Fornication, deference & Leveson....

JFK was a tupping ram, a satyr with persistent priapism, who kept an entire stable of totty ranging from a Scandinavian Airlines blonde beauty to Marilyn Monroe. He was particularly partial to the ménage a trois. He made Clinton look like a chaste Boy Scout.

 

LBJ was a nasty, drunken, bullying, sex-obsessed slob, who would conduct press briefings sitting on the toilet and who was known to urinate in full public view. Despite his civil rights legislation, he was an unmitigated racist who invariably referred to ‘niggers’.

 

Carter was the most deeply unpleasant of all, who treated his staff with contempt and abuse; a two-faced hypocrite who declared the White House ‘dry’ when it was anything but, and who would carry an empty suitcase to show that he was just an ordinary Joe  who toted his own luggage. He micromanaged the White House to such an extent that he even decreed the cleaning of the carpets. They were left filthy to show how frugal he was.

 

Nixon was weird. He never smiled except to the cameras and never, ever addressed a single word to Pat, who was an alcoholic, frequently insensibly drunk.

 

Ronnie was the perfect gentleman, adored by his staff. The wife was a grade-A bitch.

 

In their position their behaviour would have been known to hundreds, if not thousands. But the voting public had no clue as to the real character of those seeking their votes.

 

The reason? A deferential media. In the US it tends to continue to be so, if to a lesser extent. As a political journalist you have to watch your ps & qs otherwise you might lose your accreditation, in which case you are  toast.

 

The Gary Hart expose blew the lid off. When Ronnie was told he just smiles and said ‘Boys will be boys …….. but boys won’t be President!’ Suddenly the fox was in the hen-house and led to the feeding frenzy over Petraeus.

 

Until the 1960s, things were not much different in the UK. Along came the late, much-lamented Robin Day. Instead of ‘How did you enjoy your foreign trip, Prime Minister?’ the usual  cringing approach to the Masters of the Universe, Day, a barrister, would subject his quarry to merciless cross-examination.

 

And the lid came off big-time with the Profumo affair.

 

Then emerged David Frost (still doing his stuff on Aljazeera), TW3, Peter Cook’s hilarious destruction of MacMillan when Supermac was unwise enough to go to see ‘Beyond  the Fringe’, ‘The Dishonourable Member’, ‘Spitting Image’, and all the wonderful political satire that has alas disappeared as politics has gone beyond satire.

 

So what has this to do with Leveson?.

 

His proposals would take us right back to the to the 50s, back to the hypocrisy, the concealment of scandals and of unacceptable conduct by our rulers, all the cheating and crookery, adultery, in-house fornication, and all the rest of the  outrages exposed by free media .

 

Is that what Miliband and Clegg want? Because it’s what they will get!