No Such Thing as Bad Publicity

Right. This is both sinister and hilarious.

The Guardian newspaper has been slapped with an injunction preventing it, for the first time anyone can remember, from reporting parliamentary proceedings, viz. a question properly placed upon the Order Paper to be answered by a minister later in the week.

Bearing in mind that the Order Paper is a document of public record and that both the question and the answer will be delivered upon the floor of the House of Commons (and anyone with half a mind to do so can go and listen to the exchange), it is Kafkaesque in the extreme that:

"The Guardian is prevented from identifying the MP who has asked the question, what the question is, which minister might answer it, or where the question is to be found.

The Guardian is also forbidden from telling its readers why the paper is prevented – for the first time in memory – from reporting parliament. Legal obstacles, which cannot be identified, involve proceedings, which cannot be mentioned, on behalf of a client who must remain secret."

Indeed the only fact the Guardian can report is that the case involves everybody's favourite libel funsters Carter-Ruck & Partners.

What's this all about? Matters of grave national security? Deeply damaging personal slanders about some incredibly important pillar of the community?

No! According to speculation on the Guido Fawkes blog, and elsewhere, it's that old chestnut Big business dumping toxic shit on Africans.

From Wikileaks (page now itself taken down): "Following press reportage about dumping off the coast of Africa, Waterson & Hicks, a UK law firm acting for the large London based oil and commodity trader, Trafigura, ordered and received this confidential report (the so-called "Minton report") into toxic dumping practices by its client along and on the Ivory Coast.

The report reveals a number of toxic dumping incidents and appears to be the report behind this extraordinary secret gagging of the Guardian newspaper (article Oct 12). "

It seems that the parliamentary question in, er, question, may be this:

Paul Farrelly (Newcastle-under-Lyme) - To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of legislation to protect (a) whistleblowers and (b) press freedom following the injunctions obtained in the High Court by (i) Barclays and Freshfields solicitors on 19 March 2009 on the publication of internal Barclays reports documenting alleged tax avoidance schemes and (ii) Trafigura and Carter-Ruck solicitors on 11 September 2009 on the publication of the Minton report on the alleged dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, commissioned by Trafigura.

Now while the Guardian has been slapped into line - for now - the Twitterverse and the blogosphere are going stir buggo. Alex Massie in The Spectator has had the stones to pick up the story and run with it.

Odd to think that freedom to report parliamentary carry-on was initially enshrined in the 1688 Bill of Rights and has been debated, and upheld, over the subsequent 300 years or so.

With all the hoo-ha, it's virtually guaranteed that what would otherwise have been a relatively obscure piece buried on page 27 is turning into a front-page three-ring circus...


UPDATE

Wonder whether they'll be able to injunct the European Parliament?

UPDATE 2

At about 1 pm Alan Rusbridger, The Guardian's editor, announced via Twitter (somewhat appropriately) that Carter Ruck & Co. had caved in. The paper is now free to report what's been all over the net all day. Chalk it up as a victory for freedom of speech won by the bloggers.