If we’ve learned anything over the last few days its surely that there are certain circles in which claiming to have been in favour of the introduction of civil partnerships is very much like having Black friends.

That, broadly speaking, seems to be the impression created by Jan Moir’s weaselling non-apology for Friday’s reprehensible commentary on the untimely death of Stephen Gately.

Its certainly the impression I took from from her closing remarks:

In writing that ‘it strikes another blow to the happy-ever-after myth of civil partnerships’ I was suggesting that civil partnerships – the introduction of which I am on the record in supporting – have proved just to be as problematic as marriages.

In what is clearly a heavily orchestrated internet campaign I think it is mischievous in the extreme to suggest that my article has homophobic and bigoted undertones.

We’ve seen, already, that Moir’s on the record ‘support’ for civil partnerships is, at best, desperately shallow and voyeuristic and it takes very little effort at all to discover that she’s plenty of previous form to be taken into account; from railing against the BBC for making Saturday night altogether too gay for her tastes, to suggesting that Elton John’s personal success, much of came while he was still heavily closeted, negates his criticism of religious homophobia, all the way this particularly spiteful commentary on the private lives of a number of Liberal Democrat MPs, past and present, which includes a particular fine example of the homophobic non-sequitur.

Moir is a desperately easy target here. So easy, if fact, that even her own employer has allowed to two of its weekend columnists, Janet Street-Porter and Suzanne Moore, to take several well-aimed pot shots at her in articles that, as Tabloid Watch notes, were likely to have been approved by the Mail Group’s Editor-in-Chief, Paul Dacre.

That, however, ignores a larger issue in so far as Paul Dacre is, by reputation, a notoriously controlling editor and, therefore just as likely to have approved Moir’s original article, including its original headline “Why there was nothing ‘natural’ about Stephen Gately’s death“, which, in turn, would have been the work of one of the Mail’s sub-editors and not necessarily one put forward by Moir.

In that, as Tabloid Watch also notes, there are distinct parallels to be drawn here between the situation in which the Mail currently find itself and the events of October 2008, when the same newspaper launched its sustained attack on Jonathan Ross, Russell Brand and the BBC over a rather tasteless and unfunny prank call to Andrew Sachs.

At the time, the Mail were quick to lambast the BBC for its ‘gutter culture’ in what has to be one of the worst cases of unconscious projection in living memory:

We know that the Corporation long ago gave up any pretence of being a force for good.

It claws, gouges and bites in pursuit of ratings. That might be said to be a passive response to our sad times.

But when exactly did the Corporation transform itself into the bawling, foul-mouthed electronic lout it now seems to have become? When did it become permissible for it to take an active part in our new gutter culture?

Before going on to make the following observations…

It is astonishing to discover that this torrent of verbal sewage was pre-recorded, approved by a nameless ‘senior executive’ and then deliberately allowed to go out on the air…

Many of us would much enjoy the sight of Mr Ross and Mr Brand offering a five-star grovelling apology, with BBC Director General Mark Thompson at their side.

Perhaps the Mail would care to identify the editor who approved Moir’s article – and particularly the original “nothing ‘natural'” headline – and offer up the kind of apology it demanded from the BBC a little less than 12 months ago?

Frankly, what I expect we’ll see from the Mail over the next few days is pretty much what Orwell described in his classic essay, Anti-Semitism in Britain. In other words, I expect it’ll be ‘be nice to teh gays’ week over at the Mail just as soon as the think they can get away with it without making their hypocrisy too obvious.

Ironically, Moir has this to say, last October, about the Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand:

They fatally underestimated public taste, values and our strong sense of British fair play.

Let’s hope that Moir’s underestimation of the same values proves to be no less fatal.

About the author
'Unity' is a regular contributor to Liberal Conspiracy. He also blogs at Ministry of Truth.
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1. Shaun Rowland

   http://bit.ly/rSwXL Liberal Conspiracy nails it. #janmoir

2. Shaun Rowland

   http://bit.ly/rSwXL Liberal Conspiracy nails it. #janmoir

   [Original tweet]

3. loveandgarbage

   @chickyog http://bit.ly/1nIeJd http://bit.ly/rSwXL http://bit.ly/3cIIIh http://bit.ly/3kkcmx (tangential) http://bit.ly/1MW4St

   [Original tweet]

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