My lone answer is given grudgingly. Extramarital affairs should not be a public issue, but lying and hypocrisy in a candidate running for public office is definitely a public issue.
That's pretty close to what I feel. (Except for newspaper editors - I think that's my petty side coming out.) Really I don't care, but hypocrisy is something we need to know about in our political candidates.
I don't know how much of the Mosley affair has been reported on your side of the pond but the newspaper editors are a bit of a sore point right now. The News Of The World paid someone to record his BDSM session, went public, and has just lost the ensuing privacy case to the tune of £60,000 in damages and several times that in costs.
The result, and the immediate cause of my poll, is a bunch of papers whining about press freedom and the public interest (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7525103.stm), which it seems to me (and by the looks of it most of my readers) they have thoroughly confused with what the public is interested in.
The result, and the immediate cause of my poll, is a bunch of papers whining about press freedom and the public interest, which it seems to me (and by the looks of it most of my readers) they have thoroughly confused with what the public is interested in.
Whilst I (a) absolutely am with the majority of your readers, and (b) equally strongly hold that one does not punish the son for the sins of the father, I suspect that your readership is unlikely to be representative of the British public: though I don't know for certain, I would expect it to be biased towards the bourgeoisie. (Ye dogs, did I just use that word?)
Secondly, the tabloids (well, whatever the word is now they're all tabloid) aren't interested in representing the views of the British public, but in forming them: If they read that people believe X, it sways them towards holding that opinion themselves, to fit in with the herd.
(Cynical, but that's the way I think a lot of people work, to at least some degree.)
they have thoroughly confused with what the public is interested in.
Err, I'm quite interested in hot kinky sex sessions, I just don't think they should report them without consent. I would say that they have my interest spot on though ;-)
No, one does not necessarily make a vow of monogamy. If someone has got married using a traditional Christian ceremony, then they have made such a vow (but they still might have agreed with their spouse to vary the terms, afterwards!) If someone has got married in a register office, then unless you were there, you don't know what they promised. At least in Scotland: I was happy to find out that the only thing you have to declare are (a) that you are legally free to marry (b) that you wish to be regarded by the law as married.
That's why I didn't tick more, e.g. "politician who uses their family". OK, if the person breaking the story *does* know that they'd vowed monogamy. I also wondered about "vicar", but decided that's not in the *public* interest. It may be in the interests of the members of that person's church.
I guess that I'm old fashioned. I would never cheat on anyone, and I simply don't understand open relationships. I would like to dedicate my life to one person. And if they cheated on me I would be devastated.
Please don't confuse having sex with someone other than your main partner with "cheating". By and large, it seems to me, people whose relationships do not involved a promise of sexual exclusivity are more, not less, scrupulous about being honest with their partners and about keeping the promises they have made.
No. It means that they couldn't keep that promise, if they made it. You never know what's happened inside a marriage. The break up of a marriage is a human thing, not something to be condemned.
I mistrust those who don't understand this fact, or use a misinterpretation of it to bully other people.
I know multiple married couples where there ‘traditional’ boundaries aren't applied; apparent infidelity would not actually be breaking any promises in these cases.
I'm curious why it's only politicians who need to be held to this standard - surely vicars and the bosses of large organizations are recipients of a great degree of trust also. (And for that matter sportsmen/women ‘in the field’ - their fans and team-mates trust them not to e.g. throw a match.)
Mostly it's only politicians who bang on about traditional morality - I don't care about their sex life - I care if they want one rule for themselves and another rule for the general public.
I remember around the time of the "Paddy Pantsdown" affair someone on usenet1 said that it was well-known in Lib Dem circles that Ashdown and his wife had an open marriage. I really think politicians would benefit from occasionally saying "yeah, so what?" in response to these stories. Didn't seem to do Alan Clark's reputation much harm.
Max Mosley might as well change his surname to "Nazi Orgy" now, since those two words are going to pop up in any news story about him despite winning the court case (with some justification - "it wasn't a Nazi orgy, it was a German prison scenario orgy" - yeah, right).
1 Yes, I know, but this was someone who was probably in a position to know.
Of course, how do you define "politician" these days? Do you mean elected representaive, or election candidate, or do we include eg think-tank members, senior civil servants ("Whitehall mandarins"), hereditary peers, assorted advisors...?
I was really thinking MPs and potential MPs, but I suppose you could extend it to anyone who wields significant power and might come to the attention of the gutter press.
I didn't fill in the poll (since there was no "none" option). However, I would have ticked the traditional-morality politician and the kiss-and-tell editor if the question had asked whether it was funny...
I think it's in the public interest that the hypocrisies of "family values" politicians be exposed as widely as possible. It simply isn't fair or reasonable to campaign to curtail my rights in the name of "family values" whilst you are going around violating those very values right left and centre; if you want to bang on about "values" you have to be seen to at least be *trying* to uphold those values in your own life.
The judgment in the Mosley case—Mosley v News Group Newspapers Ltd. [2008] EWHC 1777 (QB) (24 July 2008) (http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2008/1777.html)—is fascinating and frequently hilarious.
I hold no brief for Max Mosley (a fascist thug in his youth), but in this case I think the tabloids deserved to lose. It was a clear-cut case of tabloid overreach: had the tabloids been content to report Mosley's BDSM activities it seems likely that they would have gotten away with it. But they had to have a cherry on the top by making additional allegations for which they had no solid evidence.
The basic outline of Mosley’s case was that the tabloids had violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_8_ECHR) which states that “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence”. (This is the right that is supposed to prevent the government bugging our bedrooms so I think we have more to gain from it than we have to lose by being prevented from reading about the sexual activities of public figures.)
