Barack Obama ordered assault team be large enough to fight its way out of Pakistan if necessary, newspaper reveals The strained US-Pakistan relationship has come under further pressure after it emerged that the assault team which killed Osama bin Laden was prepared to fight its way out of Pakistan if necessary. President Barack Obama ordered two helicopter-borne backup squads to shadow the main US attack force in case it came under fire from Pakistani security forces as it stormed Bin Laden’s house. The Americans had orders to avoid a firefight but to use their weapons if unavoidable, a senior White House official told the New York Times. The revelations come amid continuing furore in Pakistan over the perceived breach of sovereignty by US forces. On Monday the Guardian reported that Pakistan and the US struck a secret deal permitting US military action to capture or kill Bin Laden almost a decade ago, during the rule of President Pervez Musharraf. Responding through a spokesman and his Facebook page, Musharraf denied that any deal, written or verbal, had been struck. “The accusation of my having allowed intrusion into Pakistan by US forces chasing Osama bin Laden is absolutely baseless,” he said. “Never has this subject even been discussed between myself and President Bush leave aside allowing such freedom of action that would violate our sovereignty (sic).” In January 2002, General Tommy Franks, who headed the US Central Command at the time, told the Associated Press the US had a deal allowing US troops to cross the border in pursuit of bin Laden. Pakistan denied it. Already fragile relations between Pakistan and the US have dipped to new depths following Bin Laden’s death. The US wants to speak to the al-Qaida leader’s three widows – two from Saudi Arabia and one from Yemen, who are currently in Pakistani custody. US officials said Pakistan had agreed to grant access to the women, but in Islamabad officials insisted no decision had been taken. “It’s too early to even think about it,” one official told Reuters. At least nine children are also being held. It is not clear how many were fathered by bin Laden. Controversy also rumbled on over the naming of the CIA station chief in Islamabad in some Pakistani media last weekend, six months after a similar “outing” caused the US spy chief to leave the country. The US said the official was incorrectly named and will not be leaving Pakistan, suggesting the leak was a deliberate attempt by Pakistani officials to divert attention from international criticism. Meanwhile, in South Waziristan in the tribal belt, a US drone fired missiles that killed three alleged Arab militants close to the Afghan border – the second such strike since bin Laden’s death. As further details of the raid emerged, it emerged that Obama had readied a specialist team of lawyers, interrogators and translators aboard a US navy ship in case the al-Qaida leader was taken alive. Obama is said to have revised the original assault plan after learning that two backup helicopters would be 90 minutes away in Afghanistan if called on to aid the commandos. Overhead, US surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft monitored Pakistani police and military channels to determine how long the commandos had to gather evidence. Asked about their rules of engagement, one official said: “Their instructions were to avoid any confrontation if at all possible. But if they had to return fire to get out, they were authorised to do it.” Pakistan’s government is struggling to unite its civilian and military leadership while simultaneously explaining how Bin Laden managed to live in a large house near a major military centre two hours’ drive north of Islamabad. Addressing parliament on Monday, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani rejected suggestions of complicity or incompetence as “absurd”, saying it was disingenuous to access Pakistan of being “in cahoots” with al-Qaida. In Washington, US legislators are demanding Obama slash Pakistan’s $3 billion annual aid package. But senior US officials admit privately that a strong relationship with Pakistan is crucial to continuing anti-militant operations and success in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden Obama administration US foreign policy Pakistan US politics United States al-Qaida Sam Jones Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
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This Friday between 1 and 2pm, Karolina Sutton from Curtis Brown will be here to cast light on what goes into literary agenting. Please start posting your queries now Since the relaunch of guardian.co.uk/books, we’ve been asking you to tell us what you’d like to see on the site. One interesting request came from Degrus , UnpublishedWriter , and RolandKempston who suggested that we corral members of the publishing industry and get them to come online and explain what, precisely, they do. To that end, we’ve set up a series of five webchats with books professionals, which should hopefully cast light on the production process all the way from manuscript to bookshop. We begin this Friday with the agent – a mysterious figure whose most obvious role is to get the best price possible for books, but who can also act as friend, first reader, counsellor and shoulder to cry on. Online to explain her role will be Karolina Sutton , from one of the UK’s premier literary agencies, Curtis Brown . She represents a range of fiction and non-fiction authors, from award-winning debut novelists to bestselling crime fiction writers. Her clients include Andrea Ashworth, Patricia Cornwell, Alan Garner, Siri Hustvedt, Haruki Murakami and Tobias Wolf. She’ll be here to answer your questions from 1pm to 2pm this Friday, 13 May . Feel free to start posting questions now, so she’ll have plenty to get to grips with, and come back on Friday to read her replies. Next week we talk to an editor: Francis Bickmore, of Granta. Publishing guardian.co.uk
