The last two weeks in the life of the British media and politicians have seen a deadly dance around a pile of reports of phone hacking and alleged outrageous behaviour by The News of the World and its ultimate owners News Corp. Accusation has piled upon accusation and a wood and trees problem arisen around a number of spinoff accusations, calls for media regulation and the rest. Through the mounting sounds of rage from these two groups, both have claimed to be reflecting of course not their own views,- heaven forbid,- but those of an "outraged" British public. For those with more sensitive ears and slightly more brain capacity, the sights and sounds of opportunistic grinding axes and old score settling have been all around,- and still are.
The world faces financial disasters if the US Congress blocks the raising of the national debt limit. The Eurozone and EU face calamaties induced by their less prudent members. The unwinnable (what would victory look like? There's no clue even about that) Afghanistan adventure gropes its way to a face saving conclusion while lives are wasted almost every day. The hasty, muddled and expensive Libya intervention gets nowhere. Somali pirates in low tech, low cost skiffs have a good laugh and bask in the human rights/health and safety impotence of high tech and highly expensive western warships. Other big issues push for attention. So, again where have the salivating media been? Mostly off down the phone hacking etc alley. There is nothing the media likes more than to debate with itself. It makes them feel really good and important. Politicians for their part would love to see the press muzzled with much greater inhibitions on its ability to probe their lives for any behaviour or activities of which their constitunets might disapprove.
In the vanguard of the onslaught against the power of the Murdoch empire is the BBC. That's not surprising for an organisation which controls around 70% of the UK's TV news exposure and to whom BSkyB ,the majority share of which NewsCorp was seeking to buy, is a major and energetic competitor. That apart,the BBC has its own political stance. It sees itself as in the centre but in reality is to the left of that despite the excellent efforts by Nick Robertson on BBC 1, overall it struggles to achieve real impartiality. After all, it has its own beef with the government as it too has to take its share of public expenditure cuts. How can it therefore be really impartial? Almost every news broadcast since February 2010 has had a item about "cuts" and the angles have seldom , if ever , been enthusiastic about the concept. Hence an issue which offers not only the chance to list News Corps sins and possibly to embarrass the government is scarcely unwelcome and must draw not a few smirks within its ranks.
For other media groups, the sight of News Corp at bay is just too good a chance to miss. No wonder then that the whole issue occupies page after page and much moralistic huffing and puffing.
The politicians, just a couple of weeks away from their long summer hols when all this broke, are also on a high. The House of Commons has been notably dull of late and even the weekly Wednesday 12.00 Dave and Ed show hasn't produced a lot other than a rather overbearing Dave on one side and Ed on the other in one of his three modes, angry, hand wringingly sanctimonious or rather sadly pathetic depending on the day/hour. All this and striving for the moral high ground has caught Dave a bit flat footed and let Ed soar to new heights of righteousness. In this respect Blair,-the Tone one,- would be proud of him. Those of the LibDems (most?) who always wanted to share the illiberal socialist bed of Ed's new old Labour ,- have relished the opportunity to snuggle up to their preferred ally and enjoy the discomfort caused to the Prime Minister in particular by his unwise appointment of former "Screws" man Andy Coulson as his head of communications.
As politicians and journalists seem to occupy the same trust rating amongst the populace at around 17/18 %, this vortex of obsession with each other has been a spectacle to behold. There is real general distaste for the alleged hacking into the abducted Milly Dowler's phone which may have misled the police and could have seriously affected how the initial investigation was conducted. There is also a dislike of unwanted personal intrusion which makes its victims almost unable to live a normal life. There is no such feeling though about MPs, journalists, police, or anyone else who betray the trust of their positions or unfairly gain advantage by corrupt or simply unethical activities.
While this Westminster-centric circus has been going on, how have the rest of us been? Are we really "outraged" about it all as Ed Miliband, claiming to represent us all, would have us believe? Are those of us who are not in a tiny and immoral minority? The answer is very simply "No". The media and politicians are deluding themselves. Happily the latter, many of who seem mentally never to have left school, are off to the hills and beaches today,while most of the media people will be at least taking it in turns to do likewise until the Party Conference season in September. The rest of the population will brace itself for the real silly season of largely non-stories which will take us through to the beginning of the new term in September. In some ways we never escape at least the calendar of those pre-adulthood days. Hopefully by the time the world reassembles all this will seem like a bad dream from the past. Trust, honesty, integrity will be everywhere and scoundrels of all varieties removed from sight and replaced by much better people. That's the dream. Unfortunately the world isn't like though and other than being more suntanned and looking much more relaxed most of the old cast will be back ,unreformed and ready for a new season. In the meantime world economics may have gone down the pan, the assorted wars got nowhere and the genuinely outraged population been ignored. Twiga however will not be on hols and 360 degree surveillance of the scene from a good vantage point will continue.
