Silencing Court Jesters
The role of a court jester was subtler than you might think, he made fun of the king and his courtiers in such a way as to often tell truths which could not be said directly. A strong king did not fear the role of the jester, knowing it was a safety valve for dissent and an indirect source of intelligence that would be otherwise difficult to convey to his face. A wise king who was lucky enough to have a clever court jester could learn much from how the court reacted to his japes and court observers could learn from how the king reacted more than might otherwise have been known.
Only a king too weak or too arrogant would find a jester insufferable. Jesters strengthened kingdoms.
It seems to Guido that today the rich and the powerful are too arrogant and perhaps too afraid of the media, much as weak kings feared the jester, they fear an unfettered free press.
In an age of moral relativism the court of public opinion is so often the only one we have in which to judge public figures. The politician who disports himself naked in parliament - like Nigel Griffiths did – may feel no shame, his wife may be blameless, his party may stay silent, but should he really be able to hide his foolishness from the voters? Should he be able to go to the Courts to protect his privacy after literally cavorting with his lover in the public offices of parliament? He won an injunction to stop a free press reporting the full truth about him to his voters. That seems to Guido to be dangerous to our freedom and to the exercise of informed choice in a democracy.
Celebrities who use their wholesome image to endorse products similarly protect their commercial value using the Court to cover up their sordid reality.
Celebrities, soap stars and footballers go to Courts of Law to avoid being judged by the court of public opinion. If they succeed they escape censure and society is worse off in two ways; public figures get away with behaviour which society rightly disdains and they still manage to project a false self-image without the truth being exposed to the society they deceive. Secondly there will exist in society those who know the truth about public figures – mainly people in the media, politics and the law – and those who are kept ignorant like Roman plebeians. That can’t be right.
Fear of widespread humiliation and popular opprobrium are two social restraints on the tendency of flawed humans to succumb to their baser instincts. It is an unfortunate fact that many of the characteristics which drive men to power are the same that make them scoundrels. If society wants those who rise to fame and fortune to behave less scandalously, society should keep the justified fear of exposure by a free press as a restraint. Muzzle the press by protecting the privacy of public figures and public life will be even more dominated by unreported scoundrels.
and i thought we had a free press.
More to the point what kind of wicked justice system allows someone to pay the legal profession to have the courts ban the reporting of wrongdoing . Why are our courts party to this ?
If any previous Government had bothered with proper privacy laws then any judges making the law up as they go along could be tried.
There is nothing at all wrong with the law, which is perfectly plain. It is the judges who are making up their own law that is the problem.
dr*nk dr*ving charge
bankr*pt
friends with Hull B*P
one mans automoderation is another mans cheap and quick method of superinjunction and silencing criticism
“Fear of widespread humiliation and popular opprobrium are two social restraints on the tendency of flawed humans to succumb to their baser instincts”
innit?
LOL
Robert Maxwell was the pioneer of this kind of shit. It was only Private Eye that stood up to the c*unt while he was robbing his own pensioners and he tried every legal trick they could to stop ‘em reporting it.
Not that I should give a shit. Fucking lefty apologists c*unts deserve to be shot for championing Labour instead of highlighting their incompetence, theft and destruction.
And the fairoh of Fulham
And PFI. And Lockerbie. And the revolving door for MPs and senior civil servants appearing six months later as directors of Nukes-R-Us.
What I find difficult to understand is why isn’t this reported in foreign blogs owned by foreign nationals.
Perhaps Wikileaks will develop a page just for these injunctions?
At PMQ labour are going nuts because Cameron told some screeching harridan to calm down dear, My Christ this from the party that brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy, they are completely incompetent if that’s what gets them animated. Idiots the lot of them
Excellent. Patronise them for the incompetents they are.
Iraqi mothers will one day thank us for our intervention
Following today’s disgraceful scenes in the House I have tabled a motion to criminalise the expression “calm down dear”. Anyone who utters this expression will be liable on conviction to 10 years imprisonment and a life time ban from taking up employment anywhere in the country.
That is all.
Yeah. And no doubt Libyan mothers will be lining up to thank us in a similar fashion in a few years.
Dow we learn nothing from history? We might as well ban it from the curriculum.
As from today I have decided to place a hyper injunction on the lessons of History. Nothing of the past particularly those incidents which led to failure and embarrassment can be taught or spoken about. That is all.
Sometimes free as in beer, and sometimes free as in speech. More of the former at the expense of the latter is a faustian bargain. The furnaces of hell tho continue to draw closer.
