JACK STRAW is preparing to draw up proposals for wholesale reform of England’s libel laws, after a long-running Sunday Times campaign.

The justice secretary says the large legal fees involved in defamation cases in English courts are jeopardising freedom of speech, potentially curbing vital debate by scientists, academics and journalists.

The huge payouts awarded to individuals who successfully claim their reputation has been damaged has made London the libel capital of the world.

Last night, Straw warned that the bonanza for lawyers and claimants was having a “chilling” effect and pledged radical changes. “It is very important that citizens are able to take action for defamation if they are seriously defamed. But no-win, no-fee arrangements have got out of hand. The system has become unbalanced,” he said.

Wealthy individuals from all over the world are heading to London’s High Court to bring libel cases because England’s draconian libel laws make it easier to win than in jurisdictions such as America, which put greater emphasis on freedom of speech. Courts are accepting cases with flimsy connections to Britain.

American newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Boston Globe have warned that they may be forced to stop selling copies in the UK because of the risk of being sued.

In one case, a wealthy Saudi businessman successfully sued an American academic whose book on funding terrorism sold just 23 copies in Britain over the internet. He was awarded £130,000 damages and costs by London courts.

In another case, a British consultant cardiologist, Dr Peter Wilmshurst, is being sued by an American company, NMT Medical, for questioning the effectiveness of a new heart implant device. Wilmshurst raised his criticism at an American conference and his comments were posted on a US website, but he is being pursued at the High Court because a number of cardiologists read the article in Britain.

In measures that are expected to win cross-party support, Straw believes individuals and media groups must have a clearer right to express their views, as in other countries.

“A free press can’t operate or be effective unless it can offer readers comment as well as news. What concerns me is that the current arrangements are being used by big corporations to restrict fair comment, not always by journalists but also by academics,” he said.

He also wants to see new restrictions on no-win, no-fee arrangements and curbs on legal fees involved in fighting cases. In many cases, lawyers who win libel cases make 10 times the money their clients are awarded. He cited one case in which a regional newspaper was forced to pay damages of £5,000 to a plaintiff but £50,000 to the plaintiff’s lawyer.

“The very high levels of remuneration for defamation lawyers in Britain seem to be incentivising libel tourism,” he said.

Straw has been impressed by a report from Index on Censorship, the free-speech body, and English PEN, a charity that supports persecuted writers. The groups jointly conducted a year-long inquiry into the issue. Their report warns that current laws risk turning the country into a “global pariah”; its recommendations include capping libel damages at £10,000 and making an apology the chief remedy; shifting the burden of proof so that claimants have to demonstrate damage; and preventing cases from being heard in London unless at least 10% of the offending publication’s circulation is in the UK.

The proposed changes are still under discussion, but Straw is keen to begin the process, which could involve a new libel bill, as soon as possible.

Libel lawyers agree that reform is necessary but some argue that the threat of being sued encourages the media to report accurately. Paul Tweed, an Irish libel lawyer who has acted in England and Ireland for US celebrities including the singers Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez, said: “I believe the UK broadsheets are among the finest and most credible in the world because of libel laws which keep a check on what is published.”

He claimed that most wealthy individuals who bring libel cases are not motivated by money: “The Hollywood stars I act for are not seeking damages. What they want is the record set straight, fast, because if it is not, it will be pumped round the internet.”

Among those who have recently attacked the libel laws are the former director of public prosecutions, Sir Ken Macdonald, and the scientist Richard Dawkins, who warned that the laws make scientists wary of challenging bogus claims about health products.

The laws help despots

War criminals and despots are using England’s draconian libel and privacy laws to try to gag their critics. In one case, Human Rights Watch, a campaigning charity, was forced to change a report about the genocide in Rwanda after a man it accused of helping to transport a group of Tutsis to their deaths threatened to sue in English courts.

In another case, Global Witness, an environmental and human rights pressure group, was threatened with an injunction by Denis Christel Sassou-Nguesso, son of the president of Congo-Brazzaville, after it published documents that suggested he had bought more than $250,000 (£151,000) of designer clothes and other luxury goods using a credit card paid for by public funds. The injunction was not granted but Global Witness had to pay £50,000 in legal costs.

You can tell there's an election on the way...

Rajinder Singh says he supports far-right party's anti-Islam stance

• Haroon Siddique
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 November 2009 14.47 GMT
• Article history

A Sikh man who has campaigned for the BNP in support of its anti-Islam stance has been put forward to be the party's first non-white member.

Rajinder Singh, who is in his late 70s, has twice lent support to Nick Griffin during the British National party leader's court appearances and appeared in an election broadcast for the party in 2005. There have been suggestions that he could stand as a BNP candidate at next year's general election.

Singh, who came to Britain in 1967, used to pen a regular column for the party's Freedom newspaper and has spoken at BNP meetings where he has been vehement in his criticism of Muslims, talking about his experiences at the partition of India in 1947. He was born in Lahore, which became part of Pakistan after partition, and blames Muslims for the death of his father during the bloody split of India.

The BNP's senior members voted last weekend to hold a party-wide ballot on whether to allow non-white people to join. That followed the party's agreement to a court order last month to use all reasonable endeavours to revise its constitution so that it did not breach the equality bill in the face of a challenge to its membership policy by the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Martin Wingfield, the communications officer for the party's two MEPs and the its prospective parliamentary candidate for Workington, wrote on his blog in support of admitting non-whites, and Singh in particular. "I say adapt and survive and give the brave and loyal Rajinder Singh the honour of becoming the first ethnic minority member of the BNP," wrote Wingfield.

