Sex smear scandal

Above: during the bank holiday weekend there has been no Newsnight, no Andrew Neil, no Politics Show. And yet one of the biggest "sex smear" scandals of parliamentary history has broken out. Surely there should be some mechanism for recalling political interviewers during crises of this kind?

"Downing Street" staff were behind the invention of salacious sex stories about Conservative politicians and their wives, which were to be published on a supposedly independent "front" blog. One of the main people implicated in this campaign was actually a civil servant, paid for by our taxes (and although he has resigned over the scandal presumably he is hoping to keep his comfortable public sector pension). One of the main targets of this false sexual innuendo was David Cameron, and although as a senior politician he should expect ruthless attacks he is also (with his wife) still grieving the death of his infant son - to publish false material designed to damage or break up his marriage seems to have shocked many people.

Am I alone in thinking that now we have caught one of these political spin merchants red-handed we should put him in a court and see if a gaol sentence can be imposed? Surely he is guilty (with Derek Draper) of conspiracy to commit a crime? Can we at least take his pension away?



Above: as the scandal has unfolded there are suggestions that it could bring down the government. On PM (Radio 4) today senior Labour politicians were turning on their own leadership, suggesting that confidence in the administration is ebbing away. Strategically it might be better for Labour to ditch Gordon Brown now rather than wait for the electorate to do it in a year's time.

You can see above the front cover of yesterday's Guardian. I like the way they have positioned Armando Iannucci in a prime adjacent position next to the sex smear scandal headline. Armando Iannucci satirised the outrageous behaviour of Downing Street special advisors in his comedy series The Thick Of It (at the time some critics thought it was exaggerated, but it now seems Armando Iannucci was a master of understatement).

Life imitating art imitating life (in this clip the Conservatives are the target of sexual innuendo that seems to have originated from Downing Street): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQoem1717X4&feature=related



Above: no Paxman, no Andrew Neil, no Politics Show. But Today (BBC Radio 4) has covered the scandal brilliantly, and today's World At One was excellent. Also enjoyed Carole Cadwalladr in Sunday's Observer, Jackie Ashley in yesterday's Guardian and Dominic Lawson in today's Independent (note added Wednesday - also John Harris's article in the Guardian).

Life imitating art imitating life

Above: another Monday, another political sex scandal. This one involves the Home Secretary who has been caught putting her husband's pornographic viewing habits on public expenses. More seriously (in my opinion) her husband is also employed as her assistant, on the public payroll at a vastly inflated salary (much more than we pay our office manager).

Everyone seems to have a ribald comment to make on this news item, mostly revolving around aspects of... er... onanism.

I looked at all the front covers and nearly chose the Daily Mirror to illustrate the story, but in the end opted for the Daily Mail. I particularly like the subtle and subliminal way in which the layout links the word "hilarious" with the name of the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith (as the eye reads the Home Secretary's name it also picks up the understated verdict). This is the work of a master.

Late yesterday Jacqui Smith's husband appeared at the gate of the family residence and read a carefully worded and unconvincing statement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeF36BWgKhE&feature=channel

It is life imitating art imitating life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72ZO6w0rl6Y

"Romping"

Above: There was a glorious front page to the News of the World yesterday. It involved illicit sexual “romping” by Nigel Griffiths, Labour Member of Parliament for South Edinburgh. The article encourages us to think “dirty dirty dirty Nigel” (to paraphrase Richard Curtis writing about John Major in his film The Girl In The Café).



Above: political sex scandals tend to be judged against the gold standard of David Mellor’s fall from power in 1992. David Mellor was an uber-hubristic Cabinet Minister who was dragged from office following press revelations about his sexual “romping” and subsequent attempted cover up. The public opprobrium heaped upon David Mellor related to his lying and his nauseating hypocrisy, but also (unfairly no doubt) referred to his overweight and unattractive appearance (he is gap-toothed and podgy-faced, with greasy lank hair).



Above: the David Mellor sex scandal has been lampooned on the award-winning comedy show Little Britain, thus signifying the scandal’s entry into popular consciousness and cultural reference. In the satire we see the lying cheating politician at the gate to his vast mock-Tudor residence, surrounded by his family, reading out a carefully-worded and unconvincing statement. Little Britain has a patchy record, but this particular satire approaches Brechtian levels of social commentary.

More: http://www.littlebritain.net/minor-characters/leonard.html?Itemid=54



Above: A variant was produced for Little Britain USA involving a lying cheating Congressman.



Above: as well as Labour “sleaze” and Tory “sleaze” there is also a Liberal-Democrat variety. Probably the best-known recent example is the Paddy Pantsdown incident (then Liberal-Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown was caught “romping” with his secretary, despite his projected image as a man of integrity). Arguably the Liberals provided the most shocking political sex scandal of all time with the Jeremy Thorpe case in the 1970s, but this was so long ago that few people remember it (although it would make a good subject for a Peter Morgan drama).

Why do these political sex scandals acquire such a huge importance? In part it is because they represent an opportunity for ordinary people to deliver a popular verdict on a political class that is seen as remote, self-perpetuating and beyond democratic control. It should worry politicians that whenever “the people” get an opportunity to deliver such a verdict they drag the hapless MP down into the mire and kick him to death (metaphorically).

