Vilification- the new Deadly Sin

Vilified or Vilifiers who's the odd one out

The undercurrent of news has been far from positive this year from tsunamis in Japan to the killings in Syria and other parts of the Arab world.  It is maybe no great surprise that the recovery from the recession in Western economies has stalled or that Europe has failed to find a solution for its most vulnerable economies.  However, on both counts the media and our politicians have taken to vilifying the personalities involved.

Silvio Berlusconi was never going to be a statesman and it is a sad reflection on the Italian electorate that they believed the stories in the Italian press and media, much of which he owns, that he was the ageless gigolo who could hold together the creative and corrupt practices that co-exist in this self-obsessed but beautiful country.  His indiscretions were seen as the sort of excesses we expect from teenagers or politicians. President Sarkozy has been built up, like his shoes, as the Napoleonic gallic charmer - not afraid to change partners or policies whilst Angela Merkel has been castigated as the indecisive status quo defender of Germanic austerity.  It is not just the cartoonists and sketch writers that are hacking away at their reputations but the PM and Chancellor are targeting the main players in the eurozone crisis as another butt to kick as an excuse for their own lamentable management of the British economy which, even Cameron now accepts, is in deep trouble.  And they are of course joined in this affray by the infantry of the tabloid press.

I have watched some of the interviews in the Levenson inquiry this week and been reminded about the full scale and horrors of the way the press, and that includes not only News International but also the Mail, Mirror and Express groups, have transgressed the bounds of privacy by hacking into phones, emails, wheelie bins of their victims and their friends to feed their frenzy for scandal which dominates much of their output. Whether famous actors or ordinary families, the victims have divulged the brutality that they have suffered through the press.  It is becoming 'de rigueur' for our politicians, after years of kowtowing to the media, to now blame them for this sorry state of affairs.  

It is not surprising that James Murdoch is hastily retreating from his involvement in the editorial boards of the Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times: he will be spending more time as the bad apple of the family in New York.  The moguls such as Berlusconi and the Murdochs released a form of voyeuristic journalism which has been toxic to democracy. At the same time, they chivvied up to the political elite to secure compliance with the moguls' wider agenda to open up business opportunities and allow takeovers that would extend their influence. They devised new tools to undermine anyone of influence who opposed their expansionist ambitions by tarnishing reputations and creating images that would not appeal to the electorate. 

British politicians of all persuasions were happy to skip along with this game, they were afraid of their own images being damaged in the way that David Steel suffered at the hands of Spitting Image in the 1980s.  So Murdoch and his ilk levered their way into the inner sanctums of political decision making and by employing some very ruthless journalists to vilify and undermine personalities and associated ideas they were able to shape policy agendas on tax, Europe, immigration and defence. They scripted the 'private good, public bad' refrain that was embraced by New Labour as well as the coalition government.  They used celebrity culture to create a sense that avarice and wealth were worthy objectives.  They were assisted by luxury goods advertisers who saw new niche markets opening up amongst the new rich list. 

News International seemed to have an agenda loosely based on encouraging its readers to embrace the deadly sins. Most reports or articles could be categorised under envy, lust, gluttony and greed and national pride seems to drive the eurosceptic agenda.  Vilification of character was also added to the modus operandi and sadly it seems to have been embraced by the political classes. This year at last there has been nemesis for the great panjandrums of the media and their henchmen.  Our politicians, as apprentice panjandrums, are not altogether immune from this.

It would be good to return to the days when humour was used to make political points such as when Denis Healey described being attacked by Sir Geoffrey Howe 'like being savaged by a dead sheep' or when Vince Cable noticed Gordon Brown's 'remarkable transformation in the past few weeks -  from Stalin to Mr Bean.'  Alas, there are no signs that the coalition has the wit or the wisdom to use humour instead of vilification.