The Growing Campaign on Libel

Very good to see Nick Cohen banging the drum for the reform of the libel laws in today’s Observer. He raises the case of the mathematicians who dismantled the economic models of the bankers who destroyed the UK’s financial system. Ministers have urged them to speak out, but they are wisely wary of the libel laws and the way they have been used by chiropracters against their fellow rationalist Simon Singh.

Here’s Nick: “The naive, who suppose that the law would protect mathematicians who told the truth, do not understand the wretched condition of freedom of speech in England. The exorbitant costs of libel actions are far beyond the means of all academics and, increasingly, most newspapers; Simon Singh can only fight the chiropractors because he is the author of four international bestsellers. As important, the law is biased against defendants and judges put the worst possible interpretation on a writer’s words.