The two egos guilty of ruining Sunday night Twitter this week were the Mail on Sunday’s Dan Hodges and Neil Henderson of the BBC’s #TomorrowsPapersToday. Henderson kicked things off by countering criticism over his failure to tweet last week’s MoS Brendan Cox front page citing “legal advice”. Dan then reached Peak Hodges when he proceeded to attempt to explain libel law to specialist libel barrister Greg Callus.

Isn’t a simple solution merely a commitment to retweet the headlines that the national newspapers print. I can’t quite see the circumstances where a court says “Neil Henderson retweeted this front page, let’s get him”.

— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) February 18, 2018

OK. So what legal advice to secure before you retweet your headlines. Which company. What processes do you go through.

— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) February 18, 2018

What intermediary.

— (((Dan Hodges))) (@DPJHodges) February 18, 2018

There hasn’t. But if you’re entirely confident it won’t ever happen, the easy thing is for you to publicly indemnify @hendopolis against the costs of it happening…

— Greg Callus (@Greg_Callus) February 18, 2018

Well, *I* won’t, but that’s because I’m a specialist libel barrister. If you’re not a specialist libel barrister, then like a dentist recommending tooth-brushing, I heartily recommend getting advice from one of my colleagues!

— Greg Callus (@Greg_Callus) February 18, 2018

Lots of things are possible Dan. I didn’t fancy – and don’t fancy – being a test case. Is that unreasonable ?

— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) February 18, 2018

Go back in the garage Dan.

— Neil Henderson (@hendopolis) February 18, 2018

It ended with Dan unfollowing Neil and Neil then blocking Dan…