MR JUSTICE WARBY Approved Judgment 21. Monroe v Hopkins [2017] EWHC 433 (QB) There was no reply to that letter. But 12 days later, on Tuesday 2 June 2015, at 6.58am Ms Hopkins tweeted “@MsJackMonroe I was confused about identity. I got it wrong.” She did nothing else, until after Seddons wrote again on 4 August 2015. Seddons’ letter noted that there had been no reply to theirs of 21 May. It said that all previous offers were withdrawn and that proceedings were being prepared and would be served on Ms Hopkins personally unless she nominated solicitors. This evidently prompted Ms Hopkins to instruct Kingsley Napley, who wrote on 14 August 2015: “…We are taking urgent instructions from our client and will be in a position to respond substantively to your correspondence in the early part of next week. In the meantime, it would be premature to issue proceedings, particularly in circumstances where the tweet has been removed months ago, and a retraction made. If it assists, we can also reassure your client that there is no possibility that our client will repeat the words complained of or similar in the future. In such circumstances, it would seem sensible to pause before issuing a claim, particularly where we have not explored with you the quantification of any serious harm or losses that your client claims to have settled.” 22. Following further correspondence largely devoted to exploring the issue of serious harm, these proceedings were issued in December 2015. The Defence raised the three issues identified at the outset of this judgment. It also averred that Ms Monroe had` “herself extensively publicised the tweets containing the statements complained of, the circumstances of the tweets, her denials in relation to the tweets, that the Defendant had been mistaken in mentioning her in the First Tweet, and her contempt for the Defendant’s conduct and the Defendant generally.” The Defence denied Ms Monroe’s claim to have suffered “substantial upset and distress”, pointing to “the obvious pleasure taken by her in threatening these proceedings”, and to her activity on Twitter in relation to the matters complained of. Legal principles 23. The core principles of defamation law according to which this claim must be decided are not in dispute. For the purposes of this case they can be summarised in this way. (1) Libel consists of the publication by the defendant to one or more third parties of a statement about the claimant which has a tendency to defame the claimant, and causes or is likely to cause serious harm to the claimant’s reputation. (2) Whether a statement about the claimant has a defamatory tendency is determined according to common law principles identified in Jeynes v News Magazines Ltd [2008] EWCA Civ 130, Thornton v Telegraph Media Group Ltd [2010] EWHC 1414 (QB) [2011] 1 WLR 1985, and Modi v Clarke [2011] EWCA Civ 937. In short, the answer depends on (a) the single meaning that would be conveyed by the statement to a hypothetical ordinary reasonable reader and (b) whether that meaning is one that would tend to have a substantially adverse effect on the way that right-thinking members of society generally would treat the claimant. As this summary suggests, the answer is arrived at objectively, and not by reference to