Tory Blogger: Baffled by Law of Defamation

Iain Dale can't understand why Martyn Jones MP won his libel case against the sloppy journo Simon Walters and the Mail on Sunday. It's simple: What they published was damaging. They couldn't prove any of it. They lost. Quite right too. This is the same hack and the same publisher that wrote and published a pile of actionable twaddle about blogger Owen Barder. His site is down since this extraordinary attack, but there were many supportive Bloggers' responses. This one from a ToryClassical Liberal etc (see comments).

Owen's case if he took one could be worth a lot more than the £5,000 and costs that Mr Jones trousered. The skunk Walters appeared to be deliberately attacking Owen's livelihood. TRYING to damage him with a twisted story.

I've known Owen as a virtual correspondent for many years as we were both busy contributors to the UKRunning community on Yahoogroups in its early days - often helping coach beginners and improvers there. Our clubs (his is Serpentine AC) compete regularly in the mad cap Welsh Castles Relay too, though I don't recall ever meeting him.

(I was very proud to be in the 2003 Salford Harriers team which was not only the first non-Welsh Club to take the prize, but also took the Kings of the Mountains award, with Yours Truly on one of the six hilliest legs that count for that.)

Owen's dad Brian has an excellent blog himself. He is a former Ambassador and Immigration Judge who resigned from the latter role for the best of reasons.