In this week’s issue of The Spectator, Peter Hitchens defends the once-famous, once-sainted Bishop Bell of Chichester from the Church of England’s claim that he was guilty of child abuse. I do not know the facts of this case, but if Hitchens is right, the Bell case is yet another example of people’s readiness to say untrue things about the dead, secure in the knowledge that the libel law cannot go after them.
Naturally, I am not arguing for the law to extend to the dead (think of the furious suits in support of the prophet Mohammed which would ensue), but all the more reason for the living to defend the reputation of the departed. This is why I am pursuing the claim by Professor Sir Geoff Palmer that in 1964, at an interview for a MSc course subsidised by the Ministry of Agriculture, Sir Keith Joseph told him to go home and grow bananas.
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