MHRA - Has the penny finally dropped?

Fidders has been intrigued by the apparent confluence and coincidence of interest shown by the D'oh, the MHRA and GSK's lawyers (please see the link, below). I thought it would be quite a sweet idea to contact Steptoe's, and put a human face on patient dissent! This to Andrew Bloom, a partner at Steptoe's, copied to Fidders and Breckenridge, blind copied to lots of people:

From: m.holford@hotmail.co.uk
To: abloom@steptoe.com
CC: [redacted]@blueyonder.co.uk; [redacted]@mhra.gsi.gov.uk
Subject: MHRA - Has the penny finally dropped?
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:41:11 +0000

Dear Andrew,

I wonder if you could forward this email to the person responsible for "reviewing" Mr Fiddaman's blog?

Perhaps you will be aware that staff at the MHRA have been forbidden from visiting the site, aside from one or two authorized persons, that is? We are interested at the correlation between visits by the MHRA, Steptoe's and the D'oh. We are also interested in that, whilst it ought to be trivial for the MHRA to have its IT people establish which user station it is that is visiting Mr Fiddaman's site, it appears not to be concerned with the breach of its own ban. Plus ca change, plus ca le meme chose, I imagine!

MHRA - Has the penny finally dropped?

In any event, I am concerned that there is an inequality of bargaining power, here. That is to say, we have significantly more knowledge in this area than you do. We regret this state of affairs with all the sincerity that our hearts have to offer you. If you are interested in having the deficiency in your intelligence remedied, we would be happy to oblige.

Howsoever it may be, you will have noted, I imagine, that Mr Fiddaman is doing nothing other than describing the world from his perspective, as are we all, I imagine. We would regret any attempt by Steptoe's to try to characterize it in any other way. I trust that we understand one another. Incidentally, if you believe that you have won an argument with us, at any point, please advise, and we will be happy to disabuse you. We imagine that you are very bright guys, but you are not in our league. Kindly do not contradict me on that point.

Finally, I would be grateful if you would not take to making allegations of defamation, harassment, and whatnot, in our direction. It's really quite tiresome. And untrue. As I wrote, before, we are merely describing the world from our perspective. How you receive our perspective is a matter for you to address, not us.

Best regards


Matthew Holford