MANY YEARS AGO — possibly as far back as May — you may remember the scandal of all those foreign criminals who were released after completing their sentences, and then not considered for deportation. The British media more or less united in considering that these appalling blunders had left Britain prey to further attack from this alien menace. This quiver was so prolonged and violent that it ended up with the broken wall, the burning roof and tower and Charles Clarke dead. Naturally the shaken powers began to get around to these foreign arsonists and rapists, and organise their rapid and involuntary departures.
The result was exactly what I’d predicted in an argument with my occasionally Daily Mail-minded spouse. In early June a Thai national and convicted arsonist was lifted by immigration officers and held at a police station pending consideration of his case. In the Shetlands, where Sakchai Makao had committed his two offences back in 2002, there was a campaign against his deportation. It was pointed out that Makao had lived in Shetland since he was 10, and was a popular local figure. Last week a panel of three Scottish judges allowed an appeal against deportation. Behind the shock headlines and the panicky political responses there was always going to be a tedious and unsensational truth — that each of these cases was different with its own complicated story.
Shetland is a long way from where I live, but there was a parallel in my home borough last week. You may recall me complaining recently about my local newspaper turning itself into a scratching post for aggrieved clamped, calmed and ticketed motorists. And, oh, the fruits of victory. Friday’s front page carried a story headlined, “At last, clampers are booted out of town”. But the first paragraph read somewhat differently. “Camden’s new council,” it told readers, “is to cut leisure spending to cover the cost of a ban on clamping.”
So, to pay for the ending of the contract with the clampers, the council will now take money away from parks and libraries. Given that 56 per cent of Camden households do not even own a car or a van that could be clamped, you may infer how far away this consequence is from voters’ original intentions.
Do you hear that? It’s the sound of bridling. The media, of course, is composed only of messengers, and none of us should ever be shot (ie, criticised). Nothing is our fault. Bad things in society are nothing to do with movies, manufactured fashions, the promotion of alcohol, flashy coarseness or rampant media cynicism. When, before the World Cup, big Phil Scolari changed his mind and decided that he didn’t want the England job, he gave intrusion by the British media as his reason for turning Rooney and co down. This explanation was found wanting, and so the decision was largely written up as being the product of yet more FA incompetence. Heads we win, tails you lose.
Last week the alien deportees/FA figure was — once again — John Prescott. The Deputy Prime Minister, as reported in this newspaper, may or may not have abused or tolerated the abuse of decision-making concerning casinos in the South East. It is an important story, and is currently being investigated. I have no idea what the outcome of the investigation will be.
I have no particular feelings for Mr Prescott, but I do care about journalism in this country. Not least because Sir Alistair Graham, the chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, has given as his yardstick for when the Prime Minister must personally involve himself in an issue of standards, the existence of “ongoing media stories which are dominating the front pages of newspapers”. Given this statement, the way in which those front pages are concocted takes on real significance.
Sir Alastair should have added “and dominating broadcast news programmes”. Because last Thursday listeners to the Today programme heard John Humphrys ask the following question to the Deputy Prime Minister: “There are now reports, and they’re circulating on the internet, as you know, that you have had other affairs — is that true?” Let me just stop here for a moment. I went to work at the BBC in current affairs in January 1988. I stayed for seven years, working in political news and — for six months — on the Today programme. I was at the BBC throughout the David Mellor affair. It is inconceivable that such a question would have been asked ten years ago. It would have been considered a breach of journalistic standards.
Mr Prescott, who should have told his interlocutor to take a hike, prevaricated. Leading to: 1) I’m asking you a question; 2) I asked you whether you’d had any other affairs apart from the one we know about; 3) Have you had other affairs? 4) So they’re (the rumours) not true, are they? 5) So you have not had other affairs? It’s a very straightforward question.
Eventually Mr Prescott responded with: “Why are you justified to keep on trying to push this?” To which Humphrys answered, “because I wanted to give you the opportunity to clear it up once and for all . . .”
Now watch the thing spin. Following the interview The Evening Standard changed its lead story from one dealing with the aftermath of 7/7 to one banner-headlined TWO JAGS, FIVE SEX QUESTIONS. By 5 o’clock Eddie Mair, the presenter of the BBC’s PM programme, was confronting a Prescott supporter with the inevitability of his friend’s demise, quoting the Standard headline, based on the Today interview, itself based on the “reports, circulating on the internet”.
Reports? What “reports”? I emailed Ceri Thomas, the Today editor, asking about this alarming new policy. He replied that “It’s impossible to understand John Prescott’s current position, or his prospects, without reference to events in his private life. That’s why we felt the questions were warranted.”
You’ll note the non sequitur here. It would be quite possible (indeed it seems obligatory) to mention the DPM’s embarrassments without it being in any sense necessary to fish for more revelations. If it isn’t, then the gloves are off for everybody. Humphrys himself, as a public (and publicly funded) figure who has raised the question of the sex lives of others, is now fair game to have exactly the same question asked of him.
Has he had affairs, as rumoured? Has Michael Grade? Jonathan Ross? Ceri Thomas? Me? You? Or is it only Mr Prescott who is fair game for this kind of intrusion — until fashion suggests another candidate for the treatment?
If I were a politician or a public figure of any stripe, I would worry about what happened last Thursday. And members of the public should worry too. Unlike some of my colleagues at The Times, I am a fan of a powerful BBC, acting as the gold standard in journalism and information, as in popular entertainment. I can even accept that its executives may need to earn three or for times as much as the Prime Minister, and its senior presenters considerably more than the Deputy Prime Minister. But if its news programmes are going to become glorified scandal sheets, then I don’t want to pay for it any more than I want to pay for the Daily Mail. Which I don’t.
Read David Aaronovitch’s blog here
