Hucksters and Honeytraps
Here's an interesting article by Zoe Williams in The Guardian in which she argues that the government minister, Brooks Newman, who made a complete idiot of himself (and his family) on Twitter should not have resigned his job because essentially there was no harm done.
Now I take Zoe's point and the whole situation is made even more farcical by the fact it was a sting operation which had been hawked around other newspapers before it was bought up by The Mirror, presumably for a large sum of money.
But I think Brooks Newmark should still have resigned because he was so stupid and I would certainly find it difficult to put any trust in someone with such poor judgment, someone who couldn't spot a that he was being set up, that he hadn't all of a sudden become irresistibly attractive to a young woman less than half his age.
So I think Brooks did the right thing by falling on his sword even if he didn't quite commit the crime of the century and what he should do now is expose the tawdry nature of the story run by The Mirror, what was actually said to him by the journalist and what he knows about the identity of a young woman being used (without her permission) to set up the honeytrap.
So Brooks Newmark sent some explicit pictures – why should he resign?
I would have given anything to see the Tory MP leave, but not for his sexual conduct. Even the 50s would be less judgmental
By Zoe Williams - The Guardian
'We’ve reached a point with politicians’ sexual morality that is so abstruse, so distant from the codes we live by'. Illustration: Phil Disley
Brooks Newmark’s resignation was utterly predictable, yet totally inexplicable. Why exactly did he have to go? His statement read: “I have decided to resign as minister for civil society having been notified of a story to be published in a Sunday newspaper.”
It’s so uninformative, it’s almost charming: a story about what? Related to him in what way? He seems to be under the impression that if he never says, “I sent explicit photographs of myself to a middle-aged man I thought was a young woman”, then propriety, simple manners, will stop us all from talking about it. In your dreams, sunshine.
Refusing to name the misdemeanour, Newmark naturally isn’t planning to elaborate on precisely what moral code he feels has been breached; indeed, his statement suggests the crime is “having been the subject of a newspaper article”. The real, practical reason he’s resigned is so as not to have to discuss whether or not he should resign. But there’s no reason for the rest of us to abide by his moratorium.
Newmark wasn’t harassing the “woman”; he was the victim of a sting operation. It is in the nature of those scams that you only ever hear one side’s humiliating impropriety; you never find out what the “journalist” said to draw them out. But if we know the journalist sent the first photo, we know that it wasn’t the MP’s idea. I don’t think fancying someone who seems to fancy you, even someone much younger who isn’t real, contravenes any feminist principle.
If I were the party leader, I would worry about Newmark’s intelligence. Someone who will gaily embark on a sexting adventure – believing that a 26-year-old wants to see him naked, even though she plainly knows what he looks like clothed – does not have a very strategic mind. The rise, fall, rise and fall again of Anthony Weiner, the New York politician who sent photographs of his genitals to almost everyone, was much more three-dimensional.
Weiner, a very early adopter of smartphone technology, was Clintonesque; he sexted of his own volition, and was later gulled into yet more sexting by conservatives who’d set up fake accounts. So even though the honeytrap technique was the same, at least it was designed to exploit pre-existing behaviour. Of course, I couldn’t possibly know, but I’m as sure as I’ve ever been of anything that Newmark was not taking explicit selfies until the unnamed freelance journalist asked him to.
Newmark should have had some basic procedure for establishing the veracity of his correspondents. Let’s call it “the sense he was born with”.
In the midst of Ukip defections and splenetic Euro-rage, David Cameron is in no position to start policing his MPs for low IQ. Mark Reckless, remember, is the MP who had to apologise to the house in 2010 for being too drunk to vote. In normal times the leadership would be pleased to see the back of these jokers.
These times are not normal. Newmark’s departure is a genuine blow to the party. In order to have accepted his resignation, therefore, the prime minster must believe in a consensus that he has done something irredeemable, something way beyond “daft”.
The one thing we know about Newmark’s affair is that nothing happened. The MP is married and a father of five, and of course it isn’t ideal to conduct such a vigorous flirtation in those conditions, but I cannot see this as an all-out attack on family values. “What is this, the 50s?” his defenders ask (yes, they do exist – though they mainly seem to be defending the act of sexting rather than the sexter himself. They love the sin but not the sinner).
