BBC scandal exposes the Nasty Nation

The BBC scandal might well have been a scandal. Then again, it might not. Huw Edwards, the Person Who Couldn’t Be Named, might or might not have done The Thing That Couldn’t Be Described involving The Individual We Couldn’t Talk About. There might have been some [REDACTED] involved. Yet there was a police investigation. It would have been wrong to say more before the police concluded there was no case to answer.

But bravo, Britain! Never let matters of guilt or innocence stop us from saying more, in millions of words written over countless social media posts, in which the very worst kind of ill-informed speculation and second-guessing took place based on a shameful piece of tabloid reporting. We again revealed ourselves to be a nation obsessed with chipping in; a people actively encouraged to get involved by a government and its friendly media who are all too happy to stoke hysteria over a matter that engages that obsessive prurience buried skin deep in the British psyche.

We can be such a predictably and pitifully puritanical nation when we want to be and that’s especially true when poking our noses into another person’s sex life once we suspect it deviates by a single stray sock from the turn-out-the-lights-Beryl-did-you-let-the-cat-out-and-damn-I-forgot-to-do-the-bins missionary position. Even though it now turns out there were no crimes committed, there will be many who will not let it rest because they will never accept that there were no crimes committed. A man remains innocent only until a Red Top decides to destroy him. Then innocence becomes the never to be recovered country.

Yet it’s not just the obsession that shames us as much as the hypocrisy, the willingness to inflict pain on a man who has spoken publicly about his depression and whose only relevance to the national conversation is that he (checks notes) reads the damn news. You don’t need to be a fan of the man to recognise how his shaming became a blood sport, the other side of the fame game. We either irrationally laud these people or seek to destroy them in the cruellest ways imaginable.

And let’s not forget who was among them the most complicit in this sorry tale: a government failing in power and seeking to destroy the institution it feels is contributing to its failure. Some of us are old enough to remember the old Conservative Party who thought institutions like the BBC were quite good because they were bound up with the national identity and the very meaning of Britishness. Remember all the talk about soft power and the BBC being the public broadcaster to the world?

Well, forget about it. That was then. This is now. Join in. Pile on. There’s more than enough red meat for everybody! Let’s kink shame as if none of us have a single kink we wouldn’t mind sharing with the entire world.

And that is the most sordid bit of this: ministers who escalated a questionably sourced story and then a Prime Minister who commented on a situation that appeared more complicated with each passing day. And not just complicated because of the who’s, where’s, and when’s, but around complications that become even more synonymous with a world of sexual living, sexual liberation, liberal sexuality, and, in truth, liberality in general. It is a very grim affair all around and now reeks of homophobia; a story that used a fabricated notion of “public interest” to out a man who had been keeping his sexuality private, as was his right.

In the meantime, let’s not talk about the affairs of ministers, former ministers, and a former Prime Minister because, we must remember, “it’s none of our business”. Let’s not poke our noses into the business of moralisers so keen to opine on morality until they’re caught with their pants down. Then it’s their critics at fault, engaged in tittle tattle, gossip, or the worst impulses as human beings.

We should certainly forget the words of a man who once questioned if “British society is ready for a return to Shame”. We should not remember him talking about “the odious and unfair humiliation of bastard children, in the hope that it will cause a pang of regret in their parents and deter potential single mothers” because he wasn’t talking about people living in 400-year-old homes in Oxfordshire. No, he meant people in Liverpool and Hackney, so it’s perfectly okay to compare how his private life matches his words.

Let’s also not concentrate on a government that still pretends to be The Law and Order Party™ yet blissfully acts like some London crime syndicate. They celebrate a form of libertarianism that cares about freedom so long as it’s their kinds of freedom: financial freedom; freedom to not follow the rules; freedom to not pay taxes; freedom to award PPE contracts to friends and friends of friends; sexual freedom of a very conventional kind. They obsess over freedom of speech so long as it’s their speech.

Yet beyond the ugly prurient nature of this story is something deeper that’s been awakened in the public’s mind. This isn’t even a matter of Left or Right, Centrism or being out on the fringe. We’re all committed to the same game of shouting, living in a persistent state of collective hysteria. Jeremy Vine even called for his colleague to come forward to spare the fellow big names at the BBC from further speculation.

First, they came for the millionaire talk show hosts, then they came for the Match of the Day pundits… Then they came for…

It’s all so rotten in Britain, a nation where we used to go about our business quietly and have respect for one another. Now we’re a nation psychologically prepared to fight on every front. You can barely walk ten yards in this country without something angrily threatening you with a fine or jail term. You will be fined if you stop here, walk there, or point a camera at this or that building. Fixed penalty notices on every railway station, notices reminding you that you’re being watched on CCTV. Don’t have an improper thought within 3.5 miles of a church or school yard.

Then comes Just Stop Oil which does its own kind of shouting and a government that responds by introducing new laws that allow the government to shout even louder. Meanwhile over in Westminster, Steve Bray adds another 200W amplifier to his step up and the government responds by banning protests that make a noise.

LET’S JUST SHOUT A BIT LOUDER!

BUT I CAN SHOUT EVEN LOUDER THAN YOU!

Maybe it’s time to ask quietly but when are we going to tire of shouting? When can we just go back to talking or, even better, maintaining a dignified silence?

@DavidWaywell

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