Don’t be silly
What have they done with the real Guido? No spelling mistakes or nonsensical sentences? I think we should be told….
New intern?
Got to be TB. Happy birthday fella
Yeah , Happy Birthday TB .
Needs a bloody intern to run the PMQ blog.
Except for plebeian.
That’s just what I thought!
Go go gadget Hemming …
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8476356/MPs-to-rule-over-Sir-Fred-Goodwins-super-injunction.html
If only the other 649 had balls like that, it would be a different place.
Talking to someone a couple of years ago after the ABM-AMRO – RBS fiasco, a continental friend of ours, while studying had wanted to use the subject of Bank risk as a Phd thesis subject. Apparently bank risk had gone from x 2 to x 7 what ever that means.
A Professor at the university did not want the subject discussed and refused to let the subject be used. This Professor was a Director of the ABM-AMRO bank. I understand that same Professor later became a director of another bank.
Apparently local knowledge regarded some of those running the bank as crooks. Obviously they hood-winked Fred Goodwin.
The only conculison we can take from this is that we need a first admendment right in this country, For to long the laws of this cvountry have been used and abused to give censorship to people that preach to us, Remeber the politicons didnt want us knowing how much money they stole!
Can you imagine our vile politicians introducing any laws that work for our benefit?
We have one. It’s called Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights which is balanced against Article 8.
Brillo is tearing to shreds some slaphead Labour c unt over Labour’s hypocrisy on cuts. I’m amazed Brillo is employed by the bbc.
youtube link time?
It was between about 11.40 and 11.55. It’ll be on iplayer later.
No it won’t.
TVM
deports himself?
Feck Off.
Well said. We need a free press – we don’t want to end up like France. Amidst the financial disaster befalling the UK, the only thing that get put to referendum is AV, which further protects the political class.
We’re hardly going to give you plebs a referendum on anything important.
I did not take that woman up the shitter 11 times over a three day period.
I know you didn’t Bill. It was my turn to use the strap-on that weekend.
Showing your age now f***wit. Have a bacon botty with the dustbin men.
Anita Anand is fucking sexy.
She’s got Jimmy Hill’s chin though but yeah, quite easy on the eye and quite chubby too, which is nice; good snacks post coitus.
…in a fat arsed Asian sort of way.
and….blog moderators no doubt!!
Don’t 4 get PMQs Guido
He has
I am James Landale. Hear me roar.
Squeek. Just hanging about waiting for Toenails to fuck the fuck off.
No PMQ live blog today? Oh well Miliband looks like a fucking mong
Bird shit very big this week – must have been to Brighton
Can anyone tell me what the paddy is saying?
Ou est PMQs chat FFS?
Mr Justice Eady
Wasn’t really greedy
He just thought that his function
Was to grant a superinjunction
Defending Wealth and Power
Against the unwashed shower
“When you’re caught by the Press
With your hand up her dress
That’s A.Marr – e…..”
When the ball hits your head
As you sit in Row Z
That’s Zamora!
Ed…………………………….. Miliband
0.5% – I’ve just cum
Red Ed surrounded by mongs, Ed Testicles and man hater mad Hattie
Twat watch. Gordon is not in the chamber.
FabriHunt needs a hair cut / flamethrower
Who’s the asian babe with the stunning cleavage sitting behind Red? They’re almost spilling out.
A good place to keep your notes to hand me thinks
I was just thinking the same thing. Whose are they?
Lisa Nandy, innit.
Why does Ed Testicles look like he wants to batter the back of Red Ed’s head?
Ned’s not happy. No recession.
Ned was wrong.
Again.
Bring back Alan Johnson. LOL
Ned is Red, Ned is livid, Ned is wrong again.
Because he does?
Celeb watch: Andrew Marr is not in the chamber.
Greeks – what has Prince Phillip got to do with it?
The BBC and other media were constantly harping on about Tory sleeze, sex scandals in late 80s and 90s.
ZaNuLab were no strangers to sleeze, and sex, yet there was no calls for resignations, no questioning of Treasury Ministers bending the expense rules to suit themselves.
Prescott fucking cheap slags was just “John being John”
Liebore in total denial as usual
Nadine wants it
Dave is well shafting Red Ed and Bollock Ed
Gideon wants his mummy
I see the BBC is whining how its struggle to hire senior managers because it can no longer offer the bumper pay packets of its commercial rivals, apparently 400k won’t buy a quality manager these days…boohoo you just can’t get the staff.
Clearly this shortage of cash can’t be the reason their programs have been so crap for the past 20 plus years.
