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Taxpayers pay govt minister's libel bill; Sunak calls her "an excellent minister"
UK science minister apologises and pays damages after academic’s libel action
[Bad headline, Guardian; later on, you say we, the taxpayers, are paying the damages]
Michelle Donelan, the science minister, has apologised and paid damages after accusing two academics of “sharing extremist views” and one of them of supporting Hamas.
...
Sang launched a libel action against Donelan after the minister published a letter to the UK Research Institute (UKRI) which urged it to cut links with Sang and another academic, Dr Kamna Patel of University College London. Donelan had described her “disgust and outrage” at their appointment to an expert advisory group to Research England on equality, diversity and inclusion.
UKRI is the umbrella agency responsible for channelling £3bn in higher education research funding, including to Research England. The institute suspended Sang and Patel while it carried out an investigation into Donelan’s allegations, which appear to have been triggered by a report by Policy Exchange.
...
Donelan’s department said that it had paid the damages and legal costs when asked who had done so, adding: “This was subject to all the usual cross-government processes and aims to reduce the overall costs to the taxpayer that could result from protracted legal action.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/05/uk-science-minister-michelle-donelan-apologises-and-pays-damages-after-academics-libel-action
[Bad headline, Guardian; later on, you say we, the taxpayers, are paying the damages]
Michelle Donelan, the science minister, has apologised and paid damages after accusing two academics of “sharing extremist views” and one of them of supporting Hamas.
...
Sang launched a libel action against Donelan after the minister published a letter to the UK Research Institute (UKRI) which urged it to cut links with Sang and another academic, Dr Kamna Patel of University College London. Donelan had described her “disgust and outrage” at their appointment to an expert advisory group to Research England on equality, diversity and inclusion.
UKRI is the umbrella agency responsible for channelling £3bn in higher education research funding, including to Research England. The institute suspended Sang and Patel while it carried out an investigation into Donelan’s allegations, which appear to have been triggered by a report by Policy Exchange.
...
Donelan’s department said that it had paid the damages and legal costs when asked who had done so, adding: “This was subject to all the usual cross-government processes and aims to reduce the overall costs to the taxpayer that could result from protracted legal action.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/05/uk-science-minister-michelle-donelan-apologises-and-pays-damages-after-academics-libel-action
"The overall costs to the taxpayer"? How about the idiot minister who libelled the academics pays it, or her prejudiced friends in the Tory party and it backers whom she was trying to impress? That way, the "overall cost" to us would be zero.