Enemies of Reason Poundshop potshots at the media moral maze.

Just a few bad apples

It's always hard to know whether a few bad apples are just a few bad apples, or if the whole orchard would benefit from being burnt down. I've been thinking about this kind of thing all week. It's tempting to draw conclusions based on those people we do see being caught out, or think we see being caught out - but it might end up with us extrapolating too far.

A lot of the threads overlap with bad apples this week, but let's start with cricket. The News of the World exposes Pakistan cricketers as being bad apples - or at least, that's the conclusion we're being invited to draw on the basis of the evidence in front of us. We're told it's 'match fixing' even though it isn't; we're invited to think that a bizarre Test defeat some months ago may have been to win some money off a few bookies somewhere.

If players have accepted money to do anything other than try to win a game, that's a breach of their contracts, a breach of the public's trust, and a breach of the bond between sportspeople and the country or team they represent. But taking bets on no-balls doesn't prove that (a) there are any bookmakers anywhere who'd be dumb enough to take a bet on a no-ball in the second ball of the third over, or whatever, thinking "Gee, I don't know why you'd want to bet on something so random, but I don't mind paying out if you happen to be unexpectedly right!" or (b) that it indicates that any other kind of deception or more serious stuff like match-throwing is taking place.

We might want to draw that conclusion, but can we? Should we? It's easy for people to tell us that there are seedy bookies in smoky rooms in Lahore who'll take bets on anything, but evidence of the existence of this has yet to come to light. Everyone seems to assume these bookies exist, but do they? And why the hell would they take bets on specific no-balls? You could argue that this was simply to prove that the players were under the fixer's control so he could fix other, more serious, stuff in the future - but we'll never know about that, because the whistle has already been blown.

We'll never know if the more serious fixing could have been arranged or not. All we know is the as-yet unproven allegation that players delivered no-balls of no consequence to the outcome of a match in return for what is, for them, an absolutely enormous sum of money. Footballers have happily punted the ball into touch for cash in the past. So why is this any different? Only if you assume that more serious fixing has gone on, and will go on. But the evidence isn't there for that - not now. Perhaps there are further revelations that will come out and explain it - perhaps the News of the World on Sunday will flesh it out a bit more.

Is it widespread, match-fixing or spot-betting-fixing? Are these Pakistan cricketers, if guilty, just a few bad apples? Or are they just the tip of the iceberg? What conclusions can we draw?

The other players in this, the News of the World, have come under the microscope again this week for phone-hacking and underhand tactics to try and get stories. So how credible are they in all this, and how trustworthy should we see them as being? I would urge you to read this post by Five Chinese Crackers which looks at the links between the police and the papers - and how the papers which are the most keen to do Plod a favour are coincidentally the ones with every need to be treated leniently by the cops when it comes to their own newsgathering techniques.

One reporter, as we know, has been suspended by the News of the World. But here's the thing: if they want us to draw the conclusion that a couple of cricketers are symptomatic of something worse, rather than individual naivety or greed or whatever, then how can they expect us to look at them in any other way? Are we really meant to think that there are a succession of News of the World hacks, all independently using underhand methods to find stories and invade people's privacy, never sanctioned by anyone at a higher level, never having the pertinent questions asked of them by people at a higher level, and that as soon as they're found out, these 'bad apples' are dealt with?

The cricket overlaps with the News of the World - the News of the World overlaps with phone hacking - the phone hacking overlaps with Andy Coulson, the former editor who is now under pressure for whether he knew about these journalistic dark arts or not. And it's Andy Coulson apparently responsible for another of the stories this week - William Hague's fightback against the pitiful rumours about his private life.

I've read all kinds of things attempting to justify the prurient peeking at Hague this week. As ever, a lot of it comes down to the blessed 'taxpayer' who is apparently 'paying out of their pocket' for the special adviser to William Hague, who apparently shared a hotel room with him once (which makes me wonder, would they have been happier if they'd got two separate hotel rooms, at more of a cost to the taxpayer?). The question is, does anyone really need a special adviser? The awful Philippa Stroud, the thankfully rejected parliamentary candidate for Sutton and Cheam at the last general election, who could 'cure' gay people of homosexuality through the power of prayer, is a special adviser. Don't remember so much of an outcry from those same hard-working taxpayers so interested in getting value for money from William Hague's special adviser; I'm sure it was just an oversight.

