Mac's Musings
Media Profile - Old Lags and Lemmings
13/11/2007Performance rather than media profile is usually a better quality in our politicians. But sometimes you just can't divorce the two.
So the appointment of disgraced former Tory front-bencher Jonathan Aitken to help formulate Conservative plans on prison reform seems to be an almost lemming-like leap of faith. In the hierarchy of political own goals, this one takes some beating. I'm all in favour of redemption and Jonathan has a perfect prison CV but......
Aitken was jailed in 1999 for 'calculated perjury' after lying in a libel action against the Guardian. Worse still, he got his 16-year-old daughter Victoria to sign a false witness statement. The trial judge said he had weaved 'a web of deceit' and had committed a 'gross and inexcusable breach of trust'. He was sent down for 18 months.
Yes, I know he's done his time. But - just like that other old lag Lord Archer - you can't sue a newspaper, be caught out in a spectacular lying spree and expect to get a good press ever again.
There is just one other small point correctly highlighted by former Guardian editor Peter Preston in the Observer. We know Aitken, a former arms middle man, lied about having an expensive Paris hotel bill paid by a Saudi arms dealer while he was defence procurement minister. But we don't know why he lied. However, we do know that he was involved in negotiating arms contracts in the Eighties for BAE which may have been secured with dodgy backhanders. Newspapers are still investigating and - if they secure the evidence - Aitken's media profile and freedom are likely to take another bashing.
He could take a lesson from American literary giant Norman Mailer who died a few days ago. Mailer generally got a very good press despite a long history as a bar room brawler. But, as far as I know, he never mugged a newspaper editor.
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