I don’t believe even the 50s would be as judgmental as these prurient times. Once the people of the past had wrapped their heads around virtual sex, I think they would see it as a niche but ultimately pretty trivial misdemeanour.
Now, we’ve reached a point with politicians and their sexual morality that is so abstruse, so distant from the real codes we live by, that the result is a kind of moralising arms race: if in doubt, take the dimmest possible view. But everything is in doubt, so the disapproval roars thunderously.
In what other job would a person who’d had an affair have to resign? Where else is sexual conduct considered anybody’s business but that of the parties involved?
In the outside world, human relationships are viewed with nuance and sophistication. It is tacitly agreed that honesty is better than dishonesty, that infidelity is painful and self-seeking, that it would be better if everyone honoured the promises they’d made, for ever; it is also understood that sometimes the heart wants what it wants and that erring is human. People are not shunned or shamed.
Politicians get no such licence. They can exhibit no personal dishonesty that doesn’t mar all their public utterances. They can’t really be human, and then they are despised for seeming so distant, so unrecognisable. They bring it on themselves with their unquestioning adherence to 19th-century norms; but we perpetuate it too, with foolish outrage that couldn’t even be tracked back to a coherent set of principles.
Newmark is the man who said charities should stick to knitting. He was sneering and uninformed in his civil society role, and I would have given anything to see him leave. But not for this. This is what really degrades public life, being unable, en masse, to distinguish the petty from the meaningful.
Brooks Newmark’s resignation was utterly predictable, yet totally inexplicable. Why exactly did he have to go? His statement read: “I have decided to resign as minister for civil society having been notified of a story to be published in a Sunday newspaper.”
It’s so uninformative, it’s almost charming: a story about what? Related to him in what way? He seems to be under the impression that if he never says, “I sent explicit photographs of myself to a middle-aged man I thought was a young woman”, then propriety, simple manners, will stop us all from talking about it. In your dreams, sunshine.
Refusing to name the misdemeanour, Newmark naturally isn’t planning to elaborate on precisely what moral code he feels has been breached; indeed, his statement suggests the crime is “having been the subject of a newspaper article”. The real, practical reason he’s resigned is so as not to have to discuss whether or not he should resign. But there’s no reason for the rest of us to abide by his moratorium.
Newmark wasn’t harassing the “woman”; he was the victim of a sting operation. It is in the nature of those scams that you only ever hear one side’s humiliating impropriety; you never find out what the “journalist” said to draw them out. But if we know the journalist sent the first photo, we know that it wasn’t the MP’s idea. I don’t think fancying someone who seems to fancy you, even someone much younger who isn’t real, contravenes any feminist principle.
If I were the party leader, I would worry about Newmark’s intelligence. Someone who will gaily embark on a sexting adventure – believing that a 26-year-old wants to see him naked, even though she plainly knows what he looks like clothed – does not have a very strategic mind. The rise, fall, rise and fall again of Anthony Weiner, the New York politician who sent photographs of his genitals to almost everyone, was much more three-dimensional.
Weiner, a very early adopter of smartphone technology, was Clintonesque; he sexted of his own volition, and was later gulled into yet more sexting by conservatives who’d set up fake accounts. So even though the honeytrap technique was the same, at least it was designed to exploit pre-existing behaviour. Of course, I couldn’t possibly know, but I’m as sure as I’ve ever been of anything that Newmark was not taking explicit selfies until the unnamed freelance journalist asked him to.
Newmark should have had some basic procedure for establishing the veracity of his correspondents. Let’s call it “the sense he was born with”.
In the midst of Ukip defections and splenetic Euro-rage, David Cameron is in no position to start policing his MPs for low IQ. Mark Reckless, remember, is the MP who had to apologise to the house in 2010 for being too drunk to vote. In normal times the leadership would be pleased to see the back of these jokers.
These times are not normal. Newmark’s departure is a genuine blow to the party. In order to have accepted his resignation, therefore, the prime minster must believe in a consensus that he has done something irredeemable, something way beyond “daft”.
