The bitter tears of Johnny von Cunt: Of course The Mail is playing the victim after its legal defeat...
The tabloids always cry “no fair” when they’re beaten.
Jonathan Harold Esmond Vere Harmsworth, the taking-the-piss artist usually known as Lord Rothermere, turned 54 today. And while his birthday topped The Times’ birthdays column, he received an unwelcome gift yesterday as the Mail on Sunday lost its appeal against a ruling that its publication of a letter by the Duchess of Sussex to her father breached copyright and privacy laws.
Most of the British press is now rallying round Rothermere and his subordinates — including newly-elevated Mail editor Ted ‘Dubious’ Verity who was editing the Mail on Sunday when the letter was published and is thought to have pushed hard to fight the case — with news stories, comment pieces, and leaders crying that the freedom of the press has been soiled by the verdict.
On the front page of The Times, in a story with the straightforward headline Duchess wins privacy legal battle, the collective line was still abundantly clear:
The Duchess of Sussex’s legal victory over a tabloid newspaper “moves the goal posts” to tighten privacy law, experts have said. The decision means that celebrities and the wealthy will find it easier to take complete control of when and how information is published about them, it was predicted.
The paper’s leader column — the unbylined ‘voice’ of the paper — went further:
The duchess urged her audience to be “collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel, and profits from the lies and pain that they create”. However strongly she feels that she has been wronged by a particular newspaper, this is a call to radical social action… It is improper to exploit the platform granted by hereditary privilege, in her case through marriage, to press a political case…
In that case the children of Lord Rothermere — one of whom popped up in Tatler’s most eligible singles list and who was promoted to a senior position at MailPlus+ in the reshuffle triggered by Geordie Greig’s defenestration — and the children of Rupert Murdoch alike should not make political comments either. After all they too are beneficiaries of “hereditary privilege”.
Boil down The Times’ argument to its essential elements and you’re left with a demand that Meghan be seen and not heard, presenting herself in the bland, deal-abiding manner that her sister-in-law does. The Sun, meanwhile, reprinted its Little Miss Forgetful headline from last month, now retooled as “Little Miss Unfortunate Lapse of Memory” to reflect the words of the Appeal Court judge and howled in its leader column that:
Little in the known universe can match the vastness of Meghan Markle’s self-regard. Yesterday the former B-list TV actress won a court ruling that the Mail on Sunday printed too much of a letter she wrote to her father — despite her tailoring the language specifically because she suspected it might be published… Harry has long hated the Press. His wife detests that she cannot control it — have it churn out positive PR for her as suffocatingly bland as her Instagram feed.
It comes off as even more like a spurned ex than Piers Morgan’s endlessly envy green output about Meghan. If The Sun doesn’t care about the “former B-list TV actress” why not stop endlessly printing stories about her? And the pretence that it doesn’t churn out “suffocatingly bland… positive PR” for the Duchess of Cambridge is easily destroyed by 10 seconds on Google.
The Sun has no problem with ego — why would it have hired Piers Morgan otherwise? — but what it cannot abide is someone not adhering to its rules and refuses to genuflect to its power. If Meghan got in line and started to abide by “the deal” which her husband, born under the Sauron-gaze of the British press, has talked about often, they would treat her kindly. Their attacks are attempts at punishment for not getting in line.
Furthermore the endlessly references to Meghan writing the letter well aware that it might be leaked — something the court deemed not relevant to the case — are pathetic. She was tactical because she knew she had to be. She didn’t cause the letter to be leaked, she merely anticipated that it might be.
Neither The Times nor The Sun mentions that their parent company — News UK — has a dog in this fight: Prince Harry has sued both The Sun and its Reach-owned rival The Daily Mirror over phone hacking claims.
The Daily Mail itself goes all out in painting itself as a poor, innocent victim, with the top of the front page as well as pages 4, 5, 6 and 7 entirely dedicated to its pity party. The front features a quote from Stephen Glover’s column screeching:
If Meghan really wanted to fight for the truth, she would come to court. And, in a land of liberty, judges who are not awed by Royalty and cherish a free Press would allow a trial…
It’s followed by a double-page spread headlined A chilling blow to free speech and a full page headlined And the verdict from the court of public1 opinion featuring quotes — written when Justice Warby’s summary judgement was made in February 2021 and after yesterday’s judgement by Sir Geoffrey Vos — from such unbiased commentators as the Sunday Times’ Camilla Long (twice), The Telegraph’s Camilla Tominey, MailOnline’s Dan Wootton (described first as simply a “columnist”), fellow recent legal case loser Julie Burchill, current Mail columnist Piers Morgan (twice) and the leader columns of The Times and The Sun.
And in a rare example of cross-title collaboration, the Mail reproduces The Sun’s Little Miss Forgetful headline from last month. Glover — twice voted columnist most likely to play a Walking Dead zombie without the need for makeup — is up next with a full page for his column, which whose headline replicates the quote splashed on the front page. He howls:
Most people can probably see that in their crusade against the Press, Meghan and Harry are largely self-serving. They seek only favourable coverage and want their actions never to be examined or criticised…
… This is an attack on Press freedom in which wild and damaging allegations are made by the Sussexes without evidence being produced. And The Mail on Sunday is deprived by English judges of the opportunity to defend itself.
