Privacy? What privacy?
It’s the standard liberal position he takes and the reasoning behind it is one I largely accept. How can we expect a politician who betrays his wife to be faithful to his vocation as a minister and as an MP? Not sure exactly – we just can. Human beings compartmentalize and one area where they do this probably more than in any other is in their sex lives. Martin Luther King committed adultery; Hitler didn’t – does anyone need any more historical examples over these?
 But the weightier part of the argument has to with privacy and how it is essential to liberty: this relates to the concern that the tabloids, by exposing the petty peccadilloes of politicians undermine the very concept of a private life itself.
The argument is reasonably sound and I’ve often made it myself, but increasingly I’m finding a problem and I think it lies in John Prescott’s response, which David Aaronovitch mentions:
“Mr Prescott, who should have told his interlocutor to take a hike, prevaricated…”
Yes he really should have – but he didn’t. Neither did Bill Clinton. Neither did Tommy Sheridan. Neither did David Cameron. And I’m wondering where this implicit acceptance of the right to have their privacy invaded comes from? My own view and hope is somewhere, maybe subconsciously, they realise they can’t really do this. Perhaps they understand it’s a bit rich asking people to respect their privacy when they have no respect for it themselves and, more importantly, they have no respect for ours. That would be probably too much to ask for – but they should.
Many people, including myself, cite the Major government’s disgraceful ‘Back to Basics‘ campaign as an example of how politician’s private lives can be salient to their role in government. David Cameron has declared the Tories’ war on single-parents to be over. Since I’m one myself, I suppose I’m bound to welcome this but I think the problem behind ‘Back to Basics’ is still with us. They might be nicer about it but politicians are still preaching to us about our private lives and seeking to regulate them in various ways – more so than ever.
I don’t care about John Prescott’s sex-life; what concerns me is that he’s the Deputy Prime Minister in a government that has advanced surveillance in our society to an unprecedented degree, that wants us all to be bar-coded, that seeks to regulate how we might express our views on terrorism and our very feelings about religion.
I don’t give a rat’s-ass whether David Cameron had a few lines of cocaine when he was at university. What concerns me is that the option is open for him (which, tellingly, he didn’t take) to say it’s nobody’s business, when no such option is open to me – what with cocaine being an illegal class A narcotic and all.
I don’t care about Cameron’s private life, so what’s he doing telling the media what kind of underwear he has? And where did he get the idea that it’s appropriate for the Leader of the Opposition to instruct expectant fathers how they should conduct themselves on the birth of their children?
I’m not concerned whether Tommy Sheridan frequents swingers’ clubs or not. What concerns me is that Scots Law permits such activity in private clubs but does not extend this to the rather larger constituency of consenting adults who may want to indulge in the more mundane pleasure of having a cigarette with their pint.
Speaking of Tommy Sheridan, when he was announcing the arrival of Rosie Kane MSP to the ranks of the SSP, he was never done mentioning that she was a single-parent. The relevance of this was what, exactly? I also know Tommy Sheridan recently fathered a baby. It was in the papers. But why? If you’re a man, I can say from experience the material contribution you make is pretty limited, to say the least. But don’t doubt the political relevance; free-school meals are a better idea than they were before because Tommy’s had a baby, apparently.
None of these believe in the concept of a private life. Not really. That’s why they presume to lecture us about how we conduct ourselves, what we should eat, how we should raise our children, how much exercise we should do, what amount of homework per week is suitable for your child to be doing, what our attitude to teenagers wearing certain forms of clothing should be.
My mother, who was born in the Thirties said that while she remembers seeing Clement Atlee on newsreel, she can’t recall ever hearing him speaking. And now to this age of Colosseum TV where political life, like its civic counterpart, is increasingly understood as a revelation of character. Technology has decreed that there will be no return to the past but this doesn’t mean there’s anything inevitable about this present situation. For would it not be improved if politicians learned to respect our privacy? And if only for dignity’s sake, I for one would be grateful if they would show some respect for their own. Maybe then they’d have a better case for saying they should be left in peace.