What's a matter of some certainty in my mind, though, is that the tone of some of the coverage given to the Hague story was pretty pathetic, juvenile and embarrassing, with a nasty homophobic undercurrent running right through it. So much so that I find myself agreeing with Iain Dale for once, when he wrote that he found himself ashamed to call himself a political blogger. In some small way I think I can see it from the point of view of the tainted, for once - when people think of political bloggers they think of Guido, but that makes us all look like the kind of people who'd commission 'hilarious' cartoons of William Hague saying "He comes on expenses!" (guffaw) and then write about stuff in red italics like we've got a bloody crayon, or our readers are too thick to understand simple plain text or something.

It's easy to say there's just a 'bad apple' here and there, in all walks of life. But unless you stand up and call them out then you risk being contaminated by suspicion and by the laziness that everyone has when it comes to categorisation. So are all cricketers corrupt, or all Pakistan cricketers open to a bribe? I'd like to hope not, though we still don't know the full facts. Are all journalists capable of using underhand techniques? Again, I'd like to think the vast majority are principled. And are all bloggers childish idiots? I don't think so. But it doesn't help when some of the most prominent ones are.

Lolgays and what goes on behind closed doors

I mentioned the other day about the rather juvenile whispers about a Government minister in blogs and in the dead-tree press, and what he might or might not have done behind closed doors. As you've probably seen from one of Britain's leading bloggers - and I hope you can imagine the air escaping in a sigh from my head as I type that - it's been taken a step further. Well, not so much a step further as a step down. Down into the world of pointing and giggling in the playground, down beyond the places where even the dirtiest tabloids fear to tread.

In a way this is an extension of the classic news about dicks type of story. We want to see what the silverbacks are getting up to and where they're putting their dicks; there's a kind of prurience about us as animals. But the question is the same as it always is with this kind of story: we might be interested in what's going on in other people's lives, but do we have the right to know, even if they're public figures earning public money through our taxes? What business is it of ours, really, if a couple of people decide to fuck each other - or not?

The implication with this particular story, the messy little smear running through all the nudges and winks, is that someone employed someone else, with taxpayers' money, because they wanted to fuck them. Let's be blunt about it. Except there's no evidence for that. There's no evidence that the employee is anything other than competent at their job, that they are doing a job which needs to be done (insomuch as anyone, anywhere really needs 'special advisers'), or indeed that there's anything other than a professional relationship - other than a picture of two people laughing, and the fact they once shared a hotel room, and some bollocks about the 'body language' between the two the next day.

This is truly drivel beyond belief, and it doesn't stand up. As someone who regularly writes about the failures of the dead-tree media, I'm afraid I've got to say that this is one of those occasions where bloggers look pretty cheap, tawdry and grim, and the mainstream media look a bit more sensible for deciding not to run with this kind of atrocity - though there have been the odd nudge-nudge articles here and there, but nothing as unsubtle as the hateful little cartoon we were greeted with yesterday.

But let's suppose, though, that it's all true - that these two men are doing all kinds of things to each other, enjoying the delights of each other's physical form, on a regular basis. What then? Well, in my opinion it doesn't change anything. It's only if this employee is not doing his job, and is merely being employed because he's a sexual partner, that would be something that would stick out as being unethical and immoral - but where is the evidence for that, other than the pointing and giggling?

On the other hand, if it's just a case of two people who work together having sex every now and then, you'll excuse me if I don't clutch my pearls. Who gives a flying one? This kind of thing happens in a lot of people's lives, whether they're married or not. A lot of people do get married and then realise their true sexual identity years later; it's hardly the first time that this will ever have happened. A lot of relationships are open to other partners or either sex; again, this wouldn't be breaking new ground. A lot of people have multiple partners; it's not the end of the fucking world.

I know people mentioned on my previous blog post that there might be an element of hypocrisy between this particular politician's voting record and his personal life - if the rumours are true. But again I can't see that is being reason enough to pry, I'm afraid. We're all hypocrites in a lot of ways - we all vote, speak and judge a lot more morally than we behave, if truth be told.  Politicians have to represent their parties and their constituents as well as themselves when they vote on stuff - and if people have struggled with their true sexuality over the years, and have been the subject of childish tittle-tattle over their private lives, I can completely understand them not wanting to draw attention to that kind of issue.

