Here.
With the bar for journalists to prove public interest in the UK higher than in many other jurisdictions, the case could prove a litmus test for the protections offered for genuine public interest journalism. All while other protections – exemptions for use of data, for example – are under threat.
This might be true. However, it isn’t Appleby that is to blame here. They are merely exercising due diligence on behalf of their clients. Given that even the Grauniad is subtly acknowledging (even if unintentionally) that the leak of the Paradise Papers was not in the public interest – it wasn’t – then they are to blame. They and the other agencies that salivated at the mouth to expose that the rich will salt their money offshore to keep it away from the greedy hands of the gangsters of the various states that think all our money belongs to them.
Well, now that little bird is coming home to roost. Suck it up.
I’m sure the public is interested in many things, a lot of them for purely vicarious reasons.
‘In the public Interest’ is something quite different.
And this is a distinction that journalists are incapable of discerning.
It would be quite funny if legal and settlement costs arising from the Paradise Papers were the final nail in the coffin which force the Grauniad to sell up or close.
I wonder which Russian Oligarch will buy the remnants this time?
I won’t be shedding any tears.
There is a discussion about the Laffer Curve over at Samizdata at the moment. A thought that has occurred to me is that, since lower tax rates have been shown to increase tax revenue, is it possible that effective tax avoidance does too?