The fining of Socialist Worker editor Paul Foot last week should lave come as no surprise.
Foot, who revealed the names of the two wealthy layabouts allegedly blackmailed by Janie Jones, was found guilty of contempt of court by Lord Chief Justice Widgery and his cohorts on the Queen's Bench.
These distinguished law lords de cided that if Foot got away with it * potential complainant would say to himself: "Even the judge cannot protect me."* They just forgot to mention that the blackmail allegations were thrown out during the Jan ie Jones case; that they were presumably trumped up in the first place, so that the trial judge could generously bestow anonymity on class allies whose involvement in such a 'sordid" case would otherwise be revealed: and that in far worse cases the names and photographs of working class witnesses have been blazoned across the press.
The fact that the Fool case was both brought and prosecuted by Sam Silkin, the Labour Attorney General, makes it that much more despicable. Socizlist Worker now has to find around C8,000 to meet the fine and costs (the latter grossly Inflated by the fact that barristers demand £500 a day to grease their oily palms).
What is surprising about this case, however, is that the International Socalists according to a statement made by Paul Foot at a meeting of the Magmine Brunch of the NUJ last weekactually expected to win.
When a proposal to picket the trial was pat to the brancis by a member of the IMG, Foot replied that it would serve little purpose, since there was no jury and one could not expect to intluence the opinions of High Court officials. ANA SOCHU branch voted to organise a picket, both Paul Foot and the chairman, Roger Protz-Fool's predecessor as the editor of Socialist Worker-opNAME.....
Red Weekly 24 October 1974 Page 12 posed the sogan stop the trial on the basis that it was an important case and they were going to win!
The branch has now called an em ergency meeting, to be held next Monday. The IMG will argue that what determines the course of "justice' is not a 'good" case but the relatonslap of class forces.
-It is essential that as many journalists chapels as possible show their contempt for the law lords and the Labour Government by pushing aside their typewriters, and calling on oth er sections of the labour movement to join thein in a mass demonstrat10п. This should be linked to the call for a anion commission of inquiry into interference in the media by the police and the State now being taken up in the media unions.