MPs do not help themselves by evading public concerns over corruption. On the Today Programme this morning there was a Tory spokesperson saying MP’s employment of staff was “no longer an issue” when it absolutely IS an issue – the popular mood is incredibly hostile to MPs employing their spouses or other relations on the public payroll. This is yet another example of how the political elite, by ignoring popular concerns, is alienating voters and driving them to the extremist parties (both left and right).

Editor of the News of the World is Colin Myler. The newspaper has a circulation of just below three million, and a complex readership profile (it's not just C1, C2 DE men and women). Neville Thurlbeck is an alumnus of Lancaster University and has regularly produced sensational reports for the News of the World.

Laughed at

Once again, at 12 noon today, Prime Minister’s Questions appeared on BBC2. Instead of the Prime Minister, Harriet Harman substituted, exchanging jokes with William Hague (who seemed to have filled the Opposition camera frame with women, so that a reasonably youthful and gender-inclusive image was created). In the introduction to PMQs, Daily Politics co-presenter Jenny Scott regretted that Liberal-Democrat Leader Nick “Cleggover” was not participating (a pun on “leg-over” which is a United Kingdom colloquial expression for sexual congress - a reference to Nick Clegg’s claim in GQ magazine to have had thirty sexual partners).



Nick Clegg was very foolish to have answered a variation of the Britney Spears “are you still a virgin” question, as he has opened up a narrative path for other journalists to follow. Does “under thirty” mean “29 sexual partners and counting”, in which case when will he reach number thirty? And who (one can imagine the Editor of The Sun asking) are these thirty or so women, and what are the thirty or so stories they have to tell?

British political sex “scandals” sell newspapers. And by boasting (for it obviously was a sort of boast) of thirty conquests Nick Clegg has just handed over to the media the potential for thirty episodes in a long-running saga that could possibly keep going through the summer season (“so assuming he started in 1983 when he was sixteen and stopped when he got married in 2000 he was changing sexual partners on average every seven months - that’s a lot of f--k buddies even for a politician…”). If he was a poor lover he will be laughed at; if he was a great lover he will be admired and laughed at; if it turns out to be mostly fantasy and fabrication (since his claim is well above the global average) he will be jeered and laughed at.



A quick look through the files upstairs reveals that David Miliband gave an interview to GQ magazine two years ago. It is a model of sober propriety, conducted by Darius Sanai (an alumnus of City University’s Journalism course). GQ magazine is part of Condé Nast which is run by Nicholas Coleridge (from the same family as the poet Samuel Coleridge) the ultra-civilised pro-Indian former employer of one of the Barnett sisters (and in a very oblique connection with the Nick Clegg interview, one of Nicholas Coleridge’s novels was nominated for the Literary Review's Bad Sex Award - possibly this has set an unintended “culture” at the magazine group).

More on Harriet Harman: http://www.harrietharman.org/

More on William Hague: http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=people.person.page&personID=4680

More on Nick Clegg: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7324541.stm
and also
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/01/nickclegg.pressandpublishing
and also
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article984233.ece

More on the average number of sexual partners: http://www.durex.com/cm/gss2004Content.asp?intQid=401

The media induced skimmity ride has become one of our cultural exports

Today there are elections in the United Kingdom – council elections in England and elections for the regional assemblies in Scotland and Wales. Because these are fixed date elections it seems as if the campaigning has been going on forever. This is one of my favourite newspaper headlines from the campaign – it was printed in the Daily Telegraph (which doesn’t usually feature sex scandals).

Yet again a politician has been caught “romping” with young girls. This time it’s Angus MacNeil, a Scottish Nationalist MP (for a Westminster seat) who “romped” with two teenage girls, but told the newspapers he was “too drunk to have sex”. Ironically Angus MacNeil is the MP who accused Tony Blair of corruption in the “cash for honours” scandal and presumably believes in the highest standards of behaviour in public life.

This is a piffling little sex scandal and doesn’t really compare with the David Mellor sex scandal of 1992 when he appeared at his garden gate supported by his wife and children (and in-laws I think) denying everything, until fresh revelations made it clear he was a liar. The garden gate episode has entered the popular imagination and has more recently been satirised on the comedy show Little Britain. I think people enjoyed the David Mellor downfall because he was so incredibly arrogant and self-obsessed.

In the interests of party political fairness, both New Labour and the Liberal Democrats have also had regular sex scandals.

Thomas Hardy in The Mayor of Casterbridge records the old custom of the “Skimmity Ride” where effigies of people caught misbehaving were paraded through a town or village on a donkey, accompanied by an impromptu orchestra playing music on kitchen utensils (beating kettles and trays with spoons etc). Excited onlookers would jeer and yell insults as the procession went past. Finally the effigies were hanged and burned.

In a small community this sort of public humiliation would have been devastating. For the targets of a skimmity ride there would be no going back. Unlike today when no sooner do you get rid of a disgraced politician he pops back up again in the government (or in David Mellor’s case you can hear his nauseating voice on Classic FM).

The 1989 Billy Joel song We Didn’t Start The Fire refers to “British politicians sex” (specifically the 1963 Profumo Affair), indicating that the media induced skimmity ride has become one of our cultural exports.