Our Lips Are Sealed (slight return). Or Superinjunction, on and on and on...

It's the story that won't lie down.  Big Brother 'star' Imogen Thomas has been back in court seeking to get the superinjunction stopping her publishing details of her affair with a footballer, amid counter claims of blackmail demands.

She lost.  The footballer - whose identity is already known to anyone who wants to know - won.  They sound like lovely people.

Meanwhile Lord Stoneham, the Liberal Democrat peer (yes, you know, that Lord Stoneham - er no, me neither) waded into the whole mess naming former Royal Bank of Scotland Chief Executive Fred Goodwin as having taken out a superinjunction to prevent publication of his affair with another high profile banker at the time RBS was collapsing.

The argument used by Lord Stoneham is that Goodwin's affair meant the CEO did not have his mind on his job at the time RBS collapsed and required bailing out with tax payers money.

A very weak arguement in my book. It looks like a case of using Parliamentary privilege to blow a hole in superinjunctions as a whole.  Fine.  A laudable aim and Lord Stoneham picked a good target.  Even if it feels a bit like 'we can't get you for anything else Fred, so let's at least embarrass you in public.'  Still there are lawyers all over the radio complaining about it, so Lord Stoneham must have done something right!

Is this what Nick Clegg means by 'muscular liberalism'?




I suspect I'm not the only one to wonder how those who oversaw the banking crisis ride off into the sunset with wheelbarrows full of cash, rather than off to jail for fraud, but that's a point for another blog... 

While wandering off the point, I'll just note in passing that the proposed reform of the Lords is set to include elected peers. Good?  Well it might be, but their term of office will be 15 years.  15 Years?  That's not a term of office, it's a career! 

Meanwhile Lord Neuberger's review into the use of superinjunctions is about to announce that journalists will be allowed in to future superinjunction hearings.  I guess the theory is to bring journalists into the 'secret circle'.  Admirable, it may be, but I can't see widening the circle of those in the know, as an effective way to maintain a law biased in favour of the rich and powerful.

The latest interest in super injunctions was sparked by the 'Billy Jones' Twitter page listing in six tweets some of the 'celebrities' hiding behind superinjunctions.  I don't know who opened that Twitter account, but I have read several suggestions that it was either a journalist or a friend of one acting on their behalf.

Nobody seems to know but there are a lot of people suggesting it - and it wouldn't be the first time.  In fact getting something published in another territory to circumnavigate a legal ruling in one country is old news.

Apparently it's called 'information laundering' and it certainly dates back to 'Spycatcher' and probably beyond.  But what took months and getting an Australian publisher in 1987, now takes minutes in cyberspace with Twitter and a dummy email account.

In the last week Max Mosely has also been in court, failing to get a ruling requiring newpapers to contact the subject of any story before publication.  While Mosely himself may have had a raw deal from the press, his proposal would just have led to more superinjunctions.  Hardly a satisfactory solution.  Unless you happen to be one of the super rich who wants to buy their own law.

After the ruling, Mosely was asked how he felt about the Twitter exposure of some superinjunctions.  His response?  'It's one step up from pub gossip'.  

While it is true that there is a lot of scurrilous nonsense on Twitter and the web generally, it is becoming a source of news for mainstram media to then go and corroborate.  Which is why it does matter and why I suspect that those who make our laws are the last to catch on.

It'll run and run.  Just like the pages of legal invoices...