The fall of Arcadia?

Tom Paine suspects that the storm generated by Guido and Iain may well hail the end of the glory days of British blogging as public figures begin to take notice.

I am also worried. Prescott's friends are urging him, it has been reported, to sue them and have their sites closed down.
...

If the wealthy supporters of Labour choose to fund actions against bloggers, it will not matter if they wrote the truth or not. It will only matter if they can prove it. The best defence to defamation is "justification" - i.e. that the statement complained of was true. Against politicians there is a more useful defence, that the statement (if not true) was "fair comment on a matter of public interest".

Tom cites The Kitchen as being one of those blogs which might well fall foul of the libel laws: he thinks it unlikely that any jury would agree that repeatedly calling Prescott a fat, ignorant, corrupt, sexually-aggressive cunt is "fair comment". He may be right.

Personally, I think that it is more than fair; I think that I let Prescott off rather lightly.

I fear the glory days of British political blogging may be over. I doubt if even Prescott is daft enough to sue on an allegation which he has failed to deny, despite being given ample opportunity. However, when Guido's readership passed that of Private Eye, he became the sort of target that the Eye has long been.

Only the authentically poor can afford to say what they please. Those with assets and families to support must be careful.

He may well be right. Rest assured, however, that your humble Devil will keep on calling it like he sees it until the writ is unavoidable...

UPDATE: In the meantime, Sir Gus O'Donnell says that it is not up to him to investigate Prescott. (Sir Gus, you will remember, was the man who cleared Tessa Jowell of any wrongdoing over her money-laundering husband's £400,000 gift that she knew nothing about.)

In his reply, Sir Gus said Mr Prescott had now declared his stay at the ranch in the MPs' register of interests.

But the civil servants who had accompanied him on the visit had not logged the stay in the department's register of hospitality.

"I have ensured that this has now been done," said Sir Gus. "My view is that the officials should have been advised to do so at the time.

"However, I am satisfied that this has not affected their subsequent advice or actions."

So that's alright then. Of course, it is a relief to know that Sir Gus, at least, does not prey on his secretaries: to do so, he'd have to be in possession of some fucking balls.

Mr Swire said he was "astonished" Sir Gus had not cleared Mr Prescott but instead failed to investigate.

"To treat such a serious allegation in this manner completely undermines the ministerial code," he said.

"Unless these concerns are taken seriously it will undermine any suggestion that the code in any way guarantees the standards of behaviour of government ministers."

But we know this to be the case. Like many NuLabour inventions, such as the declaration of party donations, the ministerial code is simply window-dressing designed to fool people into thinking that something substantial has been done to safeguard certain standards. As with every other rule, NuLabour simply circumvent it.

This lot make John Major's government look like the very soul of probity.