The work of Peter Carter-Ruck during his career as a libel lawyer no doubt had a chilling effect on the media – as David Hooper wrote in The Guardian after his death in December. He was better than most at exploiting the defects of English libel law, as they existed throughout most of that time, to win cases for his clients and to earn lots of money.

But it can surely be argued that the blame for that chilling effect lies rather with the media and the politicians whose efforts to correct the more egregious defects in the law were so feeble.