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.
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 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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Date: 2008-07-25 10:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2008-07-27 10:42 am (UTC) - Expand(no subject)
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Date: 2008-07-26 12:33 am (UTC)I'd not read/watch it anyway.
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Date: 2008-07-26 02:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-07-26 08:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-07-26 10:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-27 11:18 pm (UTC)SK.
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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)
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