The Evening Standard has won a significant victory in a High Court libel battle brought by a Conservative MP.
Jacqui Lait, MP for Beckenham, had sued over an article headlined “Women MPs will be put off by Kelly reforms”.
Mr Justice Eady today struck out elements of her claim and ordered her to pay £10,400 legal costs.
The November 2009 article correctly pointed out Ms Lait had claimed “large sums” to travel to her family home in Sussex even though her constituency home is only 11 miles from Westminster…
The judge said it was “unreal to suggest that readers of the Evening Standard would not think the worse of an MP who had taken advantage of (or “milked”) the expenses system simply because he or she had stayed within the letter of the law.”
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Recent Comments
James Dennison
Thanks David. I certainly didn't mean to imply that the UK begins and ends with England — rather, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland already have substantia...
James Dennison
Thanks Jana. My instinct would be to approach this from the other direction: rather than create a new English Parliament to exercise the powers currently exerci...
Jana
“ Give England institutional expression” Just ‘institutional expression’? Unless it is viewed as acceptable that criminal laws in England, for exampl...
David Raw
Professor Dennison write, "England does not need another large parliament or bureaucracy"..................... and goes on continually refer to England. Writ...
Jana
We don’t need a cap on donations - we need a cap on total spending by each political party, both on routine running costs each year and on specific election c...


One Comment
Hmm…
I feel a Focus coming on :oD