It emerged last night that Tory MP John Whittingdale, now the Culture & Media minister, had a sexual relationship with a hooker before he became a minister. This has now prompted almost everyone involved in the sordid affair and everyone commenting on it, notably former MP Dr Death, Evan Harris, who now speaks for the odious Hacked Off body to spout complete drivel.
Four newspapers, that is to say three tabloids and the little read Indescribablyboring, knew about the affair but chose not to print details. They did so as they discovered about the relationship just after Leveson and were thus terrified of being bashed about intruding into the privacy of the MP, who was not married and did end the affair after he discovered he was dating a call girl.
That was a bad call by the press. Prostitution should be 100% legal as the current system does not work and like all forms of prohibition merely breeds crime. But as things stand while engaging in sex for cash is not illegal all sorts of things involved in prostitution, including advertising it, pimping or maintaining a brothel are. As such it is inconceivable that on this occassion what was happening was not a law maker shagging a law breaker. That must always be in the public interest. If you are an MP shagging a hooker - even if you do not know the bird is on the game - you deserve to be exposed.
Perhaps MPs on taking office should just be remainded that before they have sex with anyone they should ask if the person is both over-age and not on the game. It is called "taking precautions."
Dr Harris used to be a Lib Dem MP until the good folks of Oxford West wised up to the nonsense he spouts. But to hell with liberal ideas of free speach and a free press, he now works for Hacked Off the body set up by celebs to ensure that while the British press prints lots of nice stories plugging their films, TV shows, crap records and anything else that gives them cash, it does not show that their public images which they monetise so skilfully are bogus. So Hacked Off does not think we plebs should know if a celebrity gets blow jobs off hookers on Sunset Boulevard (Hugh Grant) or has unprotected anal sex as part of threesomes in olive oil filled baths while fronting up Aids charitites, ( oops we cant mention #xxxxxxx can we?).
Oddly Dr Harris and Hacked off, on this occassion, do not give two hoots about Mr Whittingdale's privacy and are slamming the press suggesting that it let the errant MP off lightly so as to encourage him not to accelerate the "good" work of Leveson. It seems that the current media secretary is instinctively a man who believes in light regulation of the press. As such Dr Harris and his celeb paymasters want the head of Mr Whittingdale.
Angela Eagle for Labour goes further saying that because the press let Mr Whittingdale off the hook in the past he must have no say in press regulation going forward. Labour, you see, wants ever tougher regulation of the tabloids. The Tories, so far, respond that this is just a private affair as the MP was not married.
So the party of law and order now thinks that it is okay for a law maker to shag a law breaker. A faux Liberal (Harris) wants press freedom curbed even more but is today cross that the press did NOT run a kiss and tell story. The Labour Party shows consistency in its desire to curb a free press unless that free press catches a Tory MP with his trousers around his ankles in which case it demands the head of that MP becuase the press did not print.
This is Alice in Wonderland stuff. The position of all parties seems to be at odds with what they actually believe in or should really believe in. Meanwhile the freedom of the British press has never been under greater threat. Let us all move our servers to Albania and print online and be damned.