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Levi Bellfield goes on trial at Old Bailey accused of 13-year-old Milly Dowler’s kidnap and murder nine years ago Schoolgirl Milly Dowler disappeared from a suburban street in broad daylight “in the blink of an eye” when she was snatched by a “predatory and violent” man who went on to murder two other young women and tried to kill a third, a court was told. Levi Bellfield, a 42-year-old former wheelclamper and bouncer, has gone on trial at the Old Bailey nine years after Milly’s abduction and murder resulted in a major missing persons inquiry and a nationwide police investigation. He is charged with the 13-year-old’s kidnap and murder and the attempted abduction of another schoolgirl, 11-year-old Rachel Cowles, the day before Milly “disappeared in a flash”. Describing “every parent’s nightmare”, Brian Altman QC said Milly disappeared as she walked home from school after sharing some chips with friends in the cafe at Walton-on-Thames railway station, in Surrey, on 21 March 2002. The “slim, pretty and intelligent” teenager was wearing her school uniform when she vanished. Six months later, her unclothed and decomposed body was found by mushroom pickers in Yateley Heath Wood, Hampshire, 25 miles away. Bellfield, formerly of West Drayton, west London, had been living in a flat yards from the road where Milly was last seen, Altman said. He told the jury that the day before Milly disappeared, Rachel Cowles was walking home from school when she was approached by a man in a red car in Shepperton, Surrey. The man tried but failed to trick her into getting into the car. The court heard that Milly, whose real name was Amanda, took a train from Weybridge, where her school was, and got off at Walton-on-Thames rather than her usual stop at Hersham to spend time with her friends before leaving to walk home. “Within moments of leaving the station to walk along the road, just a few minutes after 4pm, she vanished – gone in the blink of an eye,” Altman said. The “entirely innocent and quite ordinary diversion to a station cafe to buy some chips with some school friends was a decision that was to cost Milly her life, because it meant taking a fateful journey along Station Avenue where … her abductor and killer was soon to strike”, he said. “Milly had simply disappeared in a flash from a street in a suburban town in broad daylight.” Her parents suffered for six months the “excruciating agony” of not knowing her fate, until her body was found. Bellfield was living with his partner, Emma Mills, their two children and a Staffordshire bull terrier dog in a rented flat in Collingwood Place, yards from the spot where Milly was last seen alive. They were house-sitting for a friend in West Drayton at the time of Milly’s disappearance, but there was evidence Bellfield was in the vicinity of the flat on that day, the jury heard. A red Daewoo Nexia car he was using at the time was captured on CCTV leaving the access road to their rented flat 22 minutes after what the prosecution say was Milly’s abduction. The day before, at around the same time, there was an attempt to abduct Cowles in Shepperton, “a mere nine minutes drive and a 3.3-miles car journey north of Walton”, Altman said. She was approached by a small red car driven by a man resembling Bellfield. The driver told her he had just moved in next door and asked if she wanted a lift. “Sensibly, she did not accept,” Altman said, adding that the driver may have been spooked by a police car driving past. Years later, Rachel failed to pick out Bellfield at an identification parade, the jury heard. “The prosecution say there can be no doubt that Levi Bellfield, and no one else, was responsible for both [crimes],” Altman said. The jury heard that Bellfield was convicted in 2008 for the murders of Marsha McDonnell in 2003, and Amelie Delagrange in 2004, by striking them over the head with a blunt instrument, and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy in 2004, by deliberately running her over in a car. The offences were “all committed by him within a period of just over two years” of those he is currently charged with. In the cases of Rachel and Milly, there were “such similiarities between the offences that the chances of them having been committed by two or more men working independently of each other can safely and sensibly be excluded”, Altman said. He said that although the offences for which Bellfield was convicted were committed after Milly’s murder and the attempted abduction of Rachel, it “makes it more likely that he is the man who committed those [earlier] offences too”. Bellfield denies the charges. The case continues. Milly Dowler Crime Caroline Davies guardian.co.uk
