What next for Jack of Kent?

Many blogs are closing.

Many bloggers are leaving (or tell us they are leaving) the blogosphere.

In the context of this, I have some news about this particular blog.

As you may know, I am now writing mainly at the New Statesman on legal and other matters.

So what should I do with this blog?

Should it come to an end before it dies of lack of interest?

Should I just shut it down?


Of course not.

In fact, I am preparing a new series of posts, just on this site, separate from my blogging and other writing at other places.

It is a series of posts I was going to start back in the spring, but for reasons which I will now set out, I could not bring myself to write them.


But first a piece of news which may take some of you by surprise.

I have hardly written about libel since the general election: for a good six months or so.

Part of this was for non-libel reasons. I wanted to write about other legal matters, such as the McKinnon extradition, the Twitter Joke Trial, and police misconduct. I also wanted to move on from the "@jackofkent" Twitter persona and develop my own voice under my own name.

However, by the general election, I was also sick to death of writing about libel and needed a rest from it.

And when it became obvious there was not going to be an immediate parliamentary bill for libel reform, I just could not motivate myself to keep writing about and campaigning for libel reform at the same pace as before.

I also wanted to take a step back and have a think about where libel reform was going.

For libel reform to be generally and enduringly effective, it had to be more than a footnote to the misconceived and illiberal libel action brought by the now discredited British Chiropractic Association against Simon Singh.

Instead, libel reform has to be based on a dispassionate appraisal of how substantive and procedural libel law was going wrong, and also where it may be working.

One has to convert from being an assertive campaigner to being an effective reformer.

And so I am now blowing the dust and cobwebs off the Jack of Kent blog.

Starting from tomorrow, this blog will host a series of posts on libel and libel reform.

The intention is to begin from first principles:

What is libel actually for?

What is libel supposed to be protecting?

What should a libel action (or a threat of a libel action) actually achieve?

And what effects should be avoided or minimised?


The posts will then move on to the substantive and procedural law of libel. The ambition is that this series of posts will lead up to the publication (possibly in spring) of the government's draft libel reform bill.

This series of blogposts will also take me away from active campaigning for libel reform. Whilst a remain a full supporter of the splendid individuals at the libel reform campaign, I would like to write about where both the reformers and those opposing reform are getting it right - and also where they may be getting it wrong.

I will continue to blog and write elsewhere on other legal issues - I will be looking especially at police powers and the operation of the criminal justice system at the New Statesman.

The Jack of Kent blog made its name by being a useful guide to those following the BCA v Singh case, providing information which allowed readers to form their own views, and it seems to me that this blog could be put to good purpose by providing a service to those who want to follow the upcoming and crucial libel reform debate.



Next post: What is reputation, and why should it be protected?


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