In all the resignations, accusations, protests and so on surrounding the BBC and its reporting of the pre-war intelligence that Lord Hutton now says was
not “sexed up”, I always wondered why Andrew Gilligan, the BBC reporter, or the organization itself wasn't risking some legal sanction if it was, in
fact, so wrong.
Conor Gearty asks — and answers — that very question in the current issue of the London Review of Books.:
A Misreading of the Law
Why didn't Campbell sue?
“If Gilligan's broadcast was so terrible, if the Blairs were having
sleepless nights as a result of being accused of deceit, if the prime
minister was shunned at home and abroad as a liar, the law has a simple
remedy, the one adopted by Albert Reynolds in the case that Hutton makes so
much of: sue for libel.”