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Shailendra Kumar Upadhyay, 82, dies on Mount Everest while attempting to become oldest person to climb mountain An 82-year-old former Nepalese foreign minister has died on the slopes of Mount Everest while attempting to become the oldest person to climb the world’s highest mountain. Shailendra Kumar Upadhyay was descending from a camp on the lower slopes of the8,850m (29,035ft) peak when he collapsed on Monday evening. The death – the first of this year’s climbing season – is likely fuel charges that there is insufficient regulation of candidates attempting the ascent of the world’s highest mountain. Uphadyay was climbing with a non-profit-making expedition organised by a local campaign group for the rights of the elderly, but in recent years many top climbers have claimed that expeditions are accepting unsuitable members, particularly if they are high-profile, sufficiently wealthy or both. Upadhyay was trying to break the record set by a Nepalese climber who scaled Everest at the age of 76. The former diplomat’s climbing companions gave him water and oxygen but were unable to save him. It is believed that he died of acute altitude sickness, which is difficult to treat and is a common cause of death among mountain climbers. Upadhyay was not an experienced mountaineer, according to reports in Kathmandu. A 6,050m peak that he had climbed in preparation for his attempt to scale the highest mountain in the world is considered an easy “trekking” summit which is not technically demanding nor particularly high relative to the major mountains of the region. Upadhyay was also reported to have completed several multi-day high altitude treks. According to Wangchu Sherpa, an official from the Nepal Mountaineering Association in Kathmandu, Upadhyay had arrived at the Everest base camp in mid-April and had been waiting for good weather to start acclimatising for his ascent. “A doctor provided by a local trekking agencies did a thorough health check-up,” said Wangchu. “He was declared fit and fine.” The exact circumstances of Uphadhyay’s death are unclear but it is understood the climber had developed breathing problems after climbing through the broken and crevassed glacier above base camp to reach “camp 1″ at the height of 5,700m. Climbers on the most-used route via the South Col usually stop at least four camps on their way up the mountain. “Upadhyay was returning to the base camp when he suddenly fell ill and passed away,” Tilak Pandey, a government liaison officer at base camp, told the Guardian by satellite phone. Though some drugs can ease symptoms, descent to lower altitudes is the only sure treatment for altitude sickness. May is considered the best time to climb Everest and, this year 26 expeditions consisting of 251 climbers are scheduled to attempt its ascent. Summit attempts are usually launched towards the end of the month. Currently, mountaineers are making repeated ascents of the lower slopes of the mountain to acclimatise themselves. Uphadhyay was a member of a team organised by a local private non-profit making association. He lived in Kathmandu. According to Pandey, the liaison officer, Upadhyay’s body was brought into base camp on firm ground below the vast Khumbu glacier on Monday morning to be flown to Kathmandu. “Now weather is good here,” Pandey told the Guardian by satellite telephone. Upadhyay served as Nepal’s foreign minister from 1986-90 and was the country’s representative to the UN from 1972-78. “I am proud of being a part of such a noble event to turn it in to a grand success,” Uphadhya had said before embarking on Everest. More than 3,000 climbers have scaled Everest since it was first climbed by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Sherpa in 1953. According to Nepal’s ministry of tourism and civil aviation, 704 climbing permits have been issued to 83 expeditions for dozens of different peaks in the Himalayas in the 2011 climbing season. The largest number of applications to climb Everest is from the US followed by India, the UK, Japan and Australia. The permits will bring in more than £2.25m in mountaineering royalties for the poverty-hit nation. The fee for climbing the world’s highest peak ranges from £17,000 to £48,000 per expedition, depending on the number of members and the route. So far this year, the Nepalese government has collected fees totalling £1.5m for Everest. There are also long-standing concerns about the environmental damage caused by large numbers of climbers, their support teams and the waste they leave. Mount Everest Nepal Mountaineering Jason Burke guardian.co.uk
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Six girls aged between 12 and 18 receive 10 lashes each for attacking head of orphanage Six orphan girls aged between 12 and 18 have been flogged in Saudi Arabia after being convicted of attacking the head of their orphanage, an official said. The girls received 10 lashes each at a women’s prison in Medina, Islam’s second holiest city. “The order against the six orphans is a legitimate court order,” Mohammed al-Awadh, the public relations manager at the ministry of social affairs, told Reuters. “The ministry does not have the right to interfere in a court order.” He gave no details of the ruling but the Arabic-language newspaper Okaz said the girls had been convicted of “acts of mischief” and attacking the director of the orphanage. The girls defended their actions, saying they were harassed by the director, Okaz reported. International human rights groups have criticised the Saudi justice system for applying corporal punishment for petty crimes, as well as limb amputations for thieves and beheadings for murderers under its strict interpretation of Islamic law. Saudi officials say the practice is widely approved by Saudi society and is a deterrent to crime. In January 2010 a teenage girl was sentenced to 90 lashes and two months in prison for hitting her school principal on the head with a cup when she took away her mobile phone. Awadh said the ministry would continue to care for the girls after the floggings were carried out. “What it will do is rehabilitate and take care of the girls’ social wellbeing, which is part of its duties and responsibilities.” Saudi Arabia Middle East guardian.co.uk
