Sunny, this is pathetic partisan tripe. You yourself saw the racist nature of the leaflets – has someone in Labour HQ tapped on your shoulder to re-direct accusations of bigotry at the Lib Dems? You’re siding with the racist Woolas. No wonder people hate Labour.

How is Sunny ‘siding with Phil Woolas’? We ran an article during the trial saying that regardless of the legal verdict, he should be kicked out of the Labour Party.

You wrote that article, Dan. I wanna see Sunny publicly say that he thinks this racist bastard should be kicked out of the party. Will he hold his tongue for fear of getting in trouble with the top brass?

Arif Ansari has commented plenty on Oldham East and Saddleworth. I am doubtful that anything that Ansari has said will come to pass. He hasn’t stated where that 200k figure has come from – an ironic shadow of the whole court case?

Ansari, and Woolas’ buddy Crick, are allowed their own views and inclinations, obviously. But I, for one, would prefer it if they could just maintain a little integrity when they’re doing their pieces to camera or writing their blog.

If they hadn’t been so quick to run with the lies that Woolas was spouting before the election (and with no evidence), perhaps the courts wouldn’t now be being asked to meddle in what should be the democratic process of electing an MP.

Blanco

Sunny questioned whether I thought it was wrong to criticise woolas over his campaign because I had said that his attacks on David Miliband went over the line of treating other lefties as the enemy. (My point being that the left should disagree as friends – and so not name call, accuse of being the enthral to the daily mail, and so on.

Obviously I don’t think it wrong and his question was a misunderstanding that my desire for respect across the left was a call for party unity.

But it leads me to think his sympathies here lay a long long way from Mr Woolas. He does in fact really dislike Woolas and has very strong views about his campaign (which many of us do).

You’re siding with the racist Woolas. No wonder people hate Labour.

Jesus. Do you actually read anything posted here?

And anyway – this is written up as a news story. Stop whining like an immature little brat, it’s quite unedifying.

Interestingly – although I think the campaign was awful – I have to say I don’t really approve of using the law in politics in this way.

The fact is that political campaigning is partly emotional, partly impassioned, and partly interpretation. Trying to use the law to regulate democracy is in effect an attempt to circumvent deomcratic will. If a campaign was awful (and his was) it is for the electorate to punish him.

If they don’t well then it obviously wasn’t awful to them and he is reflecting the views of the public – which is how democracy works.

remember – it is one thing to back this sort of action when you don’t like the campaign in question – but in doing so you thus accept the same action should be focused on your own campaigns.

@7

Yes, but it’s one thing to have an impassioned campaign and all the rest and a quite different thing to falsely accuse your opponent of something. F’rinstance, if I was running for election and you were my opponent, and I put out a load of leaflets calling you a drug-dealing paedo who doesn’t pay his license fee, you’d be well within your rights to resort to the law. Indeed to have a healthy democracy we require the law to be used correctly and stop people telling porkies about others. Of course, it remains to be seen whether Woolas did lie about his opponent or not – but he’s still a racist bastard & I agreed with Don’s piece the other day that he (Woolas) should be kicked out of the party.

“Libdem could lose £200k in case against Woolas”

Presumably that’s why Sunny’s new comrades in BNPlite run these racist campaigns.

Not many people would be willing to risk that much cash to bring the scumbags to justice.

Re blanco @ 1 and 3: I can’t see how this post is in anyway pro-Woolas. Its just stating that something is the case.

Like Aled Dilwyn-Fisher in the tweets above, my response is: Shouldn’t we help the candidate with his legal costs if he ahs to pay them? He surely did a service to democracy by challenging what Woolas did.

8

Agree that if they accuse of of criminality the defamation case is pretty clear cut. But lying about a campaign happens all the time. The Tories attacked Labour over the various lies they told about what the Tories would do if they got in.

That many of those lies have since turned out to be true might in fact make the case for labour candidates taking tory candidates to court over the smear that they would lie.

And that’s where the problem is. Obviously out and out defamation is unreasonable. But political campaigning rarely does anything that personal with that level of clarity.

Never mind risk, PDF, simply have that much cash in the first place.

This is something that really concerns me about politics – the wealth it appears you need to have in order to become an MP. It seems to me like you need to dedicate tens of thousands of pounds to fund a successful campaign. Sure, donations are important, but I suspect that a candidate is required to put up a large chunk of money themselves.

@11

“The Tories attacked Labour over the various lies they told about what the Tories would do if they got in.”

Heh, yeah – Lab said the Cons would make cuts to the winter fuel payment and remove security of tenure for HB claiments, and that never happened oops.

It is a tricky one and I think it’s good that it’s got this far in court proceedings as for too long campaigns have been very messy mud-flinging affairs and frankly it puts people off (and I’m talking about all parties here). I mean there’s a reason why 40% of the country don’t vote.
Course Woolas will probably be found not guilty because of the whole reasonable doubt thingymabob, doesn’t stop him being an arsehole though.

Stuart – I’m told that Woolas could lose about the same amount if he loses the case… so it’s not just one side.

Sunny

wonder why you didn’t put that line in up top of your piece?

Without it, the headline implicitly leans towards suggesting the libdem is likely to lose that money…

Eg a more balanced headline:

Losing side could owe up to £200K in the Libdem/Labour Woolas case

I have to agree that Sunny himeslf has yet to say the things about Woolas that others are prepared to. Additionally, you can safely remove the word “allegedly” when referring to the emails that Fitzpatrixk sent. It was included in the witness bundles that the Labour Party were forced to supply.

16

That’s just not true. Sunny has attacked Woolas quite a lot over the last few months.

13

“doesn’t stop him being an arsehole”

Exactly, and far from having courts decide that, the electoral system should decide that. Voters can vote him out when their time comes, and the party can cast him out if it feels he is a liability and not some one in tune with their core beliefs.

In truth he probably won’t be found guilty because he probably didn’t do anything illegal. He gave an interpretation of a situation and on his opponent’s campaign. It was an awful interpretation and one I reject utterly. But it is unlikely he overstepped that mark into anything tangibly illegal.

But then why does this law exist at all?

I believe that the judges made it clear several times what the true purpose of Section 106 is. They explained that the laws of libel and the possibility of its use are totally insufficient in a election situation when there is a specific deadline. In other words, by the time the matter can be resolved then it is too late, especially if you take the attitude that it can all be left until the next election.

The law was introduced not to protect the interests of defeated candidates but those of the electorate as a whole. It is not an anti-democratic move to take issues such as this to court, actually it is an intrinsic part of the democratic process to be able to do so. In some ways the fact that it is so infrequently invoked could be an indication of how useful it is to have it in store.

Regarding who will lose money it is my understanding that the main political parties all have legal insurance that covers their candidates against being sued as a result of being their candidate.

It is also my understanding that this insurance does not cover inititating legal action against another candidate.

Therefore it is probably correct that the Lib Dem stands to lose a great deal of (apparently someone else’s) money and that the Labour bloke will be OK – at least financially…….

I’d like to thank Steven Acres for that clarification.

#19 Joe is right to assume that the central offices of political parties provide legal insurance for candidates. But that insurance is to cover accidental offences (campaign overspending by £100, even mistaken accusations about another candidate that might be mitigated by a formal apology). The insurers will not pay up if a candidate or agent intentionally libels an opponent.