Leveson, Devilson

This is not a poem. Nor is it fiction. You just couldn’t make it up. It’s a rant, pure and simple, about the seemingly endless and pointless Leveson Inquiry. I try to avoid it as best I can. However, today, as I attempted to run off the pounds at the gym, the rather smug inquisitor was at it again, boring into another politician about his “relationship” with the press. As my headphones had gone missing, I couldn’t hear a word of Gordon Brown’s pursed lipped replies. I didn’t need too, though. Every single person paraded in front of the inquisitor and the cameras is word perfect in their defence. If only someone would fluff their lines and fess up properly. But, in the main, they are professionals — like the lawyers quizzing them, except they will only receive publicity, not fat fees, for their trouble.

Call me a cynic — well I am a journalist, after all — but what will be achieved at the end of this lengthy expensive charade? Confirmation that all politicians and journalists “get too thick” in pursuit of their own agendas? A pajama party for Sarah Brown and a tantrum for Gordon when Rupert found a new best friend? A horsey ride for David (LOL), daddy bonding for Jeremy and a god daughter for Tony…

Of course people overstep the mark, and need to be reprimanded, but forging close relationships between the press and the powers-that-be, was always thus. Read Balzac’s Lost Illusions, Waugh’s Scoop or Maupassant’s Bel Ami…

I experienced these cosy relationships at first-hand as a young journalist working for a trade magazine. We would regularly sup with our contacts in the hope of getting a scoop or two, while they wanted to increase their influence. As my young son said to me the other day when I questioned him on the subject of Leveson and press scrutiny: “If you don’t bend the rules a bit, how do you get the story.” Well, I have no fears for him!

So how will it all end up when, indeed, the inquiry does end? I don’t think I need a crystal ball. There might be a few minor scalps but, in the event, the big beasts will move on to graze in other pastures, chewing the cud on that old cliche “lessons need to be learnt”. Plus ca change