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• Railway disputes during Olympics to be referred to Acas • London Underground says this month’s tube strikes off Boris Johnson faces calls to seal a no-strike agreement with the RMT trade union for the 2012 Olympics after Network Rail struck a deal that reduces the threat of industrial action next summer. News of the deal came as London Underground declared that two weeks of walkouts by tube drivers , due to begin next Monday, had been called off. The RMT denied the claim. Network Rail and the RMT have agreed that any industrial dispute that arises during the games will be referred to the Acas conciliation service, with no walkouts taking place during those discussions. Network Rail said: “If there is a dispute, either existing or new, during the timeframe of the Olympics it will automatically be referred to Acas for resolution and no industrial action can be taken whilst we are still negotiating with Acas.” An RMT spokesman denied that the agreement constituted a no-strike deal because it “recognises the continuing right to withdraw labour”. Under the agreement, RMT members carrying out extra shifts during the Olympics and Paralympics between 27 July and 9 September will receive up to £500 in additional pay. It is understood that the deal applies to about 800 Network Rail staff who will work extra hours during the games. In a further deal that settles a long-running dispute with signallers and clerical staff, about 10,000 Network Rail employees will receive a 5.2% pay rise this year – 0.5% above inflation – with a further pay rise of RPI plus 5% next year. Bob Crow, the RMT general secretary, said: “The package recognises the important role that transport workers will be expected to play during the games and rewards them financially while protecting their union rights at the same time. At this time of austerity we think that £500 extra payments and 10% on the basic represents a good deal and proves that strong union organisation can deliver for the members.” The Network Rail deal triggered calls for a similar arrangement at Transport for London, with the tube network expected to bear much of the strain of millions more journeys during the games period. Caroline Pidgeon, chair of the London assembly transport committee, said: “They are going to have to come up with something for the Olympic Games. We cannot have disruption when we have the world looking at us.” Johnson, the London mayor, has said he will not meet Crow while TfL is in dispute with the RMT. The two have yet to meet because the union has been in some form of dispute with TfL since Johnson was elected. Johnson has urged the government to consider legislation that would limit strikes by barring any walkout not backed by a vote in which more than 50% of the workforce took part. The mayor reiterated his demands last week after RMT-affiliated tube drivers voted for two weeks of walkouts over the sacking of two drivers. London Underground said the action had cancelled after TfL reinstated one of the drivers in the wake of an employment tribunal . Eamonn Lynch, a Bakerloo line driver fired for breaching safety guidelines, was found to have been unfairly dismissed. He will return to TfL in a “non-driver role”, TfL said. Mike Brown, head of London Underground, said: “As we’ve always said, there are established mechanisms in place to deal with individual disputes, and that is the process that has been followed here. Following a meeting with the RMT leadership this morning the RMT have withdrawn their threat of industrial action, and we have avoided significant disruption for London.” RMT denied that the walkouts had been called off. “The strike action in the victimisations dispute on London Underground has not been called off,” said a union spokesman. “We have not received confirmation of any potential offer from London Underground as a consequence of earlier talks. If and when any written confirmation of any offer is received it will be considered by our executive and a statement will be issued by the RMT.” Rail transport London Transport Trade unions Boris Johnson London politics Olympic Games 2012 Dan Milmo guardian.co.uk
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Takeover of internet phone service is tech giant’s biggest ever deal Microsoft confirmed on Tuesday it has agreed an $8.5bn (£5bn) cash deal to buy internet telephony service Skype, the biggest deal in its 36-year history. The acquisition will see Skype established as a separate business division inside Microsoft, dubbed Microsoft Skype, alongside XBox Live, Kinect and Windows Phone. Tony Bates, the Skype chief executive, will become president of Microsoft Skype and report directly to the technology giant’s chief executive, Steve Ballmer. “Skype is a phenomenal service that is loved by millions of people around the world,” said Ballmer. “Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues anywhere in the world. “Tony Bates has a great track record as a leader and will strengthen the Microsoft management team. I’m looking forward to Skype’s talented global workforce bringing its insights, ideas and experience to Microsoft.” Bates added: “Microsoft and Skype share the vision of bringing software innovation and products to our customers. Together, we will be able to accelerate Skype’s plans to extend our global community and introduce new ways for everyone to communicate and collaborate. The acquisition is subject to US regulatory approval, which the companies hope to secure later this year. More details soon… •
