Shared Opinion

21 March 2009

Why would Brown want to look like a tax-grasper and a twitchy hypocrite, too?

Eh? The Prime Minister looked like an authoritarian tax-grasper when the idea was floated, and a twitchy hypocrite when he shot it down. Why leak something that makes you look bad, twice? Maybe, if you know how to serve a lobby ball, this sort of thing makes perfect sense. Out here, though, it doesn’t at all. It looks like we have government that is thrashing and flailing itself to death, and couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery. However much it cost.

If you’ll forgive a short spot of self-serving musing on last week’s news, I’ve been trying to figure out why journalists all hate Julie Myerson so much for writing about her son’s “battle” with “drugs”. I’m not saying they shouldn’t, I’m just trying to figure out why they do.

The public at large probably think she’s scum. There’s nothing remarkable in that, though, because the public at large probably think we are all scum. I had my first child a few weeks ago, and I’ve lost count, literally, of the number of friends and relatives who have asked, usually quite sniggeringly, whether I’m going to write about her. Do a parenting column. Ultimately, do a Myerson. ‘No,’ I’ve said, and I’ve meant it. It’s not a moral thing, entirely. It’s just a matter of taste.

Contrary to what most people think, not many hacks actually do open up their lives. Columnists aren’t always like their columns, just like actors aren’t always like their roles. Of those I’ve met from this parish, I’d say that Taki is and Jeremy Clarke is, and pretty much everybody else isn’t, quite. Sometimes the voice matches the face, sometimes it just doesn’t. I’ve often been told I write like I’m a middle-aged man, and I’m not. At least, not yet.

Even in an unabashedly confessional column — the sort of thing at which this magazine excels — the skill usually lies in taking the bits it is OK to share, and painting a picture without having to add the bits that it is not. That’s my point, really. Brutal honesty in writing can sometimes take your breath away, but Myerson’s honesty is far more mundane. Anybody who can string a sentence together could do what she has done, if they were brutal and selfish and mercenary enough. I think the public assumes most hacks are, which is why they also probably assume we’re all scum. But secretly, most are not.

Imagine a nightclub full of pole-dancers. Imagine that one of these pole-dancers will always go a bit further. She’ll take her customers into the back room. Go all the way. Turn tricks. She’ll make a name for herself and earn a lot of money, but her fellow pole-dancers will pretty quickly start to hate her. She’s putting them under a lot of pressure, you see. They could all do what she does, but they’ve opted not to. And the more she does it, the more they feel they ought to do the same. That’s why they hate her. And that’s why we all hate Julie Myerson.