The Observer has a death-wish

The Observer newspaper (London) has slipped into the habit of smearing David Irving . . . Observer/Sereny libel action Sunday March 25, 2001 Sikorski and book pulping Richard Ingrams The Observer EITHER you sue, or you shut up. Many years ago Roy Hattersley MP, as he then was, announced that he was going to take legal action over an item in Private Eye. (So long ago was it, that I cannot now recall what the offending paragraph was about.)

Despite the huffing and puffing, however, nothing happened. But ever afterwards when Hattersley’s name was mentioned in the Eye it was followed by the taunt: ‘Where is your writ?’ I was reminded of this ancient story by the behaviour last week of the Trade Secretary Stephen Byers following publication of Tom Bower’s book, The Paymaster . Byers let it be known that he was considering legal action against the book and also the Daily Mail, which had serialised it.

Solicitors’ letters were sent out, threatening this, that and the other. But to date no writ has been issued. Meanwhile, Mr Byers has taken to threatening booksellers, some of whom, including the courageous firm of WH Smith, have withdrawn all copies of Bower’s book until further notice.

This is a useful ploy which has been used in the past by the likes, for example, of right-wing historian David Irving ( see last week’s Observer ) who in addition to his recent threats actually succeeded in getting a book pulped which examined his role in the Sikorski affair.[ * ] More recently, when Tom Bower published a book about Robert Maxwell , the Fat Man instructed his chief of staff Peter Jay to send out a letter threatening all booksellers with a libel writ unless they withdrew the

book from sale. Funnily enough the charge against Byers in The Paymaster is that he suppressed a report about Maxwell’s payment of £200,000 to his colleague Geoffrey Robinson . The net result of all this toing-and-froing will be merely to increase the general contempt in which the likes of Byers are held and hopefully to increase the sale of Bower’s book. In the meantime, when Byer’s name crops up I shall repeat the mantra, ‘Where is your writ?’