LORD BLOODY CROSSHARBOUR

Hog on Ice bashes the stringent libel laws of the UK and Canada:

Remember when former comedian/current whining pussy John Cleese filed suit against a British newspaper and won? Perhaps not. Well, he did. Evidently, in England, you can sue people for saying mean things about you. Some would call Cleese a hypocrite; a comedian who got rich off of mean humor, suing someone for being rude to him. I'm content to call him "whining pussy."
Looks like you can pull the same B.S. in Canada. Conrad Black, a rich Canadian person about whom I know absolutely nothing, is suing a cartoonist and a writer for making fun of him. The writer lampooned him in an essay, and the accompanying cartoon showed him arriving in hell in a convertible. Black complains about his pain and suffering, but the article says nothing about the cartoon or essay being libelous. In other words, there is no indication that anyone lied about him.

He also takes a shot at Lord Black of Crossharbour:

Conrad Black is a fatass. Conrad Black eats babies. Conrad Black has sex with chickens, and then he never calls. I can write this stuff all day long, and Conrad Black can go screw himself, because there isn't one damn thing he can do about it. Thank God I don't live in Canada.

I used to write similar things about Lord Black during my student newspaper days – though I rather warmed to the man after he founded the National Post and had the rather public spat with Chretien. His recent troubles have prompted another revaluation.

Black has always been too quick to take libel action and the Canadian justice system has been far too accommodating. In the late 1980's, as an aspiring reporter I had felt basically the same as most of the Canadian media:

A more immediate reason (that the Canadian media hate him) is that Black has either sued or threatened to sue for libel 15 times, according to the count kept by Financial Post journalist Richard Siklos in his 1995 biography, Shades Of Black. The man just isn't one of us.

It's easy to target Black, as well as Lee Kwan-yew and family, for their constant use of strict libel laws to quiet their opponents. But they are just using the laws that are available to them (and in the Singapore government's case the laws that it has perpetuated).

The libel laws in most of the Commonwealth are in general far too accommodating for planitiffs and far too punishing for defendants. This is true for Singapore more so than any of the Commonwealth's other developed states (as I'm sure Hicky would agree).

While it's reasonable to have legal means available to defend against libel or slander, the legal systems of the UK, Canada, Australia and - especially - Singapore essentially provide the means for the powerful to quash dissent or legitimate criticism or satire simply through the threat of a lawsuit.

Black, for instance, is suing for 'defamation' and not libel. That means that even if the contentious statement could be proven true (unlikely, as it suggested his Lordship was hellbound) he could still receive an award if the comments were proven to be damaging.

I once said that I would refrain from criticizing public personalities of local politicians here and instead focus on policies. So, on matters of libel and defamation my main criticism remains on the law, which is an archaic example of the pre-industrial feudal English system and is no more reasonable than the laws that once permitted slavery.

Still, the main justification that Singapore's politicians use for launching such suits is that they are defending their reputations, with that it may be insightful to note my impressions of Lord Tubby.

I had briefly admired Black but his actions against Toronto Life have done more damage to my positive impression of him than even the recent allegations of cronyism. That's not because I doubt that the statements were defamatory - it's just because he has demonstrated himself to be a thin-skinned bully.