Singh, a former teacher from Wellingborough in Northamptonshire, said he would be "honoured" to become a full member of the BNP.

"I got in touch with the BNP on certain core policies that appeal to me," he told the Independent. "I also admire them since they are on their own patch and do not wish to let anyone else oust them from the land of their ancestors."

In 2001, after the September 11 attacks on the US, he said he wanted to set up an Asian Friends of the BNP group to act as a supporting body and conduit for funds for people sympathetic to the party's anti-Islamic stance.

A BNP spokesman said he would be "quite happy" to have Singh as a member, adding that the retired teacher recognised that he was a "guest of ours". "We have always maintained it's not really about skin colour, it's about ethnicity," he said. He emphasised that the party's membership list, suspended following last month's court order, remained closed for the time being.

And in other news, turkey set to vote for Christmas.

Thanks Andy Marshall @fotofacade, for this extraordinary stair photo! inspiring. Find more here. http://fotofacade.com/?p=2646

I am focused on a deadline this week, and will return for more 21st Century Cities with a couple of significant issues - slums and tribes - two different, related ideas.

A source close to the British Labour Government has just given me reliable information about the most radical copyright proposal I've ever seen.

Secretary of State Peter Mandelson is planning to introduce changes to the Digital Economy Bill now under debate in Parliament. These changes will give the Secretary of State (Mandelson -- or his successor in the next government) the power to make "secondary legislation" (legislation that is passed without debate) to amend the provisions of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988).

What that means is that an unelected official would have the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright. Mandelson elaborates on this, giving three reasons for his proposal:

1. The Secretary of State would get the power to create new remedies for online infringements (for example, he could create jail terms for file-sharing, or create a "three-strikes" plan that costs entire families their internet access if any member stands accused of infringement)

2. The Secretary of State would get the power to create procedures to "confer rights" for the purposes of protecting rightsholders from online infringement. (for example, record labels and movie studios can be given investigative and enforcement powers that allow them to compel ISPs, libraries, companies and schools to turn over personal information about Internet users, and to order those companies to disconnect users, remove websites, block URLs, etc)

3. The Secretary of State would get the power to "impose such duties, powers or functions on any person as may be specified in connection with facilitating online infringement" (for example, ISPs could be forced to spy on their users, or to have copyright lawyers examine every piece of user-generated content before it goes live; also, copyright "militias" can be formed with the power to police copyright on the web)

Mandelson is also gunning for sites like YouSendIt and other services that allow you to easily transfer large files back and forth privately (I use YouSendIt to send podcasts back and forth to my sound-editor during production). Like Viacom, he's hoping to force them to turn off any feature that allows users to keep their uploads private, since privacy flags can be used to keep infringing files out of sight of copyright enforcers.

This is as bad as I've ever seen, folks. It's a declaration of war by the entertainment industry and their captured regulators against the principles of free speech, privacy, freedom of assembly, the presumption of innocence, and competition.

This proposal creates the office of Pirate-Finder General, with unlimited power to appoint militias who are above the law, who can pry into every corner of your life, who can disconnect you from your family, job, education and government, who can fine you or put you in jail.

More to follow, I'm sure, once Open Rights Group and other activist organizations get working on this. In the meantime, tell every Briton you know. If we can't stop this, it's beginning of the end for the net in Britain.

UK section to host full-length episodes of Peep Show, Hollyoaks and other shows from providers including Channel 4 and ITN

• Katie Allen
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 November 2009 12.19 GMT
• Article history

Peep Show: one of the Channel 4 series being hosted on YouTube. Photograph: Linda Nylind

YouTube has launched a new shows section for UK users as it taps into rising online demand for full-length television programmes.

The new section provides the first shows from a landmark deal with Channel 4 announced last month and will include full-length episodes of Peep Show, Hollyoaks, Gordon Ramsay's F Word and Jamie at Home. Shows from other media partners include Dead Ringers, ITN News and Baywatch.

At launch, YouTube is posting around 5,000 videos, of which almost 4,000 are full-length programmes, from more than 60 partners. YouTube said it "expects this to significantly increase in the coming months" and the full range of Channel 4 shows will be available in early 2010 .

For established broadcasters, including Channel 4, partnering with YouTube is a response to the trend of both viewers and advertisers leaving television channels for the internet. Channel 4 is hoping that posting content on YouTube can bring in new advertising revenues.

All programmes on the shows section will be available free of charge and, where the content owner has enabled it, they will carry advertising. Channel 4's shows will feature advertisers including Virgin Media, Universal, Orange, Samsung and Pepsi.

Patrick Walker, YouTube's video partnerships director, said the launch would bring more big-brand programmes to viewers on top of the site's home-made clips.

"The shows section of the site will make it easier for users to discover videos from the biggest names in British broadcasting, and help our content partners reach new audiences and generate new revenues," he said.

Google, YouTube's parent company, has been working hard to convince the rights holders of music, film and TV shows to make advertising revenue from their content rather than remove it from the video-sharing site for breach of copyright.

By putting advertising with clips, YouTube makes money from revenue sharing deals with the rights holders.

That trend is bringing YouTube a badly needed increase in revenues. Three years after Google bought the video sharing site for $1.65bn, it has yet to turn a profit and there are concerns the division is devouring the internet group's cash reserves.