Isn’t this a conflation of issues? I can understand your objection to smoking bans (you smoke, you live in Scotland, you visit pubs). But is that ban any more pernicious – from a libertarian point of view – than a smoking ban on a train or a bus? Or in a doctor’s waiting room? Or the insistance that bikers wear helmets or drivers wear seat-belts?
More annoying, probably. But this is not a massive step change in the creeping regulation of our private lives.
As it happens, I’m borderline opposed to a ban in pubs (I don’t actually care much any more), but I wouldn’t put the argument that – because politicians seek to impose themselves on our lives in a way that we personally don’t like – that we should then declare open season on them.
To say that politicians expressing views on how people live their lives means that they don’t beleive in the concept of a private life at all condemns an entire way of organising democratic government. Surely part of the problem is the way that the media bid politicians up? The way particular issues are focussed on, each of them have to outdo the other with more populist responses to any question.
Journalists insist that politicians stick their noses into everyone else’s business. Any politican who doesn’t will find their opponents scoring points against them at will. Journalists – yet again – are the problem IMHO.
But is that ban any more pernicious – from a libertarian point of view – than a smoking ban on a train or a bus?
No. What I was getting at was that the ban is more than one in ‘enclosed public places'; it applies to private places too. What I was trying to get at is that politicians, who complain that their privacy has been invaded, don’t seem to believe in the concept of privacy. Swingers clubs? Fine. Can we have smokers clubs and snorters clubs too, please? Using one of the examples from the piece, I don’t think Tommy Sheridan believes in privacy at all. He and the rest of the SSP voted against allowing consenting adults to have a fag with their pint. And with regards his legal action, his complaint has not been that his privacy has been invaded; it has been that the stories about him are untrue. I consider this to be highly significant.
Surely part of the problem is the way that the media bid politicians up?
I think the problem is that politicians court the media and by doing so implicitly accept their right to invade both their own privacy and that of others. They do this because they want to get elected in order to have power to tell the rest of us what to do. This is why I don’t feel particularly sorry for Prescott, Sheridan or any of the others. Live by the tabloid, die by the tabloid. Hell scud it into them, as my granny never said.
Interesting post Shuggy. What intrigues me most is the hypocrisy.
Going back to the likes of Profumo, the horror has always struck me as manufactured. Were we really horrified? Well aside from the odd nun and reclusive prude with an interest in medieval archives, no … we were titillated and wanted more.
Such disclosures appeal to prurient appetites and jack up viewing numbers, so not unnaturally the press make a circus out of these lapses in “judgement”. I’m using parenthesis because there is no consensus any more that supports a monolithic moral judgement that would for sure prompt a mass nod from a scandalized public.
Clinton’s sexual capers were adolescent; deployment of cigars as WSD’s (Weapons-of-Sexual-Deviation) and furtive phone calls for the most part. By todays’ licentious standards this was really, really tame stuff. Yes he was married and the Commander-in-Chief etc, but its entirely unreasonable to expect these people to be Jesu-like in their moral constraints. Perhaps a bit of boinking on the side would actually energize them in the execution of their public duties. Prince Andrew always manages to look rather fiesty.
Apparently Mitterand was dedicated to extra-marital diddling, but he always managed to come off as the stalwart French leader. He had this haughty and sanctimonious look about him, that almost dared the gossips to bring it on. Since he was using French espionage capabilities to keep his nocturnal activities under wraps, I doubt if anyone would have had the temerity to ring any bells too loudly.
He did the rounds while covering his rear end and also managed to preside over the Republic in rather grand style. No mean feat in this age of the predator reporter.
As for bans on smoking and other petty intrusions upon privacy, I bloody hate it. I can’t believe Dublin has succumbed to the PC disease also. A Dublin pub without carcinogenic substances means they aren’t as dodgy as they once were. When the fags (cigarette for Americans lest I get accused of homophobia) go, what’s next? No whistling of The Oul Orange Flute? No good natured fondling of attractive strangers? No exhibitions of drunkeness or recitals of racier Pogue lyrics? Dreary and correct.
Bring on the Ginger Man!
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