Spiked Milligan?

Louise Milligan

Nobody can seriously doubt, I think, that Christian Porter would not have been facing calls for a public enquiry (funded by the taxpayer) into allegations against him but for the fact that he is a prominent figure in the Australian government. Understandably, he has concluded that it is necessary for him to clear his name by commencing defamation proceedings against the ABC and its reporter Louise Milligan for repeating these allegations.

In that sense, the legal costs that he will incur in that proceeding arise as an incident of his role as a cabinet minister. Nevertheless, there have been strident calls designed to prevent any part of those costs being paid for out of the public purse.

Conversely, the costs of the ABC will inevitably be paid for out of the public purse. As I understand the Charter of the ABC[1], there is nothing which requires or permits the ABC to engage in political or social campaigning, and yet there are those who apparently assert that it is the duty of the ABC to hound Mr Porter. Certainly, the reports that we have seen so far of the contents of the 33 page statement of the now-dead lady at the centre of the allegations suggest that the ABC was highly selective in what it reported, including material pointing the finger at Mr Porter but excluding material which suggests that the lady’s account was not true, but a fantasy triggered by the “recovered memories” theories of American psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk[2].  It seems likely that the ABC will not assert that the allegations are true (although they might?) but will instead seek to rely on some sort of “fair comment” defence.[3]

But here’s the question: who will pay the costs of Louise Milligan? Will ABC (and hence the taxpayer) cover her legal costs, regardless of the outcome?

SNP Exposed

Less titillating than the recent Megan Markle interview, but much more important, is David Davies’ telling expose in the House of Commons of the SNP’s scandalous behaviour in the persecution of Alex Salmon.

“Butt out of Scottish affairs”, the SNP are saying on Twitter, and probably elsewhere. But the Scottish parliament is the creature, and subject to, the Parliament of the whole of the UK (including Scotland of course). Are the failures of the Scottish Parliament to control the SNP’s misconduct a function of Westminster having ceded too much power to Holyrood? Too little power? Or power of the wrong sort? These are questions Westminster should ask itself.

Brilliant

One or two people have remarked, quite rightly, about how good The Media Show interview of Andrew Neil is. This is Andrew Neil, not interviewing, but being interviewed.

He shows how it should be done. Not only are his answers to the point of the questions, but they are candid and, perhaps more importantly, his answers are consistently more interesting than the questions. It is not always so these days. The era of “gotcha” interviews has meant that all too often people being interviewed treat the whole process as a defensive campaign, in which the objective is to give away as little as possible.

There is no false modesty; Andrew Neil is understandably proud of a number of his achievements. In respect of some things, he says, “I would have done it differently if I were to do it again”, but in respect of others, he says, “Yes, that worked pretty well”.