Content is another matter. But it wasn’t Neil that changed the ST, it was essentially Murdoch.

Reporting in the UK has always been politicised, you idiot. Think Rothermere, Beaverbrook. Cudlipp. Or think Fox.

Your sense of history is truly wobbly.

You lie about Andrew Neil rjuining newspapers. What about the Sunday toiomes ? The economist before that ? His time running Sky TV ?

Some of you people are so loopy it turns to plain and easily refutable ignorance. But still you can’t see it. Blinkered and blind. Daft as a brush.

I really don’t understand why Andrew Neil has a career; every paper he touches turns to shit. It’s the reverse Midas touch. The Jock started to go downhill when he took over and decided to campaign against Scottish devolution, and hence to alienate pretty much the whole Scottish political class (i.e. the readership).

If I assert that James Naughtie and John Humphrys are endlessly plugging the issue of the reasons or non-reasons for the Iraq war, and for instance give us an overload of Robin Cook, I can in defence call up the archives of the Tody programme. And I have the defence of fair comment.

But what john b asserted creossed the line, I believe. If I were one of those journalists I would feel that my reputation had been impugned. I think I would be taking advice from the Scotsman’s legal department to see if I shold seek an apology and/or damages.

It is for john b to judge what to do.

And in case you think I am schill for the right-wing media, I might point out that I had occasion to sue both Sky TV and Rupert Murdoch personally. Without using any lawyer. The matter was settled by Murdoch’s lawyer within days. So I am not exactly dumb on the law.

I say again – be careful to check your position. You will know tht the more you stand by a libellous statement, the worse it gets. A quick retraction helps redce the risk.

I think you have libelled the two journalists. You imply they have fabricated a story with a careful and deliberate sedlection of "rumours". You imply that these "rumours" have been deliberately pitched to give an imbalanced story. You further assert that the story was in line with the known politics of "the newspaper’s owners and editors". You ppear to link those views back to Bush, rather than allowing that they are arrived at independently. I doubt if you know much about their views in any event. Or the Scotsmn.

If I were in their position, I’d be suing your sorry ass. It vis yo who is fabricating, not the journalists or the Scotsman.

a) the reporters have taken a selection of rumours – some of which may transpire to be true, others of which won’t – and presented them as fact.

b) Out of all the rumours circulating re the London attacks, they’ve picked the ones which, if true, would most support the theses that Al Qaeda is a well-resourced organisation rather than an ideology, and that the UK security services have been hampered by our insistence on due process.

c) These theses are in line with the known politics of the newspaper’s owners and editors.

Much of that report is NOT out of line with other reports that are emerging. For instance the doubts about whether the bombers intended to commit suicide – that has been speculated elsewhere, and the police have raised the doubts too.

Likewise there are other reports that the security services let some of the perpertrators slip off the radar. And that they did indeed have some links overseas.

You could have two hypotheses :

1 The reporters have done their best to stitch together some of the news or reports that were emerging elsewhere in the media yesterday and have been repeated today. Bringing the readers of the Scotsman up to date, which is what good journalism strives.

2 OR it is all or mostly fabrication, planned by the Barclays or their hatchet man Andrew Neil. And following a Telegraph line – as if it was the Telegraph that had done the takeover. That is as off-the-wall as I have ever seen. Are you sure Karl Rove is not in there somewhere ?

And where does the article even hint at "lock them all up ?" Let alone "torture them". And you will know that the some Yanks have abused prisoners – but have not TORTURED them in the sense that totalitarian regimes tortured people as a matter of course.

Which specific items in the article do you say are false ? You clim most of them are. Or are you proceeding by a sweeping assertion with nil foundation ?

You say in effect that the article is part of a Bushite conspiracy theory. That the journalists who wrote the story and the Scotsman which published it have invented most of the story.

Does that not impugn the integrity of the journalists who wrote the article ? Does libel come in here somewhere ?

http://www.urban75.com/Action/libel.html

If I were you I would retract immediately. Your statement could well be actionable.