If private prosecution as the only way to progress – CPS have the right in law to take over a case “in the public interest”.

It’s one of the problematic parts of getting anywhere with The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 I kited earlier – since if the case is serious enough to warrant intervention – the prosecuting lawyers would be Civil Servants and hence prosecuting their “own people” – some Sir Humphrey would definitely frown upon..

I don’t know what the statistics are for private prosecutions taken over by CPS – but it’s not unreasonable to suspect that it’s an effective tactic to hoof uncomfortable issues well out of sight into very long grass.

If I’m not mistaken I believe they are the opening words to the “Constitution of the Enlightened States of Privilege” ?

I believe that such an action should be legal.

Following the points Natalie made here, I would differ even on that: it should be legal, unless it was done by the head of state who by definition has control of the agencies in charge of activities related to the actions (or inactions) by the said individual citizen – when said actions were perfectly legal, however immoral they may be seen by some people or even most people.

Mr Cameron has spread a story about an individual – with the express purpose of inciting hatred against that individual.

I believe that such an action should be legal.

But the law of England and Wales says it is not legal.

So Mr Cameron should be prosecuted for criminal libel.

Nonetheless, it is possibly a tool for sending a wake-up message that “you ARE NOT unaccountable for your actions” or, in an ideal world actually nailing some of the peculating power drunk halfwits that are running amok in our public institutions.

There some interest in wheeling this out and lighting the touchpaper in the areas of public health, climate change and general purpose administrative delinquency. Email me for more.

Skim-reading, I see both good and bad possibilities in this Act (“a duty to behave rationally” could be turned to sinister ends if oppressive forces get to define what is rational) but you have set me thinking.

From where I’m sat it’s not only the politicians that are delinquent and behaving badly – it’s our UK civil servants which is more problematic to my mind.

The Act concerned is The Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010 (pdf) – you can search it easily for key words in Adobe Reader – it ties in with and gives statutory force to The Civil Servant’s Code of Conduct..

The actual Civil Servant’s Code itself contains a statutory duty to implement objectivity – i.e. to base policy advice and strategy where possible on authoritative, proven, repeatable, testable facts.

The scope of the persons affected and required to conform is set out unequivocally in Part 1 – starting out on Page 5. There’s exclusions MI5/MI6 & persons working wholly outside the United Kingdom – UK civil service structure has been deliberately muddled for the purpose of fiefdom building – but the muddling has been I think largely very amateur – and could easily melt away if tested.

Page 7 starts the Codes of Conduct section –

Page 8
Section 5.8 mentions “those civil servants who are covered by the code” without defining them beyond the definition offered in Section 1 = NO exclusions it would seem ……….

Section 7.4 is quite explicit about behaviour…

The Act refers to the actual published Civil Servants Code in multiple places and the statutory duties enshrined therein…

TPTB know there’s a deep problem with accountability in the Balkanised UK state apparatus and this Act is an attempt to deal with that and impose some standards on an out of control bureaucracy My interpretation – granted – but why else do it?.

So – it’s a legally enfoceable duty to behave rationally (and a lot more – read the civil servants code) but the remedies and sanctions are ill defined – shame – hanging’s obviously too quick ….

I may well be useless / unenforceable redundant law but boy, oh boy am I itching to test it.

General comment: I’ve put up my second Jimmy Carr post, an expanded version of a comment I made in this thread. Though the new post looks at this affair from the angle of abuse of office, I would still like to know from any lawyers reading whether the specific hope I expressed half-seriously in this post, namely that Carr could do Cameron for criminal libel, has any basis. OK, I do realise that the answer to that is almost certainly “dream on”, but what about ordinary rather than criminal libel?

Alisa, I’d be very surprised to learn that most of the British public nowadays thought that either homosexuality or adultery should be illegal.