...was of course originally the title of a Morrissey song. But it applies equally well to the world of journalism as Lib Dem leadership contender Chris Huhne is now finding to his cost.
Huhne, an ex-journalist, seems to have a fair few enemies in the media, which doesn't surprise me knowing what a bitchy, backstabbing world it is.
In a column published on Saturday, the normally scrupulously-fair minded commentator Matthew Parris described Huhne as "mysteriously and indefinably ghastly."
I think if people with Matthew's sort of power as an opinion-former are going to throw that sort of mud around, they really ought to say more by way of explanation, and I have written to the Times to say so.
But Parris is not alone. In this space filler at the end of his Observer column on Sunday, Nick Cohen dredges up some ancient story about Huhne driving a flash motor in the 1980s and contrasting this with his support for green taxes today.
And even the Daily Telegraph, whose esteemed political correspondent Brendan Carlin was the first to reveal the Huhne leadership bid, has come out against him in this editorial published on Friday, accusing him of "duplicity."
Against that, Polly Toynbee in the Guardian last week constitutes a rather lone supportive voice in the national media.
No doubt there is always some resentment towards poachers-turned-gamekeepers, but the level of media abuse being directed at Huhne in this contest is well in excess of his opponents.
3 comments:
To quote from that Morrissey song still further:
"...and if we can destroy them,
you bet your life we will
destroy them.
If we can hurt them,
well, we may as well.
It's really laughable.
Ha, ha, ha...
You see, it should've been me.
It could've been me.
Everybody knows.
Everybody says so."
but Morrissey is the man who made a career out of not ironing his shirts and waving silly flowers around
He doesn't seem to be doing too badly on it, Jane.
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