing in mind that governments rely on bonds for their borrowing this lack of even basic knowledge from the man with 2 Grade "E" A-levels is truly staggering.

His support for the "socialist" paradise of Venezuela is the mark of the man. A country with colossal oil reserves is mired in poverty and has lurched into dictatorship. People are facing starvation or fleeing into neighbouring countries to seek refuge. You have been warned, Britain!

Corbyn has supported terrorism around the world. At the moment he is purporting to be a "man of p*ss" (sorry, "peace") in respect of Syria but has been a vocal advocate for the Hezbollah terrorist group which has been actively involved in the fighting on the ground there in support of Corbyn's old mate, President Assad.

As a long-standing Birmingham resident I was the sole demonstrator at his Nuremberg Rally on Eastside before the last election. Unlike the morons braying at his every utterance I objected to an IRA supporter coming to lecture us in a city where they murdered so many.

"Jeremy" is fiercely (insofar as this splenetic, ranting Lear can be "fierce") anti-Israel. He gives succour to terrorists groups bent on its total destruction - Hezbollah and Hamas. He claims not to be anti-semitic himself but has surrounded himself with such people. Labour #forthemanynotthejew.

Corbyn is onto his third (official) wife now and she is Mexican so this buffoon thinks this qualifies him to speak about the North American Free Trade Agreement:

I think he needs to have a chat with Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada and President Enrique Pena Nieto before he spouts this sort of b*llocks!

As it happens, his third (official) wife does a very "Islington" thing ie importing fairtrade coffee from "happy" Mexican peasants and attempting to flog it. She runs two companies both of which have just filed accounts on 31st March, 2018.

The first company, Maya, has filed "dormant company accounts" ie it is not trading. The second company is, like Jezza's intellect, tiny and has filed "micro" accounts so that only very limited information is available for Mexica Products Limited:

Clearly Mrs Jezza shares his "socialist" principles - since she owes more than the assets of the miniscule company. But why not stack up outside creditors who can be shafted in the company goes down? Corbyn heeds his wife on matters Mexican but if he listens to her on economics and business we will all be doing the Aztec Two-Step if he and the Trots (geddit?) grab control of this disunited queendom.......

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Jeremy Corbyn "Donations" Mystery?

Why does Jeremy Corbyn take some of his substantial "donations" in the form of fake loans which he is obviously never going to repay? And why are big organisations like Unite the Union* [sic] making loans to him and then writing them off? What is the con going on here?

First Leadership Election, 2015

As ever with "socialists" they are happy to spend the money of other people but less keen on splashing their own cash. Thus only three private individuals (excluding Jon Lansman - see below) actually made declarable donations to the thick, done-nothing, nonentity from Islington. Two of them were vocal supporters of Jeremy's "friends" - the terrorist organisation, Hamas. One infamously wrote:

"The Palestinians have a moral right to their terrorism within historic Palestine..."

But, of course, it was the hard-pressed members of trade unions who were forcibly "taxed" by their leaders to stump up the bulk of the dosh for the Bearded Weirdo. And Unite members, thanks to Corbyn's friend and ally Len McCluskey, were very generous with their members' dues. In the first campaign Corbyn took the following off Unite's members:

£3000.00 - for serviced offices;
£10,762.42 - for secondment of staff, and
£50,000.00 - by way of donation.

In addition to these whopping sums, Unite also made him an "unsecured, interest-free loan" of another colossal £50,000.00 (yes, fifty thousand pounds) on 8th July, 2015. Now Jeffrey Bernard is a wealthy man but even he probably hasn't got £50k hidden in a tin in his allotment shed and it seems improbable that he ever intended to pay this money back to Unite members. So why was this sordid deal dressed up a a fake loan? Why did Unite rig the donation in this way? And yes, those excited Unite workers who are thinking there may be £50k winging its way back to them - this was a forced donation of their money since Unite then kindly "wrote-off" Jezza's debt on 12th September, 2015! What the hell is going on here?

Second Leadership Election, 2016

Labour MP's voted 172 to 40 in a vote of "no-confidence" in their ludicrous leader in 2016 having seen him "inaction" and once again it was mainly trade union members who had to pay the price for Jeremy's deluded ambition.

Two lawyers provided "legal services" for the dimwitted crypto-communist but only two individuals divvied-up for The Messiah (and one of those was Mike Wrack of the FBU).

Once again, those workers who, unlike St Jez, have actually had to face austerity since the Great Crash under the last Labour Government had to flash the cash. The usual suspects paid up but, once again, it was Unite who robbed their members' funds to an astonishing degree.

This time, Unite gave "serviced offices" worth £21,856.15 and then two more huge loans.

On 7th July, 2016 Unite members were obliged to make a loan "for an indefinite period" ("lol") to Jez of a stonking £25,000.00 but just a month later McCluskey "doubled-up" and forced his trade unionists to make another "interest-free loan for an indefinite period" to Popeye of  a stonking £50,00.00.

Once again - why is Jeremy accepting fake loans from workers which he can never repay and why is McCluskey dressing up donations as "loans" in this way?

