I’ll break my purdah briefly to reflect on something unconnected to Brexit, Kiwi’s cut and paste diarrhoea and Donald Trump’s personal courage quotient.
The Daily Mail has run pages of stories this week on Max Mosley and his publication of a racist election leaflet in 1961, when he was involved in his father’s crypto fascist Union Movement (aged 20). He severed his ties with the movement in 1963. The rest of the press and the broadcast media has run with this story big time, including the fact that Mosley has donated £500k to Tom Watson MP, deputy leader of the Labour Party. Mosley might have perjured himself in a court case a few years ago, wittingly or unwittingly.
Now, a bit of personal opinion:
The leaflet was odious, but no worse than the infamous Tory party ‘if you want a ****** for a neighbour vote Liberal or Labour’ leaflet of a few years later. Also relevant to recall the Mail’s enthusiastic support of Oswald Mosley in the thirties.
Max Mosley is a creep of the highest order, no sympathy for him from me
Tom Watson is a useless bag of blubber and spectacularly stupid in accepting so much cash from the creep
What is interesting about this is the timing. Mosley is the highest profile campaigner and funder of efforts to limit press intrusion into private lives, emanating from the hacking scandals of a few years ago. Watson is this campaign’s chief mouthpiece in Parliament. Of course, many of the victims of this intrusion are celebrities for whom we have limited sympathy, but not all are (plenty of families of homicide victims and those caught up in terrorist attacks as well) and the principle of drawing lines around privacy seems to me sound - expose crimes and hypocrisy fine, individuals’ personal fallibility is just salacious gossip, no matter how large the pathetic public appetite for it is.
Of course the government was deciding this week on whether to proceed with part two of the Leveson enquiry, which had been promised to the victims of press abuse. Perfect timing to try and discredit two of the highest profile figures challenging the press. The government dumped the next phase of Leveson, breaking its promise. The press wins, and sitting on a story which is of more interest to them than the general public and then releasing it as ‘news’ at a time when it could help their self interest might have played a part.
Now, as anyone who has read much of this thread will get I am an enthusiastic supporter of freedom of speech. I am also a big fan of common decency. Neither is being well served by our media or government.
PS couldn’t resist it - have read May’s 5 Tests she will explain in her ‘detailed’ speech later today. The bland leading the bland. There will be no detail.
The Daily Mail has run pages of stories this week on Max Mosley and his publication of a racist election leaflet in 1961, when he was involved in his father’s crypto fascist Union Movement (aged 20). He severed his ties with the movement in 1963. The rest of the press and the broadcast media has run with this story big time, including the fact that Mosley has donated £500k to Tom Watson MP, deputy leader of the Labour Party. Mosley might have perjured himself in a court case a few years ago, wittingly or unwittingly.
Now, a bit of personal opinion:
The leaflet was odious, but no worse than the infamous Tory party ‘if you want a ****** for a neighbour vote Liberal or Labour’ leaflet of a few years later. Also relevant to recall the Mail’s enthusiastic support of Oswald Mosley in the thirties.
Max Mosley is a creep of the highest order, no sympathy for him from me
Tom Watson is a useless bag of blubber and spectacularly stupid in accepting so much cash from the creep
What is interesting about this is the timing. Mosley is the highest profile campaigner and funder of efforts to limit press intrusion into private lives, emanating from the hacking scandals of a few years ago. Watson is this campaign’s chief mouthpiece in Parliament. Of course, many of the victims of this intrusion are celebrities for whom we have limited sympathy, but not all are (plenty of families of homicide victims and those caught up in terrorist attacks as well) and the principle of drawing lines around privacy seems to me sound - expose crimes and hypocrisy fine, individuals’ personal fallibility is just salacious gossip, no matter how large the pathetic public appetite for it is.
Of course the government was deciding this week on whether to proceed with part two of the Leveson enquiry, which had been promised to the victims of press abuse. Perfect timing to try and discredit two of the highest profile figures challenging the press. The government dumped the next phase of Leveson, breaking its promise. The press wins, and sitting on a story which is of more interest to them than the general public and then releasing it as ‘news’ at a time when it could help their self interest might have played a part.
Now, as anyone who has read much of this thread will get I am an enthusiastic supporter of freedom of speech. I am also a big fan of common decency. Neither is being well served by our media or government.
PS couldn’t resist it - have read May’s 5 Tests she will explain in her ‘detailed’ speech later today. The bland leading the bland. There will be no detail.
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