Watching brief - Amanda Platell wants trousers zipped up
Published 23 June 2003
The Press Complaints Commission is a flawed system but somehow it works. Nothing makes a politician zip his trousers faster than fear of the next morning's red tops
Not long into my term working for William Hague, I spotted a member of the shadow cabinet dining intimately with a woman who was not his wife. I respected his privacy and ignored them. He approached me the next day and explained she was the troubled daughter of a friend.
He said she had an eating disorder. I guess that explained why he was spoon-feeding her creme brulee. I told him it wasn't me he needed to worry about, but the newspapers.
Nothing puts the fear of God into a politician more than the thought of getting that call at noon on a Saturday from the News of the World. And nothing could make him zip his trousers faster.
A new privacy law that prevented such disclosures would be a green light to such behaviour as well as curtailing the public's legitimate right to know about the people it elects. It is an imperfect system, but the threat of the red tops does make many people in high office curb their natural excesses. A privacy law would serve only lawyers, the rich, the powerful and the corrupt. The Press Complaints Commission and self-regulation are flawed but working.
And what an own goal to select that most pompous and pious of MPs to chair the select committee. Gerald Kaufman is the kind of politician who makes journalists look good. Perhaps there is method in the whips' madness of choice, as it is clear Tony Blair is not pushing for a change that would infuriate his media allies a couple of years from an election.
The Health and Safety Executive has drawn up new guidelines, to be implemented next year, to combat stress in the workplace. If they were applied to newspapers, all except the Guardian would have to close. No more work overload or long periods spent at work stations? Out would go all sub-editors and everyone working on the Independent. A limit on boring and repetitive jobs? Out go all religious and science correspondents - and that poor sod who has to write a different headline on Anne Robinson's column every week when all her columns are about her dull telly shows. A 35 per cent limit on the number of people who may complain of being bullied? Bad luck, Piers, you just lost a third of your staff.
Other titles may attack the Daily Mail's referendum on whether we should have a vote on the new European constitution, but Blair would dismiss it at his peril. Around 1.7 million people took part, nine out of ten want a vote and it mirrors an ICM poll. These are not just any 1.7 million people. They are hard-core, middle-class ABC1s without whom Blair cannot win another election. And they are about to desert new Labour and sneak back to the Tories.
A Times poll revealed that the reason the gap between the parties is narrowing is because women and middle-class professionals and managers have lost faith in Blair. Which paper do these people most read? The Daily Mail.
It has been dismissed as a very minor incident, over in a flash, no one hurt. Yet when our future king cuts up an old man on the road, speeds off without a word, leaving his protection officers to deal with the mess, then gets Daddy to make the call to apologise, it bodes ill for Prince William.
This was not just road rage but royal brat rage. It reveals a spoilt little rich boy refusing to face the responsibilities of his role, yet keen to enjoy its privileges - a wilful young man who expects others to clean up his messes after him.
For some unfathomable reason the Prince of Wales chose his son's coming-out week to release his Do-Gooder Dossiers, leaked to the Times: £50,000 worth of glossy brochures to prove the heir to the throne is, as a senior royal courtier gushed, "one of the world's great philanthropists". The prince raises £76m a year for good causes. Good but not good enough, Charles. Philanthropy requires putting your hand in your own pocket - something the prince seems reluctant to do, even though the Duchy of Cornwall estate made £10m profit last year alone. But, hey, a prince has gotta live.
And could this huge public relations stunt be just another attempt to improve his image before the announcement of his marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles? Alas, history will remember him more as philanderer than philanthropist.
When the charge of rape against the television presenter John Leslie was dropped, he turned for comfort to his old friend Anthea Turner and her husband, Grant Bovey, on holiday in Majorca. The couple tried to advise him on the gentle art of career resurrection. Anthea was overheard saying: "The first thing you need to do, John, is get your hands on a tonne of Cadbury's white chocolate bars." Fat lot of good it did him: he was charged days later on two counts of indecent assault.
Post this article to
We want to encourage people to comment on our content and to exchange views with other readers and hope this will be done on a courteous basis. However, if you encounter posts which are offensive please let us know by emailing comments@newstatesman.co.uk and we will take swift action where necessary.