The tabloid’s defence was that there was a public interest in clandestine surveillance of Mosley’s sexual behaviour: “if it really were the case, as the newspaper alleged, that the Claimant had for entertainment and sexual gratification been "mocking the humiliating way the Jews were treated", or "parodying Holocaust horrors", there could be a public interest in that being revealed” (§122).
When this defence was demolished the tabloids then fell back on the further defence that although the Nazi allegations were a tissue of lies, nonetheless these lies had been told in good faith by the journalists and editors involved. The judge seems to have been unimpressed by the testimony of the News of the World in this regard (§135–171). The blackmail of two of the women in the case by News of the World reporter Neville Thurlbeck also undermined this defence (§79–97).
Read the whole judgment (http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2008/1777.html): it’s much better than the media reports.
“It is perhaps worth adding that there is nothing "landmark" about this decision. It is simply the application to rather unusual facts of recently developed but established principles. Nor can it seriously be suggested that the case is likely to inhibit serious investigative journalism into crime or wrongdoing, where the public interest is more genuinely engaged.” (§234)
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-25 10:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 06:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 09:34 am (UTC)I don't know how much of the Mosley affair has been reported on your side of the pond but the newspaper editors are a bit of a sore point right now. The News Of The World paid someone to record his BDSM session, went public, and has just lost the ensuing privacy case to the tune of £60,000 in damages and several times that in costs.
The result, and the immediate cause of my poll, is a bunch of papers whining about press freedom and the public interest (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7525103.stm), which it seems to me (and by the looks of it most of my readers) they have thoroughly confused with what the public is interested in.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-27 07:40 am (UTC)Whilst I (a) absolutely am with the majority of your readers, and (b) equally strongly hold that one does not punish the son for the sins of the father, I suspect that your readership is unlikely to be representative of the British public: though I don't know for certain, I would expect it to be biased towards the bourgeoisie. (Ye dogs, did I just use that word?)
Secondly, the tabloids (well, whatever the word is now they're all tabloid) aren't interested in representing the views of the British public, but in forming them: If they read that people believe X, it sways them towards holding that opinion themselves, to fit in with the herd.
(Cynical, but that's the way I think a lot of people work, to at least some degree.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-27 10:42 am (UTC)Err, I'm quite interested in hot kinky sex sessions, I just don't think they should report them without consent. I would say that they have my interest spot on though ;-)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-27 10:44 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 12:33 am (UTC)I'd not read/watch it anyway.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 02:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 08:32 am (UTC)That's why I didn't tick more, e.g. "politician who uses their family". OK, if the person breaking the story *does* know that they'd vowed monogamy. I also wondered about "vicar", but decided that's not in the *public* interest. It may be in the interests of the members of that person's church.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 10:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 11:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 08:57 am (UTC)I mistrust those who don't understand this fact, or use a misinterpretation of it to bully other people.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 09:24 am (UTC)I know multiple married couples where there ‘traditional’ boundaries aren't applied; apparent infidelity would not actually be breaking any promises in these cases.
I'm curious why it's only politicians who need to be held to this standard - surely vicars and the bosses of large organizations are recipients of a great degree of trust also. (And for that matter sportsmen/women ‘in the field’ - their fans and team-mates trust them not to e.g. throw a match.)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 03:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 07:00 pm (UTC)Max Mosley might as well change his surname to "Nazi Orgy" now, since those two words are going to pop up in any news story about him despite winning the court case (with some justification - "it wasn't a Nazi orgy, it was a German prison scenario orgy" - yeah, right).
1 Yes, I know, but this was someone who was probably in a position to know.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 08:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 09:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 10:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 10:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-26 10:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-27 11:18 pm (UTC)SK.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-28 12:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-01 09:24 pm (UTC)I hold no brief for Max Mosley (a fascist thug in his youth), but in this case I think the tabloids deserved to lose. It was a clear-cut case of tabloid overreach: had the tabloids been content to report Mosley's BDSM activities it seems likely that they would have gotten away with it. But they had to have a cherry on the top by making additional allegations for which they had no solid evidence.
The basic outline of Mosley’s case was that the tabloids had violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_8_ECHR) which states that “Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence”. (This is the right that is supposed to prevent the government bugging our bedrooms so I think we have more to gain from it than we have to lose by being prevented from reading about the sexual activities of public figures.)
The tabloid’s defence was that there was a public interest in clandestine surveillance of Mosley’s sexual behaviour: “if it really were the case, as the newspaper alleged, that the Claimant had for entertainment and sexual gratification been "mocking the humiliating way the Jews were treated", or "parodying Holocaust horrors", there could be a public interest in that being revealed” (§122).
When this defence was demolished the tabloids then fell back on the further defence that although the Nazi allegations were a tissue of lies, nonetheless these lies had been told in good faith by the journalists and editors involved. The judge seems to have been unimpressed by the testimony of the News of the World in this regard (§135–171). The blackmail of two of the women in the case by News of the World reporter Neville Thurlbeck also undermined this defence (§79–97).
Read the whole judgment (http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2008/1777.html): it’s much better than the media reports.
“It is perhaps worth adding that there is nothing "landmark" about this decision. It is simply the application to rather unusual facts of recently developed but established principles. Nor can it seriously be suggested that the case is likely to inhibit serious investigative journalism into crime or wrongdoing, where the public interest is more genuinely engaged.” (§234)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-08-01 09:49 pm (UTC)