Simon Jenkins is a columnist (as well has being chief trusty for the National Trust) whose pieces I usually like, that is to say they usually pander to pre-existing views.
Today however, for the second time, he devotes his column to the plight of the Huhne-Pryce's, his strongly held view being that the whole sorry saga is out of all proportion to the offence, that their treatment is unjust and that the acres of drooling coverage reflect poorly on all of us. He closes with the observation that given that neither did well in their public offices, failings for which we cannot punish them in the regular way, so perhaps we have done the best we can, busting them for the best charge to hand. For once I mostly disagree.
My line is that the first offence of speeding was minor. The second offence of passing the points on was rather less minor, and usually undetected. As Jenkins says, hundreds of thousands of us get away with it every year. But it is precisely because we have to trust people in this matter, that breach of that trust has to be taken seriously on the rare occasions when it comes to light. False declarations on important government forms - declaring, for example, that one is a spinster on a certificate of marriage when one is not - are in the same sort of space. And then, the third offence of continuing to deny the second offence when you have been caught out is even less minor, serious even. Pleading guilty at the eleventh hour not much of an improvement and pleading not guilty before a jury on some ancient matrimonial defense not very clever at all. Have these people never heard of equal opportunities or sex discrimination? Did they never read the Guardian?
So as far as I am concerned, exemplary punishment is what they deserve and exemplary punishment is what they got. On the second point, I agree that the drooling coverage is not very seemly, but entirely normal. Public figures have always been fair game for this sort of thing and one might argue that it is a 'if you don't like the heat get out of the kitchen' sort of issue. On the other hand, it might also be that too many decent people don't care to work in hot kitchens, a loss to us all. On the third point, I don't think that the lacklustre performance of the Huhne-Pryce's in office had anything to do with it all. What makes their crimes interesting is the fact that they were in office, not how they did there. Furthermore, if we start sticking public people in the stocks because we disagree with them or because they have made a mistake, our public life will become even worse than it is now.
And what is more, I have my problems too because today seems to be the day for making mistakes. So, for example, I chose to make lentil stew for lunch, the one involving bacon and cabanos. Mistake 1, used the every day value bacon from Tesco which I found in the road a couple of weeks ago (see 14th February). Not a very nice flavour at all, despite the bacon having been in the fridge in the interval. Mistake 2, turned the wrong hot plate up to high and singed the stew. Mistake 3, failed to realise that the singe was serious and tried to stir it in, resulting in a yellowish stew with black speckles. I should have decanted to a clean saucepan the moment I clocked the singe. And that's just lunch.
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