And yes, of course, on 23rd November, 2016 Unite duly wrote-off both loans to the Islington conman and that was another £75,000.00 of union dues straight down the pan. Now Jeremy, that really IS "a magic money tree!"

Momentum

On 24th June, 2015 Mr Jon Lansman, a former acolyte of another crazed leftie - The Bennatollah - set up two limited companies (limited by guarantee) to support "Jeremy" [sick]. The first was Jeremy Corbyn Campaign 2015 (Supporters) Limited. Lansman was the sole subscriber and director. Lansman used the "standard form" of Articles of Association for this type of company but added a sinister Stasi-esque variation that one of the company's objects was to be "to control and process information collected in the course of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party leadership campaign".

The second company was Jeremy Corbyn Campaign 2015 (Services) Limited. Lansman and a guy called Fletcher were the subscribers and in addition to the standard Articles an additional object was added by Lansman "to act as an employer and undertake various administrative functions in the course of Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party leadership campaign." (Query why this was necessary when Unite members were paying large amounts to support Corbyn's campaign?)

Now there must have been a bit of a cash-flow crises at the start of Jezza's first tilt at the tarnished prize of Labour leadership [sic]. Lansman is said to be a "millionaire". He gives his address as a posh flat in Shad Thames (by Tower Bridge in London) where most of the flats sell for well over £1m. Strangely, Zoopla only value Lansman's hovel at £905,000 but still, hardly Grenfell Tower for this dear old leftie. So Corbyn turned to his rich pal for help.

On 23rd June, 2015 - the day before Lansman set up the two companies - he personally lent Jez £5,123.59p. But clearly Corbyn is a man of honour. Whilst happy to shaft Unite members over their alleged "loans" to him The Saint wouldn't sh*t on "one's" rich mate. Thus Jon didn't have to wait long for repayment - indeed the wealthy hard-line Trot got his cash BACK just a month later on 24th July, 2015 when the union cash taps started to flow!

All this research started thanks to a good spot by my old mate Bob Woods - a life-long Labour Party Member, trade unionist and award-receiving trade union employee. Of course, that track record is no longer valued by Labour "members" and he is currently being hammered on social media for daring to speak out against the joke Corbyn!

Bob saw the following "advert" and expressed the view that this gave an outward impression of being a Labour-Party site. Indeed, the "join the Labour Party" button does take one to the official Party site whereas the "donate" button invites one to make donations to "Jeremy for Labour Limited" which, after a bust-up within Corbyn's Momentum, is a reincarnation of the aforementioned Jeremy Corbyn Campaign 2015 (Supporters) Limited. The person with "significant control" of this Comany remains Jon Lansman. Incidentally, this is now the third name for this company since between October, 2015 and July, 2016 it was known as Momentum Campaigns Limited.

The curious thing here is that this company was in existence for the first leadership contest and that Corbyn had thousands of £3 Trotsyist infiltrators - sorry, valued new Labour Party members - howling at the moon yet Lansman filed "dormant company accounts" made up to 30th June, 2016. We know that alleged "socialists" can't organise a p*ss-up in a Shad Thames wine bar but this filing suggests that the Company received no donations whatsoever in support of the great man for over a year from the crazed Corbynistas!

No doubt cash is now rolling in. But if you don't want to donate via the site I can give you the address of Lansman's luxury Thames-side flat should you wish to send donations direct "lol"!

Anyone who has had anything do do with the hard lefties will know that they constantly fight like cats in a sack. The old Jeremy Corbyn Campaign 2015 (Services) Limited has now become Momentum Campaign (Services) Limited. When Lansman and Fletcher still had control, accounts made up to 30th June, 2016 showed that they had mustered some money from somewhere since on that date the Company had net assets of £49,557. Alas the law allows the Company to only file abbreviated accounts so that the source of the cash can be kept secret. But 12 days later Lansman and Fletcher let the Company  - yes, you guessed it - make an unsecured, interest free LOAN to Jeremy Corbyn of no less than £50,000.00 for an indefinite period! Clearly Corbyn has no intention of ever paying this money back from his own considerable resources, gold-plated pensions etc and so why has this "donation" again been dressed up as a loan? Perhaps Unite members will stump up when Momentum need the dosh for something else and the crafty commies have cleverly not formally written this loan off in case some other mugs come along to give dosh to JBC which can then be legally diverted back to Momentum. Perhaps that is why two lawyers, including a QC, have helped the "Corbyn" campaign?

As with Corbyn himself this whole loan business reeks of deceit. The moral of the story [sic] is if you ever want to lend money to Steptoe and get it back, change your name to Jon Lansman! "Millionaire" personal friends of the Sage of Islington are "preferential creditors" before trade unionists.

(Of course, as with most left-wing sects the members have fallen out and Lansman and Fletcher are no longer involved with the Company Momentum Campaign (Services) Limited.

* Declaration of interest - the writer and his wife have been subjected to a vicious Twitter trolling campaign by the bullies at Unite orchestrated by one of their West Midlands Regional Organisers, Brian Rickers.

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