Continue reading …Takeover of internet phone service is tech giant’s biggest ever deal Microsoft confirmed on Tuesday it has agreed an $8.5bn (£5bn) cash deal to buy internet telephony service Skype, the biggest deal in its 36-year history. The acquisition will see Skype established as a separate business division inside Microsoft, dubbed Microsoft Skype, alongside XBox Live, Kinect and Windows Phone. Tony Bates, the Skype chief executive, will become president of Microsoft Skype and report directly to the technology giant’s chief executive, Steve Ballmer. “Skype is a phenomenal service that is loved by millions of people around the world,” said Ballmer. “Together we will create the future of real-time communications so people can easily stay connected to family, friends, clients and colleagues anywhere in the world. “Tony Bates has a great track record as a leader and will strengthen the Microsoft management team. I’m looking forward to Skype’s talented global workforce bringing its insights, ideas and experience to Microsoft.” Bates added: “Microsoft and Skype share the vision of bringing software innovation and products to our customers. Together, we will be able to accelerate Skype’s plans to extend our global community and introduce new ways for everyone to communicate and collaborate. The acquisition is subject to US regulatory approval, which the companies hope to secure later this year. More details soon… •
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Tory MP says superinjunctions are an ‘overreaction’, but are inevitable given newspapers’ interest in celebrities’ private lives Zac Goldsmith, the influential backbench Conservative MP, responded to the growing ‘superinjuction’ crisis on Tuesday by calling for parliament to develop a privacy law – because some newspapers are unwilling “to distinguish between what is in the public interest and what is merely of prurient interest to some of the public”. The multimillionaire MP for Richmond Park also took the opportunity to speak about his own decision to take out a gagging order in 2008, as he sought to prevent the media from reporting that he, his sister Jemima Khan and his then wife Sheherazade had had their personal email accounts hacked. Despite that revealation, Goldsmith conceded that superinjunctions represented “an overreaction” on the part of wealthy celebrities and politicians, but said their existence was “an inevitable one” given repeated attempts by tabloids to write about people’s personal lives. Goldsmith, his former wife – whom he divorced in 2010 – and his sister all took out an injunction in December 2008 to prevent the publication of personal emails that that had been offered by an unnamed individual to a national newspaper. The court order was varied in March of this year to allow the identities of the three who had taken out the injunction to be made public. Describing his decision to go to law, the MP said: “The emails were private, and even the tabloids seemed to accept that there was no justification for publishing them.” However, Goldsmith agreed to allow his anonymity to be waived this year because “I do not want or need” it to maintained – before going onto to add that it was appropriate to keep the identity of the hacker secret because of the “person’s mental state”. High court judge Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled in March that the hacking of Goldsmith’s emails was “a flagrant breach of the law of confidence” but, “having regard to medical evidence” about the “fragile” individual who hacked into their accounts, agreed to keep that person’s identity secret. Reacting to that ruling, Goldsmith told the Guardian: “It is a perfect example of where a superinjunction is justified and right.” Possibly as a result of confusion relating to this case, Jemima Khan was separately – and wrongly – named as having taken out a gagging order to prevent “intimate photos” of herself and Jeremy Clarkson. Khan said the rumours were “untrue and upsetting” – although they remain in circulation on Twitter. Goldsmith said that he believed that the solution to the superinjunction problem was that “parliament should design proper privacy laws” so that “the media can do the job we want them to do, without fear, but that they don’t invade people’s privacy unless there’s good reason”. Noting that David Cameron had said earlier this month that we need to have “a discussion and a debate” about whether to introduce a privacy law, Goldsmith added: “The PM has said he wants parliament to take the initiative, and he’s right. I hope he follows through with it.” Goldsmith’s remarks come in a week in which some ministers were indicating their support for a privacy law. At least one senior minister is known to be in favour of legislation, but was sceptical about the prospect of getting it through parliament because of the storm that would be created around the issue. “I have always been in favour of a privacy law but see no prospect of getting one. It would take the lid off a Pandora’s box,” the minister said. A second minister, a Liberal Democrat, also indicated in private this week that they were open to the idea. However, Goldsmith conceded that it was a “grotesque flaw in the system” that only rich people could