The one thing we know about Newmark’s affair is that nothing happened. The MP is married and a father of five, and of course it isn’t ideal to conduct such a vigorous flirtation in those conditions, but I cannot see this as an all-out attack on family values. “What is this, the 50s?” his defenders ask (yes, they do exist – though they mainly seem to be defending the act of sexting rather than the sexter himself. They love the sin but not the sinner).
I don’t believe even the 50s would be as judgmental as these prurient times. Once the people of the past had wrapped their heads around virtual sex, I think they would see it as a niche but ultimately pretty trivial misdemeanour.
Now, we’ve reached a point with politicians and their sexual morality that is so abstruse, so distant from the real codes we live by, that the result is a kind of moralising arms race: if in doubt, take the dimmest possible view. But everything is in doubt, so the disapproval roars thunderously.
In what other job would a person who’d had an affair have to resign? Where else is sexual conduct considered anybody’s business but that of the parties involved?
In the outside world, human relationships are viewed with nuance and sophistication. It is tacitly agreed that honesty is better than dishonesty, that infidelity is painful and self-seeking, that it would be better if everyone honoured the promises they’d made, for ever; it is also understood that sometimes the heart wants what it wants and that erring is human. People are not shunned or shamed.
Politicians get no such licence. They can exhibit no personal dishonesty that doesn’t mar all their public utterances. They can’t really be human, and then they are despised for seeming so distant, so unrecognisable. They bring it on themselves with their unquestioning adherence to 19th-century norms; but we perpetuate it too, with foolish outrage that couldn’t even be tracked back to a coherent set of principles.
Newmark is the man who said charities should stick to knitting. He was sneering and uninformed in his civil society role, and I would have given anything to see him leave. But not for this. This is what really degrades public life, being unable, en masse, to distinguish the petty from the meaningful.
What a Knob (9 June 2011)
The biggest story in America at the moment seems to be 'Weinergate'.
The not so wholesome tale of a once respected Democratic Congressman from New York - Anthony Weiner - whose name is almost a synonym for a penis or 'wiener' as the Amercians say.
Now Mr Weiner - for reasons best known to himself - sent a text messages via Twitter to a young woman almost half his age - and attached a picture of his underpants.
The problem was that Mr Weiner (and Mr Weiner's wiener) was still in his underpants at the time.
And the offending picture fell into the hands of a blogger who spilled the beans to the world's press.
So Mr Weiner is now in the doghouse - as you can imagine - as his online exploits continued to be exposed by other women to whom he sent lewd texts or tweets.
Unsurprisingly, the Congressman is now fighting for his political life.
In a curious twist, Mr Weiner is married to Huma Abedin - deputy chief of staff to Hilary Clinton.
But I think I will have to throw up somewhere if we witness yet another example of a betrayed wife 'standing by her man' - a la Anne Sinclair in the Dominique Strauss-Khan affair.
I only hope there's not a picture of John Prescott's underpants about to emerge from cyberspace - linked to his bonking on the job with a junior, female civil servant - while 'serving' the country as Deputy Prime Minister.
Now that would be too much to bear.
The not so wholesome tale of a once respected Democratic Congressman from New York - Anthony Weiner - whose name is almost a synonym for a penis or 'wiener' as the Amercians say.
Now Mr Weiner - for reasons best known to himself - sent a text messages via Twitter to a young woman almost half his age - and attached a picture of his underpants.
The problem was that Mr Weiner (and Mr Weiner's wiener) was still in his underpants at the time.
And the offending picture fell into the hands of a blogger who spilled the beans to the world's press.
So Mr Weiner is now in the doghouse - as you can imagine - as his online exploits continued to be exposed by other women to whom he sent lewd texts or tweets.
Unsurprisingly, the Congressman is now fighting for his political life.
In a curious twist, Mr Weiner is married to Huma Abedin - deputy chief of staff to Hilary Clinton.
But I think I will have to throw up somewhere if we witness yet another example of a betrayed wife 'standing by her man' - a la Anne Sinclair in the Dominique Strauss-Khan affair.
I only hope there's not a picture of John Prescott's underpants about to emerge from cyberspace - linked to his bonking on the job with a junior, female civil servant - while 'serving' the country as Deputy Prime Minister.
Now that would be too much to bear.