How many senior managers at 400k a pop do they think they need ffs.
Another good reason not to pay your TV license methinks.
Why don’t they recruit from Poland? They have TV there (and some fit auto cuties) pay them £10 an hour (well above the minimum wage). The BBC love immigrants so having a few thousand at the BBC would be welcomed would it not?
Never mind daisy cutters. Shell the BBC HQ with depleted uranium until not one brick is standing on top of another.
Or nuke it from orbit. Only way to be sure
DU is for kinetic effect against hardened point targets. Reducing a building to rubble is most effectively done with HE, internal over-pressure and gravity assisted collapse.
Nevertheless, I like your point.
+1
Always use the right tool for the job otherwise you’ll end up with a crap result – as the guy who taught me woodwork used to say.
Has anyone outside the BBC offered Jonathon Ross a contract as generous as his previous one courtesy of the tax payer ? No ? Could that be because in the real Market place some highly paid celebs are not actually worth what the BBC claim they are?
Same applies to some BBC executives I’ll wager.
Wash your mouth out with soap. I am worth 5 times what you silly little taxpayers claim, and I make programmes enjoyed by the 17 people who matter in the art world. I don’t give a monkey’s what the other 70 million people in the country think.
KIN L LOOK at the CLEAVAGE behind Red ED
Angela Lansbury = dead meat
Yep. I posted about it above. They’re faptastic. I didn’t know Labour had such a sexy babe on their benches.
I hope she’s a lezzer. Her and Nadine oil wrestling would be great.
Lisa Nandy is MP for Wigan, selected after an all-female shortlist was imposed. She is 1 of 6 Female Asian MPs. Well, I say Asian, but she was born in Manchester. Formerly a Labour councillor, no proper job, that kind of thing.
Last July she was appointed to the Education Select Committee, and in the autumn was appointed PPS to Tessa Jowell
I love how Blinky is sitting right next to Red, reminding him who’s boss.
Blinkey is fisting Red Ed when he sits down.
Why would MP’s want to rock the boat? This legislation is there for them too. Don’t bank on any one of them wanting to change it quickly.
There now sits in our island the results of 13 years of unadulterated marxism.
The chances are they will be back in 4 years time any way to heap even more communism upon us. You have been warned.
Don’t believe me? Have you watched the Champagne Socialist Queeen herself defending these injunctions on sky news?
There is no hope.
Of course because Polly probably has one on anyone investigating her champers life style.
Or details of any directorships and company accounts she may submit. Specifically dividend payments, parent companies and their tax domicile.
I would guess.
fuck off Bercow!
Is that a Rennie McIntosh outfit?
Nadine is looking very foxy today.
Is Nadine saying that 70% of that yes to av leaflet is pure fiction or does that only apply to the contents of her constituency blog? Just wondering.
Aldous = boring twat
Fuck the nurses – lazy twats may have to do some work for a change
The NHS is a fucking waste of space. Sack the lot.
Cause Labour fixed the figures.
…cos Labour pissed taxpayers money up against the NHS wall
ok then, send all the health tourists back
The word is ‘invested’. It’s an irregular verb.
I spend,
You waste,
Labour ‘invests’.
I promised to match that investment.
Awww… what a shame.
I thought that I was supposed to be a jester
The woman with the stunning cleavage sitting behind Ed needs to go topless. Her tits are fucking amazing.
Damn right! No hiding behind a sheet either!
Red Ed getting punchy
He needs to get a grip.
Dave is ripping Miliband apart again.
ozzy really looks spaced out
Parliamentary fucking privilege? Is that what it amounts to now? If Andy Pillock Marr is anything to go by: No wonder there is no democracy in the UK. The UK MSM needs to unglue its mouth from the dicks of parliament.
Liebore what a bunch of fucking omngs
Bercow is a twat , he allowed labour to shut down the PMs answer.
It’s a shame he can’t shut you down.
Cam used that disgusting term “dear”
I have never heard the “D” word before at PMQs
Call in the police
Anyone know big tits name?
Eric Pickles
Yellow card – you’ve been warned! My lunch was very nearly jeopardised all over my keyboard.
Then don’t eat pickles for lunch, dear.
That was quite an enjoyable clash. But Squeaker was a disgrace for not telling Blinky and co to shut up. Enjoyed Dave’s “calm down, dear”.
She can take my temperature anytime
Ask the fucking lazy doctors you tit
Sorry, I can’t answer you just now. Labour stuffed my mouth with gold and I only need to work three days a week for the same money I used to get for five days.