afford to pay the costs of an injunction – estimated at anywhere between £10,000 and £50,000 depending on the case. The MP said it would be fairer if the rules on costs could be changed so that the party who pays the least in an action would be able to set a cap on both sides’ legal fees, and added that it remained necessary for any use of injunctions to “stifle investigative reporting” to be “challenged.” He said instances like “the disgraceful Trafigura case” where a company, Trafigura, used an injunction to conceal the existence of a report into toxic waste dumping in the Ivory Coast, should not be used to attack the principle of injunctions. “It’s not right that the really important examples like this [Trafigura] should be used as a cover by unscrupulous tabloids to demand a blank cheque to write whatever they want about anyone’s private lives.” •
Continue reading …Tory MP says superinjunctions are an ‘overreaction’, but are inevitable given newspapers’ interest in celebrities’ private lives Zac Goldsmith, the influential backbench Conservative MP, responded to the growing ‘superinjuction’ crisis on Tuesday by calling for parliament to develop a privacy law – because some newspapers are unwilling “to distinguish between what is in the public interest and what is merely of prurient interest to some of the public”. The multimillionaire MP for Richmond Park also took the opportunity to speak about his own decision to take out a gagging order in 2008, as he sought to prevent the media from reporting that he, his sister Jemima Khan and his then wife Sheherazade had had their personal email accounts hacked. Despite that revealation, Goldsmith conceded that superinjunctions represented “an overreaction” on the part of wealthy celebrities and politicians, but said their existence was “an inevitable one” given repeated attempts by tabloids to write about people’s personal lives. Goldsmith, his former wife – whom he divorced in 2010 – and his sister all took out an injunction in December 2008 to prevent the publication of personal emails that that had been offered by an unnamed individual to a national newspaper. The court order was varied in March of this year to allow the identities of the three who had taken out the injunction to be made public. Describing his decision to go to law, the MP said: “The emails were private, and even the tabloids seemed to accept that there was no justification for publishing them.” However, Goldsmith agreed to allow his anonymity to be waived this year because “I do not want or need” it to maintained – before going onto to add that it was appropriate to keep the identity of the hacker secret because of the “person’s mental state”. High court judge Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled in March that the hacking of Goldsmith’s emails was “a flagrant breach of the law of confidence” but, “having regard to medical evidence” about the “fragile” individual who hacked into their accounts, agreed to keep that person’s identity secret. Reacting to that ruling, Goldsmith told the Guardian: “It is a perfect example of where a superinjunction is justified and right.” Possibly as a result of confusion relating to this case, Jemima Khan was separately – and wrongly – named as having taken out a gagging order to prevent “intimate photos” of herself and Jeremy Clarkson. Khan said the rumours were “untrue and upsetting” – although they remain in circulation on Twitter. Goldsmith said that he believed that the solution to the superinjunction problem was that “parliament should design proper privacy laws” so that “the media can do the job we want them to do, without fear, but that they don’t invade people’s privacy unless there’s good reason”. Noting that David Cameron had said earlier this month that we need to have “a discussion and a debate” about whether to introduce a privacy law, Goldsmith added: “The PM has said he wants parliament to take the initiative, and he’s right. I hope he follows through with it.” Goldsmith’s remarks come in a week in which some ministers were indicating their support for a privacy law. At least one senior minister is known to be in favour of legislation, but was sceptical about the prospect of getting it through parliament because of the storm that would be created around the issue. “I have always been in favour of a privacy law but see no prospect of getting one. It would take the lid off a Pandora’s box,” the minister said. A second minister, a Liberal Democrat, also indicated in private this week that they were open to the idea. However, Goldsmith conceded that it was a “grotesque flaw in the system” that only rich people could afford to pay the costs of an injunction – estimated at anywhere between £10,000 and £50,000 depending on the case. The MP said it would be fairer if the rules on costs could be changed so that the party who pays the least in an action would be able to set a cap on both sides’ legal fees, and added that it remained necessary for any use of injunctions to “stifle investigative reporting” to be “challenged.” He said instances like “the disgraceful Trafigura case” where a company, Trafigura, used an injunction to conceal the existence of a report into toxic waste dumping in the Ivory Coast, should not be used to attack the principle of injunctions. “It’s not right that the really important examples like this [Trafigura] should be used as a cover by unscrupulous tabloids to demand a blank cheque to write whatever they want about anyone’s private lives.” •
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