7 January (Part 2) - The Maggot Sandwich is on the right track
As someone who takes
an interest in the local railway scene but falls far short of being a train
nerd I found the video about the new London Bridge station that Hugh Neal
posted on his Maggot Sandwich blog
today fascinating. (Foot of his page.) I watched it for the whole 13 minutes.
When the flu bug, which has made a bit of a resurgence over the past 48 hours,
finally goes away I shall go to look at London Bridge station for myself.
I am also most grateful to Hugh for highlighting
the dangers to all bloggers - in reality every news outlet - represented by Kent
Police’s decision to refer the report on Maxine Fothergill’s libel to the Crown
Prosecution Service. As he points out it represents a grave threat to freedom of
speech and in my opinion to journalism as we have known it.
Over the next day or two I will publish emails which show that whilst I was keen
to close down the subject, Councillor Fothergill would accept nothing less than
wiping every trace of the story from the web. A lot of people would welcome
restraints on press freedom like that, most of them bad ones I would think.
More news outlets should be as alert to that danger as Hugh appears to be. Sadly
that has not happened so far.