“Future SQueaker in the making”
Has Dave signed Bercow death warrent?
Cameron to Sarah Woolaston: “A future speaker in the making”. Talk about a direct jibe against Bercow! And she’s a tasty MILF too.
I cant see this pair of tits!!! Im going out of my mind!
Fuck off Fiona
do you mean Ann McIntosh?
There are two pair of tits.
Red Ed and Bollock Ed, then a massive pair of tits almost fully exposed sat behind them.
another Rennie McIntosh outfit
Can Labour give our money back?
The Labour babe with the juicy melons spilling out needs to offer tit wanks to constituents.
I cant see tits.
Only Paul Flynn
Cam = coward, he will not take on the EU
Who will in the house of whores?
Some on the Labour benches didn’t like Dave’s “loony left” comment and started yelling. Ha ha!
Labour needs to get a grip. They’ve totally lost the plot now that the figures show there is no recession and Labour’s economic policy is in tatters. Not that it wasn’t in tatters anyway but now it’s been ripped up and put on the compost heap along with the grass cuttings and horseshit.
0.5%
YIPPPEE!!!
YOU’VE NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD!
Now I can afford to bail out the Spanish too.
‘Double-dip’ recession non-existent. Ned Balls wrong again. Get over it.
Fancy a bail out ?
WE’RE IN THE MONEY! WE’RE IN THE MONEY!
TAX CUTS ALL ROUND.
But but but – the econobabble bird on the beeb says that next month there may well be “negative growth”, a sentiment with which the equally gormless newsreader concurred. so, watch this space then.
Brown tried the con us with a 0% rise, remember that?
Christ on a bike, Kerry Macarthy looks uglier every time.
Should have gone to Vision Express
Beard count = awful
Mandy likes hot rods
Still trying to identify the Labour MP with the world class cleavage. Anyone know?
Ben Backdoor talking vomit as usual.
Ben Bradshaw, an ex beeboid who supports Nu Liebore, what a shock. Not!
Brilliant
The person who won actually won. Take that Union vote red ed
Why the fuck is an MP getting worked up about Sri lanka? Who gives a fuck?
Their Gov knows how to deal with terrorism. We are soft as shit
Circumstance, dear boy. If any British Government decided to cleanse the country of tiresome, dreary fucknuts you’d probably fight for your pointless life too.
Panda getting tetchy – someone give him a bamboo shoot
Dave 7 ed 2 bercow-2
LISA NANDY
Actually, the slag in the hot pink is looking good.
I don’t usually watch pmqs more than once but I’ll have to watch it later to enjoy again the stunning cleavage of the woman sitting behind Red. Utterly faptastic.
Udderly?
Lisa Nandy = titcow
A titcow is better than a Bercow anyday of the week.
Getting back to the injunctions, with the internet isn’t there a far greater opportunity for the facts (or at least the identities) to leak these days? One unmoderated blog’s good enough for the news to spread…
Trouble is that some blogs get the wrong idea and it becomes ‘fact’. Alan Johnson’s local difficulty springs to mind.
Twitter seems even more apt; can you file a super injunction against a trending topic?
I beieve everything I read on the net
the lizardpeople from space are probing my anus
It would take a super duper injunction to hide Lisa Nandy’s tits.
even telegraph blogs has a picture of the PMQ cleavage mystery…….
New video from Labour’s Iain Gray supporting the SNP
I Just took the time to read your post Guido. Well said, I could not agree more.
PMQs: Whose boobs are these?
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/lucyjones/100053061/pmqs-whose-boobs-are-these/
A storm in a D cup.
I take back everything I’ve ever said about Lisa Nandy. She can give me a soapy tit wank any day of the week. Preferably several times any day of the week.
Lisa Nandy in lingerie, my cock between her oiled up tits. That’s what it would take for me to vote Labour.
That christian evangelical fuckwit Jonathan Bartley who ranted at Cameron at the election about childcare is on Brillo’s show talking in support of AV. Tosser.
Fancy a shag ?
God says it’s fine.
Injunctions can be quite useful. I took one out against an opponent just before the last general election. He was accusing me of having underage sex with a young girl. The Judge granted me a temporary injunction for three months on the agreed terms that I would sue my accuser in the civil courts for defamation. I did not, of course, do this, as, if I had done, the truth would have come out. My accuser then took me to Court for costs and damages which he was awarded, and I had to pay. The moral of this story is that you can use the Law to your advantage and make a profit out of it. The costs and damages I had to pay were a drop in the ocean compared to the pay and expenses I have received since as an MP and the biggest Trougher in Parliament.
