Westminster Diary

GEORGE STRAUSS, who was the long-serving MP for the south London constituency
of Vauxhall and Minister of Supply in the Labour government led by Clement
Attlee fifty years ago, took on the old London Electricity Board in a famous
libel case. At issue was whether information provided by Strauss to a
constituent and then repeated by the constituent to the LEB, then a public body,
was subject to parliamentary privilege. The LEB claimed that it had been defamed
by Strauss in his letter to a constituent. He lost, and ever since MPs have had
to be careful what they say…