Tag Archives: ryan giggs

Stephen Tall

What’s the difference between Ryan Giggs and Ed Miliband? Nick Clegg tells all…

By Stephen Tall | Thu 16th June 2011 - 10:15 pm

In the USA they have the White House correspondents’ dinner, an occasion for leading politicians to take pot-shots at the media, themselves, and – most crucially – their opponents. Barack Obama’s quip-assault on Donald Trump ended the wannabe Republican presidential hopes before they’d begun.

The UK has no equivalent, but (as PoliticsHome’s Paul Waugh notes) the Parliamentary Press Gallery lunches are the nearest equivalent. And today was Nick Clegg’s turn to convey a serious message… whilst landing a jab or two. So, who was in Nick’s sights? Step forward Labour’s troubled leader Ed Miliband, and one-time rival Chris Huhne. …

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Joe Taylor

Opinion: The PCC are to blame for the Ryan Giggs fiasco

By Joe Taylor | Thu 26th May 2011 - 9:53 am

At Conference last September, I proposed a motion that called for new rules to beef up the PCC, making it more independent of newspaper editors and giving it real powers to regulate the wilder elements of the press. The motion called on Lib Dem ministers to act now in the face of a growing number of legal injunctions that were being fuelled by lack of confidence in the regulator. In the long run lack of action would stand to restrict press freedom, I argued, because it would give weight to calls for an illiberal privacy law whereby politicians could …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 25 Comments
John Hemming MP

John Hemming MP writes: This country has allowed too much secret justice to develop

By John Hemming MP | Tue 24th May 2011 - 10:22 am

What Ryan Giggs wished to kept secret was a trivial issue that has been widely publicised as a result of him having the injunction. It was estimated that some 60% of the population knew who he was.

However, last week he started through his lawyers the process of enforcement of the court order. That was being done through getting from Twitter the details of people who had posted entries on Twitter. Anyone who wanted to keep their identity secret could do so. Hence the only targets they would get are people who live in England or Wales and have posted …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , and | 46 Comments
Stephen Tall

Was Lib Dem MP John Hemming right to name Ryan Giggs as superinjunction footballer?

By Stephen Tall | Mon 23rd May 2011 - 8:05 pm

The media can now, openly and legitimately, report the name of the Premiership footballer alleged to have had an affair with a former reality show contestant. That the name ‘Ryan Giggs’ is public is down to Lib Dem MP John Hemming, who ‘outed’ the Manchester United star in the House of Commons this afternoon using Parliamentary privilege. As BBC News reports:

Addressing MPs, Mr Hemming said: “Mr Speaker, with about 75,000 people having named Ryan Giggs it is obviously impracticable to imprison them all.”

House of Commons speaker John Bercow interrupted the MP saying: “Let me just say to the honourable

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 66 Comments
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