Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Cash for Peerages, more on how the Guardian got away with it

I just watched an interview by John Snow, on Channel 4 news, of Alan Rusbridger, editor of the Guardian.

Apparently the Attorney General started the process of getting an injunction around about 8 PM last night. Alan apparently made it clear that if they were shown the terms of the injunction, they would, for a time at least abide by it, looking to argue it the following day. However the Attorney General refused and spent the time arguing for a new one.

How silly. Still, the rest as they say is history.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is very odd. Why could not the Attorney-General's people show the Guardian the first injunction, ask for an undertaking in identical terms, and explain why they were asking for such an undertaking? Could the terms of the original, BBC, injunction have been so specific that even to reveal them would have given the game away?

Anonymous said...

presumably becuase the first injunction contains the information being injuncted, and thus for the ag to show it to the gruan, the ag would be in breach of the injunction itself.

or, as the gruan hints, they were simply being bullied and the terms of the 1st injunction would not have covered the gruan. ie, the gruan called the ag's bluff and won.

Anonymous said...

fmk [9.16 PM] I suspect your second surmise is correct. Rusbridger said this evening, on Channel 4 News, that counsel for the A-G would not explain his reasons for seeking the injunction. Again, that's very odd. He must have given reasons to the judge and Rusbridger's people must have argued that those reasons were insufficient.

Benedict White said...

Interesting comments, Trumpeter Lanfried and fmk, it simply just does not make sense does it?

Still, the Ag has had his bluff called and lost.