The key to all this is that it is about what goes on behind closed doors. We don't know, we don't have a right to know, and we shouldn't think we should know. If a Government minister is perfectly competent at his job, and happens to have a sexual relationship with someone who isn't his wife, then I really don't think that is any business of ours. If he has a relationship with someone he works with, and they are perfectly competent at their job, then that is not improper either. It's not our business. It's nothing we should care about. It doesn't matter. We might want to know so we can chortle about it all in that rather pathetically infantile way that the commenters on that blog post have done, but I'm afraid if we do all that squawking and hollering we look pretty base.

What this man does or doesn't do with his dick behind closed doors is a matter for him and anyone else involved. It's not a matter for us. That he is working for the state is irrelevant. He is entitled to a private life. Whether it's as orthodox as our private lives or not doesn't matter, because it should be private. There's a nasty stink of homophobia running through this whole business. It's not the politician who should be ashamed of himself.

More bank holiday boredom

If, like me, you dislike work, but have bills to pay and a need to do something with your day other than sit around watching the horrors of the Michael Ball Show and Deal or No Deal, then you'll know the feeling of being in work and not entirely enjoying it. I've written about bank holidays before, in this post here, which you might like to read, although I didn't, but then it's sometimes hard to read your old stuff, and it makes you feel like one day you'll look back on this and think, Christ, that was bad, wasn't it?

There's something saddening about setting foot out of the house in the morning, something spirit-sapping about getting into the car for the long and tedious commute, where the only distraction from an otherwise unremarkable few minutes of driving from one place to another might be some chinless berk in an Audi trying to kill you or passively-aggressively flashing his lights at you, and you swear a bit and hope he's got a tiny cock, or might crash into a concrete wall, and you end up driving slowly past, waving at his burning corpse and giving him  the finger - but that never happens, and you'd probably feel a bit guilty if it really did.

Don't get me wrong, by the way, if you don't have a job and you'd love to have one. I appreciate that it's a good thing to have a job, and I am pleased that I have one. I like the idea of being able to earn money to buy goods and services, and it's not as if I have to do anything strenuous or life-threatening in order to get a monthly cheque in the bank. That does give me a sense of fulfilment and pleasure - I have a series of tasks to do, I do them, and then, when they're done (or occasionally when they're not) I can go home, back on the motorway, letting my brain softly tune out of the cars around me until it all looks like some kind of bland computer game in which no-one ever wins anything. Please don't think that I'm complaining about being employed, because I appreciate it can be much more awful not to have a job at all. But still. I think I can be grateful to have employment, but at the same time feel slightly weary about it nevertheless. And I am just that: slightly weary.

Working on a bank holiday only serves to increase those feelings of weariness and gentle despair, even when you're pretty sure there's nothing good on the telly and you'd probably be sitting at home picking your nose or listening to your next-door neighbour making random banging noises and gargling throaty coughs, half-hoping that the banging noises are cries for help and they've fallen down the stairs and are bleeding to death, rather than - as your more paranoid brain might think it - them just hammering on a piece of wood, not to build anything, but just to make a noise that pisses you off.

Apparently we have John Lubbock, among others, to thank for bank holidays, although I am not so sure we should be thanking him. I find bank holidays tediously insufferable at the best of times, even when I'm not working - when I am, there's a sense of repressed anger and misery that permeates everything. You end up just gazing out over all the empty desks, wondering if everyone who isn't in is having a wonderful time, doing a conga down the street in a feather boa and giant sombrero, thinking that they probably are, and doing it just because you're not there.

I think the timing doesn't help. In this country we have two bank holidays in May, then one in August. And there's the thing of it just being one day, one solitary island of nothingness in the middle of all the rest of the crap - and for a lot of us, that just means having to catch up with all the work the next day. Why not just have three days off in one go - you know, really go for it, rather than fiddling around with a day off here and a day off there? I think I'd really prefer that. In fact, just five days off, in the middle of summer, where no-one's allowed to work, or do anything. A proper holiday. No shops open, no pubs open, no nothing. Just bin everything. If anything, it might drive people screaming and tear-soaked back to their offices, beating down the doors and demanding to be let back in - it might make us appreciate the things we take for granted at work that we miss at home. Like being able to sit quietly, or drift off into daydreams.