But, as Press Gazette editor Dominic Ponsford — who tends to be quite sympathetic to the tabloids — noted in his email newsletter this morning, “the law has not changed. Everyone had a legally enforceable right to privacy before this ruling and they still do after it.”
Modern privacy law in the UK was effectively born in 2004 as a result of a story about Naomi Campbell published by The Daily Mirror during Piers Morgan’s stint as editor. The Law Lords — which were replaced by the Supreme Court in 2009 — ruled by a majority of three to two that a previous Appeal Court decision which overturned a ruling that the model’s confidence was breached by photographs showing her emerging from a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in February 2001.
At the time of that decision, Piers Morgan raged it was “a good day for lying, drug-abusing prima donnas who want to have their cake with the media and the right to then shamelessly guzzle with their Cristal champagne” and that “if ever there was a less-deserving case for what is effectively a back door privacy law it would be Miss Campbell’s. But that’s showbiz.”
As Jonathan Ames, The Times’ Legal Editor, writes today, before the Campbell case applied human rights law to privacy questions, people in the UK who felt their privacy had been breached had to rely on ‘breach of confidence’ laws. And, rather fittingly, the case law in that area stretched back to another royal case from 1849 when Prince Albert sued a publisher called William Strange 2to prevent a catalogue of etchings he and Queen Victoria had made.
In 2005, the year after the Campbell case, Canadian singer Loreena McKennit sued over passages in a book3 by her former friend and employee, Niema Ash, which she said contained confidential information that Ash had no right to make public. The courts agreed and new precedents in UK privacy law were created.
Those McKennitt precedents were cited during Max Mosley’s 2008 case against The News of the World, after it claimed, as the headline read, that the “F1 Boss [had] Sick Nazi Orgy with Five Hookers”. Mosley was captured on video taking part in sado-masochistic role play with several women but the court ruled that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy about sexual activity between consenting adults conducted in private and that had not been a “Nazi” theme.
Even this small sliver of the British tabloids’ record on privacy — and there are many phone hacking cases still ongoing, including one brought by Prince Harry — shows how much Glover’s column stretches credulity. One paragraph in particular includes so much naked gall that it’s like wayward Asterix animators drew an ostentacious orgy with Obelix at its centre. He writes:
Of course newspapers are sometimes guilty of excesses, but the idea that they work against the interest of ordinary people — which is what this multi-millionaire, highly privilege Duchess suggests — is absurd.
Today, Morgan, who has been obsessed with Meghan for years, recycles his tired old “Princess Pinnoccio” attack for a column headlined Put your gloating champagne away, Princess Pinocchio – the court of public opinion now knows you're a fork-tongued devious manipulative piece of work who only wants to protect your privacy so you can sell it, which manages to forget his own role in establishing a new era of British privacy law with the Campbell case but is, typically, all about himself.
But denying Morgan more of attention he so desperately craves, lets skip back to Glover’s column where he refers to — presumably without crying with laughter — “The Mail on Sunday’s good name” and grumbles about “Meghan Markle trying to discredit the whole of the tabloid press”.
The Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday rely on presenting themselves as tribunes of the people but Harmsworth, the fourth member of his family to hold the Rothermere title, is a billionaire non-dom who controls his businesses through an intricate web of holding companies and trusts.
Rothermere is as far from “ordinary” as it’s possible to get and his wealth makes multi-millionaire Meghan look almost skint. The Daily Mail Group Trust — which Harmsworth is currently attempting to take private — and its publications ultimately represent his interests and the interests of his family.
The idea that Harmsworth simply lets his editors edit is mildly more believable than when Rupert Murdoch says similar but when Lord Rothermere wants them gone — like he did with Geordie Greig — they are gone. And its rumoured that the view of his wife, Lady Rothermere, carries a lot of klout too.
There’s a common strategy among abusers call DARVO — Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender. Read through the output of the British newspapers today and you’ll see it in full effect. They deny that The Mail on Sunday did anything wrong, make personal attacks on the Duchess of Sussex, and turn the narrative from the tabloid press as a relentless source of aggression into a bunch of truthtellers being picked on by a mean “millionaire” from Hollywood.
In 2006, the Mail on Sunday lost a privacy action to… Prince Charles after it published an excerpt from his journals. The papers didn’t wail about him “destroying the free press” and The Times soft-soaped its story about the case writing that the future king had “reluctantly” decided to take the action. There was a curious paucity of leader columns attacking him with hypocritically high-handed arguments or low down slurs.
Just pay no attention to the billionaire men behind the curtain as they tell you that their free speech is being surpressed. And don’t think for a moment about how that speech is actually very expensive…
“Public” here used to mean “people who agreed with and/or work for us”.
Also, “Prince Albert vs. Strange” sounds like it would make a good Marvel story.
Travels with Loreena McKennitt: My Life as a Friend
As well-written, informative, funny and ENRAGING as always thank you very much. The same type off assholes boo-hooing about freedom of the press have been absolutely roasting Amol Rajan, saying his "...throw a brick" comment was an actual THREAT against William...the hypocrisy still manages to take my breath away sometimes. But well done, Mic, you're one of the good ones!