YouGov Libel Lawyers Try To Shut Down This Website Today

by craig on April 29, 2010 3:36 pm in The Election

YouGov have asked my webhost, under threat of libel proceedings, to take down this website today. Their letter from libel lawyers Olswang – amusingly headed Private and Confidential, Not For Publication – is available here.

Download file

Now why whould Rupert Murdoch’s favourite pollster attempt to take this little blog down on the day of the final leaders’ debate?

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/04/how_yougove_fix.html#comments

I hope I shall be liveblogging the final debate here again, presuming YouGov don’t manage to threaten someone in the technical line to pull the plug.

Last night’s talk for Swansea Amnesty International was a really good event, with over 90 people. Amnesty made some good new contacts and I hope made money on the event. Very many thanks to Swansea Rugby Club for the free use of their premises and help of their staff.

49 Comments

  1. Mr Angry

    29 Apr, 2010 - 3:52 pm

    Craig,

    I’m loving your pdf naming conventions!!

    Don’t let the bastards get / shut you down.

    Mr Angry

  2. Johan van Rooyen

    29 Apr, 2010 - 4:14 pm

    Mirror, mirror on the wall… ;)

  3. Ruth

    29 Apr, 2010 - 4:14 pm

    You’re doing a brilliant job. It’s so obvious all the pre-election events are being manipulated so that all the parties are on a par to bring in a coalition government which will rapidly turn into a government of National Unity and then we’ll be stuffed or almost stuffed with CCTV, the spy satellites watching our every move and if we protest, we’ll be stuck in jail for 28 days.

    All these restrictions weren’t really ever planned for Muslim ‘terrorists’ but to subdue the whole of the UK population when a totaliterian government took over.

  4. an lusan

    29 Apr, 2010 - 4:35 pm

    Great work craig.

    simple solution send your article out to everyone you know, along with the letter and ask them to publish the contents.

    That will keep murdoc’s lawyers busy for a little while, at least until the elections are over :-)

  5. MJ

    29 Apr, 2010 - 4:43 pm

    I wonder if Michael Crick has also heard from Olswang? Thought not.

  6. Suhayl Saadi

    29 Apr, 2010 - 4:45 pm

    Ah, the innocuous benificence of Davros Murdoch! Abe Rene – regardez!

  7. Sam

    29 Apr, 2010 - 4:46 pm

    Keep up the excellent work Craig. I fear that your ISP may crumble, in which case you may want to have a backup plan in reserve. I suspect YouGov are only interested in shutting you up for a few days so they can broadcast their post-poll results unchallenged.

  8. CraigE

    29 Apr, 2010 - 4:47 pm

    Great one Craig!

    Was missing you for several days. Most disapointed that you have not commented on the goings on between the BBC and SNP though? Freedom Democracy and all that!

    ‘nil carborundum illegitimi’

    Craig

  9. Dan

    29 Apr, 2010 - 4:48 pm

    Mate, this is not on. this is not right. I fucking hate the libel laws in this country!

    I’m going to try and help you. I am going to try make this disgrace viral.

    Good luck. I admire you greatly for this, and I’m sure the Private Eye do too.

  10. glenn

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:00 pm

    Craig – last night’s event at Swansea for Amnesty went down a storm. A packed house, with a fully attentive crowd. A very good mixture too, with ages all the way between teenagers and the elderly.

    You could have carried on speaking for four hours, the audience could not get enough of it.

    A very impressive talk indeed – I hope you left Swansea with a positive impression.

  11. steve

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:03 pm

    Excellent

    Thank You

  12. Olschlong

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:04 pm

    Olswang = tossers.

    Not sure they can sue for that as I’ quite sure they do masturbate.

  13. Jon Rigg

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:05 pm

    Your link to the letter no longer works … presumably it has been removed after legal advice, but if not, please try and fix the link or re-publish.

  14. Anonymous

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:10 pm

    THE VOT-ING ILL-USION IS FAIL-ING!

    CRAIG MURRAY MUST BE EX-TERM-IN-ATED!

  15. MJ

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:12 pm

    “I fear that your ISP may crumble, in which case you may want to have a backup plan in reserve”

    To be fair they’re only demanding that the offending posts be removed, not that the site be shut down.

  16. Craig

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:16 pm

    MJ

    They are asking the Webhost to remove the offenidng articles or take the site down. In practice it would have to be the latter as the host doesn’t have editing facilities. This is what Usmanov did, as you recall.

  17. abc

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:28 pm

    Kind of them to archive the site, saved me the bother of surfing through all the posts. :-)

  18. CalumCarr

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:32 pm

    I don’t understand your naming of pdf files.

    http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/yougovewankers.pdf

    Where do you find the names?

    I think I’ll post about this to see if anyone can explain your method.

  19. The Cartoonist

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:34 pm

    Could it be that Mr Shakespeare is just a brsehole?

  20. Tony

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:37 pm

    Did he go to Keble Bollege, Bambridge?

  21. Anonymous

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:37 pm

    Rupert Murdoch is a bitch.

  22. CalumCarr

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:43 pm

    I have just posted about your naming conventions.

    When will someone explain?

  23. Craig

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:47 pm

    Calum

    If you try to save the olswang letter you’ll see a filename

  24. Suhayl Saadi

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:54 pm

    !The Daleks are back!

    Take cover!

    Craig, what you need is a sonic screwdriver.

  25. Mr M

    29 Apr, 2010 - 5:55 pm

    Actually, these televised “debates” have made people realise how same all parties are, hence the deadlock. Nobody is fixing, it is just the reality.

  26. Ron

    29 Apr, 2010 - 6:02 pm

    Craig

    What happened when Olswang asked you to remove the Tony Baldry stuff a couple of months back? Has that al blown over?

