Over the past few weeks I have been ashamed to be British. Not because of Cherie Blair’s unfortunate brush with a con man. But because of the way the British press has reported it.
‘Reported’ is not the right word here. In the case of the News of the World, ‘set up’ is more apt. It was they who tried to trick Mrs Blair into a meeting with Mr Foster. The Special Branch got wind of the ambush and told Downing Street. The rest is history. Or rather, speculation, innuendo and downright nastiness.
My father, God rest his soul, was so proud of our press. He used to point to the front page of The Times with pride. ‘This is why Britain is great,’ he would say. ‘We don’t slant or sensationalise. We just report the facts.’ Oh no we don’t. Not any more. We just try to sell newspapers. And we do not care who or what we destroy in the process.
Falling newspaper sales are the main reason behind the screaming headlines and miles of print devoted to a busy woman’s misguided acceptance of help from a friend of a friend. Even those hard-as-nails-and-proud-of-it hacks who mutter mysteriously about the story having ‘legs’ know that it is being driven by political self interest, revenge, envy and sheer malice. Not wrongdoing. This is no Watergate. Pity our jobbing journos cannot see that. Bernstein and Woodward made a real difference. Our lot are just making a real mess.
To be fair, some good journalists know this. In the New Statesman John Lloyd deplores the fact that our press strips those in public life who they deem to have departed from the media’s ever-amendable ethical code ‘of all attributes of humanity’ and deprives them of ‘all right to understanding of frailty and error’.
Some of the more cynical media reactions to Cherie Blair’s moving personal statement illustrate this perfectly. Rachel Sylvester wrote in the Telegraph that this was aimed squarely at the British public. This was her ‘kohl-eyed moment, a Diana-like performance’ that ‘tugged on every heart string she could find’. Catherine Bennett of the Guardian wondered whether the emotion Mrs Blair displayed was genuine. ‘For although she is not actress enough – or is she? – to have set out to cry, there is no doubt that Cherie intended to stir up compassion for her womanly vulnerability, rather than give a plain account of her actions.’
For heavens sake. Can’t they give the woman a break? She did not actually cry. She just looked as though she might. What would Rachel and Catherine have done in her place? This is not a fair question because neither of them have had the courage to go into public life. They just earn their living by criticising those who do. Imagine being paid for sniping safely and smugly from the sidelines of life. Cushy number.
Some of the legion of women wheeled out by the press to comment on the Daily Mail’s campaign against the Prime Minister’s wife did try to address the reasons behind it. I cheered when Sarah Sands said in the Telegraph that: ‘The Mail is like an abusive husband who jeers at you, humiliates you, entirely destroys your confidence, occasionally beats you and then becomes sentimental about you and your lovely kiddies.’ The fact that Sarah Sand’s article appeared in the Mail’s arch-rival may make some of her pronouncements suspect, but she is right to say: ‘There is a sullen misogyny towards women who do not know their place in British society and the Daily Mail is its mouthpiece.’
Polly Toynbee of the Guardian says that if Cheriegate reveals anything it is that the Tory press is poisonous. Unfortunately, it is not just the Tory press. Journalists in this country need to look to their standards. I have never known them so low. The Press Complaints Commission’s own Code states: ‘Everyone is entitled to respect for his or her private and family life, home, health and correspondence.’ How often in the last few weeks has this been breached? I am glad that my father did not live to see it.