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Iain Martin

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• MPs Sold Parliament Down the River

• OCTOBER 13, 2009, 9:40 AM ET

Carter-Ruck Takes On The Internet, and Loses

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By Iain Martin

Since the 1688 Bill of Rights it has been pretty much established that the public has the right to know about a question asked in parliament. Journalists have the right to report it, readers have a right to read it. Of course there are exceptions - certain sessions in the House of Commons during the Second World War were held in private for obvious reasons. But if a commercial interest is trying to put out a fire relating to its alleged activities it is pretty unthinkable that it should seek to block the media from reporting on a question asked by an MP.

Well, according to the Guardian this morning, the unthinkable has happened. A law giant, let’s call them Carter-Ruck (it’s their name), has made a move on behalf of a client to prevent a question being reported. I can’t mention who the clients are, but they help extract large amounts of sludgy stuff from off the coast of Africa which is sold on for use in motor-cars and the like.

In the olden days, way back in the pre-internet age, that might have been the end of it. There would have been mutterings in newsrooms. That night the BBC’s Newsnight might have done an amusing item about the ridiculous state of affairs in which they couldn’t tell you the name of the MP asking the question, the lawyer representing the firm, or the firm itself.

But that, until the DPP possibly offered an opinion, would probably have been it. Now we live after the invention of the internet, something which seems to have passed Carter-Ruck by (people, those screens on your desk, they’re connected to it).

Inevitably, Guido Fawkes lobbed the first hand-grenade rather elegantly this morning. Rapidly the story of the gagging of the Guardian went inter-stellar on-line. Twitter is full of it (it’s the number one trending topic), blog-posts fizz with indignation. Bloggers are planning to stage a protest demonstration outside Carter -Ruck’s office, if they can be bothered to change out of their PJs and get dressed. There is the possibility of a fresh court hearing.

Ultimately, a story that might have amounted to a boring page lead in the Guardian after the question was answered in the Commons has turned into an internet sensation and potentially a constitutional mini-crisis. Well done Carter-Ruck. Good work.

Update: Carter-Ruck caved in and the Guardian is ungagged. I wonder if the law firm will have the cheek to bill its client for all of its brilliant advice on this matter?