    R

  27. Paul Jakma

    29 Apr, 2010 - 6:05 pm

    I’ve put a backup/mirror up of the yougov libel PDF online at:

    http://www.jakma.org/yougovewankers.pdf

  28. CalumCarr

    29 Apr, 2010 - 6:08 pm

    Craig

    I was playing dumb!!

    Comes easily to me.

  29. Craig

    29 Apr, 2010 - 6:11 pm

    Calum

    sorry i twigged eventually. senior moment.

    Ron

    I told them to get knotted and it seems they dropped it. Obviously Olswang the Tory libel lawyers!

  30. Tom

    29 Apr, 2010 - 6:17 pm

    I think this is just a wordpress thing:

    http://advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org/2010/04/22/guide-mirroring-a-censored-wordpress-blog/

    but I think you should be using wordpress in any case ;)

  31. Suhayl Saadi

    29 Apr, 2010 - 6:18 pm

    Kick out the jams!

  32. Paul Jakma

    29 Apr, 2010 - 6:20 pm

    I’ve put a backup/mirror up of the yougov libel PDF online at:

    http://www.jakma.org/yougovewankers.pdf

    (weird, it didn’t appear – trying again)

  33. ScouseBilly

    29 Apr, 2010 - 6:21 pm

    Fuckin’ brilliant Craig.

    Have forwarded the pdf to my distrib. list.

    What would be the collective noun for a bunch of cunts?

    Oh yeah, an olswang.

    AN OLSWANG OF CUNTS

  34. MJ

    29 Apr, 2010 - 7:07 pm

    “…the host doesn’t have editing facilities”

    I see. So they’re trying to drive a wedge between you and the host. YouGov may have a lot a Murdoch cash to splash but I doubt they really want their shady practices aired in open court, which could have a disastrous effect on credibility and therefore future income.

  35. Ron

    29 Apr, 2010 - 7:18 pm

    re Olswang/Baldry

    I figured that was what had happened but wondered if I’d missed a development. Craig, you do appear to be a one man sorter outer of the libel laws. If others were not so spineless in the face of lawyers’ letters the laws might fall into disuse. Problem effectively solved!

  36. Alfred

    29 Apr, 2010 - 7:32 pm

    Shouldn’t the file name be Olswangkers.pdf?

  37. marcus

    29 Apr, 2010 - 7:33 pm

    Our ‘Democratic’ country strikes again.

  38. geomannie

    29 Apr, 2010 - 7:43 pm

    So, is

    CJ2 Hosting & Development

    Postbus 1546

    9701 BM Groningen

    subject to English law?

  39. mary

    29 Apr, 2010 - 7:53 pm

    I see the name of the Olswang partner who issued the threat was Dan Tench. Shouldn’t that be Stench?

  40. Craig

    29 Apr, 2010 - 7:54 pm

    geomannie

    Our current crazy libel laws would claim yes – whether they can enforce it on them is of course another question.

  41. Macy

    29 Apr, 2010 - 10:43 pm

    I tried to complete yougov survey, but got error messages after I’d voted for Nick Clegg tonight !

  42. Courtenay Barnett

    29 Apr, 2010 - 10:45 pm

    What was the name of that law firm again?

    “Oh wankers” – debasing them in the minds of “right thinking members of society generally” – Sym v Stretch or whatever defamation case.

    Oh you arse holes…give it a break and let the debate continue!

  43. avatastic

    29 Apr, 2010 - 10:56 pm

    I’d be tempted to claim copyright infringement on all the content they’ve screen captured with out your permission.

  44. Rumpole

    29 Apr, 2010 - 11:28 pm

    I’ve lost count of the number of cowardly whining scumbags you’ve seen off so far, in their lawyerly threats.

    But always nice to see another idiot have a go.

    What they all really fear of course is that even though the libel law is weighted in their favour, bloggers like you have the whole world as an audience, pro bono legal advocacy waiting in the wings and a potential for huge donations to cover all angles.

    And of course they don’t want to be exposed for the lying scumbags they are.

  45. paula

    29 Apr, 2010 - 11:49 pm

    Craig

    It is obvious from poll results that polls are skewed and unreliable. No person in their right mind would rely on polls. Anyone can see that polls reflect the wishes of the pollsters and their paymasters.

    Best of luck

  46. Dani

    30 Apr, 2010 - 5:37 am

    Craig keep the pressure up, you have more respect than you can ever imagine. They close you down, open up again somewhere else and you will take with you more followers.

    Carter Ruck tried the same thing with a BLOG named ‘Pamalam’..Pams host is in the States and they could not touch her. The information Pam has on her Blog is gold dust.

  47. Martyn

    30 Apr, 2010 - 8:06 am

    Murdoch.. no surprise there. Keep it up Craig, we need you.

  48. Paul Dettmann

    1 May, 2010 - 4:24 am

    Well done Craig! Not sure why most of that PDF is displaying at right angles to my screen, nor why Olswank couldn’t find anyone to put their name (or real signature) on their letters, but Shakespeare clearly is a cunt and I am hopeful you will refer them to the precedent set by Arkell v. Pressdram in 1971. Best, Paul.

  49. Cardinal Fang

    2 May, 2010 - 4:45 pm

    I’d get on to the Libel Reform Campaign (http://www.libelreform.org/) ASAP.

    They might be able to provide extra support and will certainly get the word out – there’s already a network of peeps primed and ready on the issue, thanks to the British Chiropractic Association’s bogus action against Dr. Simon Singh.

    (There’s also a petion calling for Libel Reform on the site, to try and stop this kind of intimidation using libel laws to suppress free speech).

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