Jimmy Savile, Stuart Hall and Barbara Hewson

Barbara Hewson has been pilloried this week for an article she wrote for Spiked Online.

The gist of her well reasoned argument was that accusations of relatively mild sexual misbehaviour by stars years ago, stars who are now elderly, are being used in a wave of puritanical vengeance by police forces and pressure groups.

She quite reasonably argues that certain investigations in this climate of moral outrage go against the most fundamental principles of our judicial system. The complainant automatically becomes the victim and the presumption of innocence, in cases of alleged paedophilia and other cases of sexual assault, is being abandoned.

The point she makes that caused wild headlines and huge media interest was at the very end when she suggested lowering the age of consent to 13. I recommend reading the article in full and have provided a link below.

The full article can be read here.

Leveson Inquiry

I have absolutely no interest in the private lives of footballers, actors or anybody else in  the entertainment business. Phone hacking is detestable and anybody involved in it should be prosecuted and well and truly punished. However, I do think the private lives of politicians are in the public interest, after all, if somebody's MP is happy to betray his wife and kids he would have no qualms about dumping on a constituent or anybody else.

It was moving to see Milly Dowler's parents giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry yesterday, but I doubt that anything done now could possibly ease their pain. But they behaved with amazing dignity in an agonising situation.

But also yesterday we saw Hugh Grant blubbering about the publicity he gets. I have little sympathy with a person who goes out for publicity when it suits him, but blubs when it doesn't suit him. Furthermore, I realised that when you see Hugh Grant on screen it is just Hugh Grant. He could have been his character from any one of his films, he just plays himself.

Today we have heard ex-footballer Garry Flitcroft blubbing:

"I had a wife and a kid and I've got a very, very close family," he said. "All I could think about was it going in the newspaper and being seen nationally and the effect it would have on her."

How noble of Mr Flitcroft to want to keep his unfaithfulness out of the newspapers just to protect his wife. What a selfless chap.

For the likes of the Dowlers I have every sympathy. But for 'celebrities' blubbing I say if you behave properly and honourably, you deprive the media of their sordid, squalid little stories. After all, it is your sordid, squalid little actions that are being reported.

And for those who are indulging in fits of righteous indignation about our horrid media remember one thing. If you didn't buy the tat, be it Sky TV or a red top newspaper, they'd be out of business. All the media are doing is satisfying a demand.

Tom Daley's Dad

The media are looking at Tom Daley's dad in quite a critical way for asking him for a cuddle after the 15 year old won gold at the World Diving Championships in Rome. This piece is from the Daily Mail.

Personally I would have waited until I was alone with my son before being so demonstrative, because I can still imagine how embarrassed I would have been when I was fifteen, his dad did it in an international press conference you see. Having said that I've never been in the position of seeing my son, especially at 15, become a world champion.

The main point is that this is the media, and the Daily Mail is the worst of the lot, that rattle on constantly about bad parents who should be flogged, then criticise an apparently excellent parent for showing pride in his son and his achievement, even if it was a bit OTT.

But worst of all this is the media who create emotional incontinence in the country when a celebrity dies, Princess Diana and Michael Jackson spring to mind, by publishing vomit inducing sycophantic 'memorial issues' etc., etc., then elsewhere in the rag have a reporter bemoaning aforementioned emotional incontinence amongst the populace.

You can't win really with the media.