A pie in the face for the police from the dark side of public opinion

23 July 2011

At time of writing I do not know the name of the lumpen oaf who tried to rub an ersatz custard pie in Rupert Murdoch’s face during his testimony to the Culture, Media and Sport select committee.

At time of writing I do not know the name of the lumpen oaf who tried to rub an ersatz custard pie in Rupert Murdoch’s face during his testimony to the Culture, Media and Sport select committee. It is possible that it was not a person at all, but a phantasm, a creature from the dark side spontaneously brought into being by the national outpouring of hysteria and hyperbole, much as the chupacabras, or goat-sucker, will manifest himself in the peasant villages of South America when the locals are gripped by a grave but irrational fear of something.

Our own version was a typically blubbery piece of self-righteous ectoplasm who will not, I suspect, be banished back to his netherworld until the national mood has abated, until those who loathe News Corp — the London left, the MPs, news organisations who are its commercial rivals and so on — have their vengeance. It may be that even then people will only be happy when they have joined my Facebook group ‘Everyone Should Be Sacked Or Killed’, which I set up in response to some previous (now forgotten) outpouring of hysteria a short while back. These atavistic jolts of mass hatred are becoming an almost monthly occurrence, whipped up by the social networking sites, the politicians turning this way and that in order to fall in step with what they believe to be the national mood.

Anyway, the fat phantasm with the custard pie was scarcely less supernatural and other-worldly than the appearance, the day before, of Paul Dacre, the editor of the Daily Mail, telling MPs that he had never countenanced hacking or ‘blagging’ on his paper — part of a group which had employed private investigators 1,387 times — rather more than any other news organisation on the planet.

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James Spence

July 21st, 2011 8:54pm Report this comment

Nice to see a loyal employee sticking up for his boss for once.

Paul Worthington

July 22nd, 2011 4:32pm Report this comment

Does this piece demonstrate that there might be a contradiction between the freedom of the press and the might of moguls? I remember Rod being much more robust on the infringement of privacy by hacking emails recently. All we get here is: "Everyone is now apparently agreed that the hacking of mobile phones is a bad thing ...". I think most of us were before.
I appreciate what Rod is saying about the absurdity of much public "outrage". But we are looking here at very serious intrusions into people's privacy by very cynical and ruthless louts. And possibly at serious criminal charges. Reticence is fine in its way, Rod, but can sometimes have a bit of a whiff about it.

James Harborne

July 22nd, 2011 6:43pm Report this comment

Certainly a far more lucid and intelligent article than Toby Young's the other week. However, while I agree that the public interest test is not an exact science, surely journos could choose to apply that tried and tested tool, common sense, to a story. While I agree this still leaves a chunky grey area, it would surely quite easily draw some lines in the sand, such as, "shall I hack into a dead girl's voicemail on the off-chance I might catch something juicy? Hmmm, is this story in the public interest or am I writing it just to sell copy? Yeah, maybe I won't hack into her voicemail".

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