Events | 2009.11.24
Hugh Muir's diary
The sounds of the Ku Klux Klan? Nonsense, just a bit of Arabian belly dancer warbling, that\'s all
England\'s libel law "does not reflect the interests of a modern democratic society", said the writers\' charity Pen and Index on Censorship last week. And there are some strange things going on in the land of litigation. But not much stranger than the battle that began in a south London employment tribunal yesterday. Two former employees of Hays, Britain\'s biggest recruitment firm, claim, among other things, that they were subjected to Ku Klux Klan-style chanting from a colleague. They and a third also complain about the circulation of a racist email about President Obama. The company strongly denies any wrongdoing. The man wasn\'t doing the Ku Klux Klan, it says. He impersonated an Arabian belly dancer. And the Obama email? We saw it, we acted. But it is doing much more than that, because following a report in the Sunday Mirror, Hays has also issued a writ for libel – not against the might of the Mirror, but against the tribunal claimants individually. That case starts in February and if the former employees stand firm and lose, they\'re ruined. Also in the frame is the go-between who took them to the Sunday Mirror. Everyone but the paper itself. Indeed the article is still there for viewing on the internet. But that\'s not all. Before the claimants\' were legally represented, they communicated, and to access those emails Hays has made a third-party application against their internet providers, Yahoo and Virgin. Some will say Hays is merely using the law to its fullest extent, and that is the company\'s right. But isn\'t that just proof that the law needs looking at again?
What will be the repercussions from Peter Oborne\'s Channel 4 documentary Inside Britain\'s Israel Lobby? Days of controversy, no doubt. And more than a few ructions in Kensington, where Oborne sits pretty as a renowned columnist on the Daily Mail, but so does our dear friend, the equally revered Melanie Phillips. A high-profile supporter of Israel, she is, to judge by her writings yesterday, none too pleased about the stance being taken by her fellow columnist. She was also less than impressed by his arguments last month supporting the "pernicious" Human Rights Act. Some consider that on this trajectory, Dacre\'s town may not be big enough for the both of them. Oh dear. How to choose?
And this is how it works in the literary circles of the right. Andrew Roberts writes The Storm of War, a history of the second world war. Richard Evans, professor of modern history at the University of Cambridge, doesn\'t like it. In the Times Literary Supplement he reviews it harshly. So Simon Heffer, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, reviews Professor Evans harshly (Maybe Evans is jealous. His own books don\'t sell). And then there\'s full disclosure: "Let me own up. Mr Roberts is a very old friend, and godfather to my younger son," admits Heffer, though he says he would have written the article in any event. You don\'t have to be a friend to have Heffer smite your enemies. But at the end of the day, it helps.
We told last week of a spoof letter written in the guise of Tracey Emin . Someone was trying to make her look silly, we concluded. Superfluous. So her show at a gallery in Los Angeles didn\'t go as planned. But, as she tells Artinfo, who even knew she was there? "I chose the wrong hotel. The Beverly Hills. I should have chosen a hotel who knew who I was, who knew they were going to get maximum really good positive energy and publicity. I used to stay at the Mondrian, with the rap bands. And they would sit around the pool with all their gold, and when I look back on it, I fit in well, in that rap scene." Ah yes, Tracey (pictured) and 50 Cent. Are they not one and the same?
Finally, be sure that Tories are not taking the BNP threat lightly. We\'ll see off this "Nick Griffiths", shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve, told the Society of Editors yesterday. It\'s one of David Caramel\'s top priorities.
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/17/hugh-muirs-diary
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