The injunction stopped the information being released. I broke the agreement with the Judge upon which she awarded the injunction in the first place. I paid a small amount in costs and damages and got re-elected. Q.E.D. Oink oink!
When is this Spy and Pervert going to be arrested and prosecuted? This country has gone to the dogs.
Trousers down in the House of Commons? Surely Nigel Griffiths was not the only one. What else were the East European ‘interns’ up to in Handycock’s Commons Office? and what else might Handycock’s injunction against his Election opponent been trying to cover up? The story of the vulnerable constituent has not yet run its course and the stories about the underage girls in Rumania and Portsmouth won’t go away either.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1381094/Imogen-Thomas-reduced-tears-tells-suffering-super-injunction.html
Silly Moo! Kaiserlautern are the Red Devils the Lions are Millwall.
She said: ‘I didn’t want my name to be out there in the public name lie this. I’ve been exploited. I feel really angry”
Gut English this is?
You are right Guido. King Lear’s ‘fool’ was no fool. And his words germane to the points you make.
“Have more than thou showest;
speak less than thou knowest,
lend less than thou owest,
ride more than thou goest,
learn more than thou trowest,
set less than thou thou throwest;
Leave thy drink and thy whore,
and keep in-a-door;
And thou shalt have more than two tens to thy score.”
It is time for WikiJunction.
Well written and completely to the point.
Totally agree.
Another Labour nonsensical outcome. The courts are running loose and unaccountable. Superinjuctions are only for those who have the means to protect a reputation that they do not deserve.
Berlusconi will retire to the UK.
Berlusconi looks at the UK and is envious.
Bang on. Happy birthday, mate.
“Muzzle the press by protecting the privacy of public figures and public life will be even more dominated by unreported scoundrels.”
This includes you just as much as Giggsy, Marr.
The people who know about these super injunctions and which ‘celebs’ etc have gained them should anonymously drop bits of litter (well away ffrom CCTV) throughout the country with the names and trangressions of those protected. Just a few sheets of well disguised writing on A4 dropped here and there would soon spread by word of mouth throughout the land.
And the newspapers/media involved should quietly publish their findings before the ‘celebs’ have time to get a super injunction.
Pap! The press can be a destructive force & the hypocrisy of politicians & sponging slebs is simply sickening.
Marr proferred his resignation to the BBC – he recognised correctly that this was a resigning matter. They responded with clemency and refused to accept it. Good for him. Good for them too.
I have no judgment on how fit this likeable man is to do his job because of his extra-marital affair. But how was the BBC’s leniency rewarded ?
Marr went out and got a Super Injunction and gagged them (though admittedly other news outlets were the target.)
So I suspect it to be the case that the BBC were in cahoots with Marr and cooperated with him in doing this.
They could have forced him to resign without breaching the injunction if they were unhappy with the terms of the restrictions that he’d imposed on their industry. They didn’t. Therefore we can conclude that they must have approved of his position.
Likeable!!!! Are you some sort of arse-creeping Beeb? Marr is about as likeable as Gaddafi.
Oh they are all at it. I could tell you all sorts of tales about a senior acupuncturist on the Executive Committee at the College of Integrated Chinese Medicine in Reading, and his hanky-panky with students and clients, but…
EK. Likeable? He must have spent the past year washing Brown’s turds off him, so far up his arse was he? No, a grotesque and a pander to the BBC.
You didn’t write this Mr Fawkes. Not your style. Far too pompous.
nigel griffiths hasnt committed any crime or financial misdeeds
time to drop the subject
On the contrary he may well have committed the criminal offence of misconduct in public office. This applies to all public servants. There have been recent cases where police officers for example have been convicted and imprisoned for shagging whilst on duty, even where it was accepted by the courts that this occurred during their lunch break.
There is currently an active complaint against Prescott for the same thing.
If the circumstances as reported in the press are correct then Griffiths and others may well have committed crimes.
There is just one thing that a so called free press does not like is when they are caught out doing the naughty bits, they lean one police, politcos, super injunctions etc they are not happy at all when the naughty bits get exposed, when throwing stones make sure you are not throwing at your own greenhouse.
The thing is, we can stop buying their paper or watching their channel and no harm done. But with politicians, the filth and the bureaucracy – they can really affect our lives.
The funny thing about all of this is that anyone can go on Twitter etc. and find out all about super-injunctions that various celebs etc. have taken out but yet websites and press that are headquartered in the UK are bound by these injunctions…