Ian Hislop describes Marr as “hypocritical” in super-injunction row
Private Eye editor Ian Hislop has challenged the imposition of so called super-injunctions describing Andrew Marr as a “touch hypocritical” over his own use of the controversial gagging order.” over his own use of the controversial gagging order.
Speaking on Radio 4's Today programme Hislop said: “Originally Andrew Marr’s injunction said that not only could you not publish the story, but you could not publish the fact that he had an injunction. I thought this was a touch hypocritical since he’s written a piece specifically about privacy law in which he said judges should not determine privacy law, it should be determined by parliament.
“He said I did not come into journalism to gag journalists’ – that’s exactly what he did.”
Challenging this “outrageous” conflict Hislop confronted Marr who told him: “You can call me a stinking hypocrite but you can’t mention any details of the story.”
Hislop said it was ‘pretty rank’ of him to have an injunction when his own job saw him interviewing politicians over their own extra marital affairs, many of whom would have been well aware of Marr’s own dalliance.
Steve Hewlitt, presenter of the Radio 4 Media Show said: “Super-injunctions have all sorts of horrible resonances such as a police state, it’s a really bad process but you can see how they got there.”
Joshua Rosenberg, the BBC’s legal correspondent said, “Taking into account rulings from the Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg the courts are inevitably going to have to strike a balance between freedom of expression and the right to respect someone’s private life.”