Take a look at the Simon Singh vs British Chiropractic case for a good idea of how bad it is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Singh#Chiropractic_lawsui...

It looks like the right team won here. I wouldn't bet on that in the US.

In the US, the suit would have been thrown out without needing a full trial.

This was my thought as well -- nobody's mentioned the Britain libel angle yet.

On the other hand, who would you guess has the largest libel lawyer team and budget in Britain? Other than the Sun, I mean.

I would guess Private Eye rather than the BBC.

Isn't it just England, not the UK? And the amount of lawyers you can field still makes a difference, even in the UK. So I guess the ol' boys at the BBC won't be shaking in their Savile Row suits.

Just a few weeks ago a reform of the libel law went one step further, although I don't know if that would apply here. As far as I remember it was mostly to prevent suing people who weren't UK residents, which certainly won't help the BBC.

Certainly Scots law is fairly different in this area from England & Wales (e.g. we don't have the separate concepts of libel and slander).