Writs all round

Thank goodness that Nadine Dorries (left) has finally served libel writs on Damian McBride and Derek Draper for the scurrilous, nasty filth that they were bandying about for their Red Rag project.

The Grauniad reports authoritatively (along with a suitably unflattering photo) that Gordon Brown was not aware of the emails and was “furious” when he found out that they had been sent. One is inclined to be cynical about this kind of thing but I have to say I don’t believe such slanders are Brown’s style and for once am willing to take something other than a job ad at face value in the Grauniad .

Nadine Dorries is a canny individual though – she knows that the timing of her writs is likely to mean court hearings in around, say, six months or so when Gordon Brown needs them the least. I could drum through the Defamation Act 1996 but suffice it to speculate that even if they feel they were treated unfairly, McBride and Draper will come under some pressure to settle and avoid a courtroom soap opera in the press.

Whether they accede to that pressure remains to be seen but at least the writs have been served on the twits…

Bittersweet Sugar

Guido has news that Lord S’ralan Sugar, he of the “pissin’ my bladdy money up the wall” decorum, is sending threatening letters to political commentator Quentin Letts, who made some more than usually ascerbic observations on a radio programme.

Threatening libel against journos is really only a last resort – Guildford Tory councillor Cllr Tony Rooth once hinted strongly that he would sue me if I printed a story about him at the Surrey Advertiser. I knew the story was true (and he can’t sue for my saying that because I haven’t made the allegation on here) but I couldn’t prove it, so I had to drop it. I never liked him much after that.

And that’s the thing with libel – once you show that you don’t have a thick skin, whatever follows on from that point will always be viewed in a lesser light. Mr Letts’s assertion was that Sugar only got his job through being a TV celebrity and that he wasn’t of great intellectual capacity.

To my mind, that’s fair comment, even if it would be difficult to secure a justification defence here. But on the second point, I think there’s a tacit agreement defence too – Sugar has readily said on the Apprentice that he values street smarts over book smarts and that he’s survived and prospered on shrewdness rather than intellect.

I always quite liked Sugar because of his connection with Spurs and his entertaining persona on the TV. With all the success, profile and money he could want, his threatening to sue seems churlish, bullying and self-important. I’m not sure I like him much now, either.