There is a gentle hum in the office. I can hear someone typing - in fact, it's me - and someone not too far away eating a bowl of soup. And that's about it, really. The traffic sounds are quiet, and I can't hear any people at all. I half expect to look out of the window and it to be Day of the Triffids - but it's not. It's just an ordinary office, in an ordinary place, where nothing much of any great consequence is ever going to happen. And while that's a comforting level of familiarity, it's also pretty dull. Tomorrow, it will be livelier, and more full of people, and I think I'll prefer that. For now, it's just counting down the hours till I can go home.

Lolgays and living in the public eye

Matt Lucas has launched a legal action against the Daily Mail claiming that it invaded his privacy and intruded into his grief when his partner died. You might ask why he didn't bother to go through the Press Complaints Commission, rather than hiring lawyers. If you do ask, you don't know the Press Complaints Commission very well.

To remind you of the kind of thing the Mail did print - and the charming reader comments which were ever so sensitive - you might like to have a look at this post from the archives. And then, of course, there was the delightful way in which Jan Moir ripped into Stephen Gately, just hours after he had expired, mentioning Matt Lucas's dead partner as some kind of way of extrapolating a couple of incidents into a worldview of gay relationships. As ever, though, the rule with this kind of story is: don't let the corpse get cold.

Should Matt Lucas, as a celebrity, just accept that his life, from the moment he gets up and goes to the toilet in the morning, to putting himself to bed at night, be public property? Is it a case of being famous, and therefore having to live in a glass box? I am not so sure it is. I don't know if launching a legal action will solve anything, but then again, what damage would it do the Daily Mail to be hauled over the coals once again by the PCC? Not a great deal.

I can't help finding myself sympathising with these people who have had moments of intense grief and upset intruded into, even if the stories are accurate - but when they're just made-up nonsense with handily anonymous 'friends' doing the whispering behind backs, what then? Should Matt Lucas just have to 'suck it up' because he's famous? I don't think that's fair. Sure, celebrities have to accept a certain degree of prurient interest in their lives; but to have people make stuff up about you in the wake of a traumatic death of a loved one? That's a whole different kind of wrong.

Another recently-discovered corpse, which has caused a lot of excitement up and down Fleet Street, is that of Gareth Williams, a Government worker who was found dead the other day. Was he killed by the Taliban? Was he murdered by the Spooks? Was it a gay crime? Was it his 'sordid' private life? What was it? Who knows? But what we do know is that the speculation won't end - and happily for the press, the dead (especially dead non-celebrities) can't sue:

Williams's uncle, William Hughes, said it was possible the government or another agency might be attempting to discredit his nephew by orchestrating a smear campaign. He said Williams's parents, who live on Anglesey, were "very, very angry" about false reports over his private life. He said his nephew's reputation was being destroyed by the "horrible and completely fictitious accounts".

This is an important point to make. It's not just about the person concerned in a story, but those close to them, their families, and loved ones, and so on. A smear campaign, whether it comes from an official source or not, can be extremely traumatic, particularly if it latches on to a recently deceased person and if they're not around to defend themselves or prove the rumours wrong. Sure, it's legally safe, but you have to wonder whether it's entirely ethical or not, or if it matters whether it's true or not. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe if it's a juicy enough lie, that will deflect attention from everything else.

And so to the lolgay Tory minister. It's a sleazy business - not his personal life, but the actions of the hyenas prowling around him. Now I appreciate that by talking about this, it brings recognition to rumours that people might not have otherwise seen, but on the other hand, they are being spread by much more widely read publications than me, including national newspapers. I won't mention his name, but you don't have to be a bloody genius or anything to work out who it is.

Let's suppose he's gay or bisexual. Who gives a shit? He's not exactly Captain Homophobe, is he? There's no hypocrisy to speak of. Indeed, he was one of the prominent Tories  who tried to make the Conservative Party more inclusive. So who cares what he does behind closed doors? Does it matter what he does with his penis, so long as he's not breaking the law? If the implication is that there's some impropriety about the people he's employing, then let's see evidence - let's not have childish giggling round the back of the fucking bike sheds.

That kind of muckspreading makes all bloggers and journalists look stupid, not just the ones who do it. I can't help remembering the same kind of 'nudge nudge' bollocks around the time that Peter Mandelson was outed; you kind of hope that people would be a bit less childish in the 21st century, but maybe we haven't really grown up all that very much.