Osborne email - why no bigger outcry

[Loopylooni]

Like a lot of people, I read the email but what screamed at me was the mention of the girl who had just turned 16. Why is this not in the news, not even a mention of the email?

That's your response to an allegation of sexual assault?

Tory sleezebags ... nothing more nothing g less!
I wonder if it was DC maybe?

If I thought for one moment that there was any truth in it, my views would be different. Having read it on-line I frankly don't believe a word of it.

I believe all of it because of the way he behaved when he was in government, to be honest. He showed who he was then.

So you are quite happy to believe anything bad and sleazy just because it’s about someone you dislike?

Thats more important to you than the actual truth?

Well, brave new world!

Because there's no evidence it's true. The 'sources' linked in the email are all tweets from small accounts with random names and celeb gossip bind items. It's rambling, misspelled, repetitive, and reads like it was composed by a gang of giggling students at 3am on a Saturday morning.

Yes, that is unfortunately how some things work now for some peopple.

Empiricism and facts died in approximately 2016.

We're all 'living our own truth' now.

Because it’s gossip, could be true or lies
innocent until proven guilty

It does allege he broke the ministerial code so that is of public interest

But ultimately I’m not being asked to believe the earth is flat or that climate change is fake - just that this man is a sleezebag who sleeps around and cheats on wives / girlfriends. I mean, the woman he’s now married to was his former girlfriend he was cheating on his wife with, so it’s not a huge leap, is it?

I didn’t like his policies and it tracks that he’s not a great person either (allegedly).

I can’t imagine why the email exists if none of it is true. He doesn’t have a reputation to protect, really, does he? He’s going to carry on getting jobs despite the damage his politics have done to the lives of many people he’ll never meet.

Anyway this is low stakes for me. I would never vote for the political party he’s associated with. I don’t live in Bruton. I don’t know a single person implicated. It’s just salacious gossip that seems perfectly plausible.

I just hope the teenager is ok if that part did happen.

To speculate that the Sun's coverage of the hue and cry over the BBC presenter scandal was a tactic by George Osborne's chum Rupert Murdoch to divert attention from an email circulating prior to the GO wedding last week is laughable. The email got plenty of coverage, including in Murdoch's own papers. In fact the allegations in the email had previously been fully investigated by all newspapers, including Private Eye, (full story in this week's edition) and found to be malicious, contradictory, and untrue to the point of being unhinged, and police have been called in.

There is one allegation which, if true, is a big deal but may or may not be proveable.
The rest- though if true shows him as selfish and scummy (oh well)- just sounds a bit like Father Ted's ranty Golden Cleric award acceptance speech.

Unfortunately whilst the Osbourne accusations could be true and I really wouldn't be shocked, the only evidence currently is this anon email that throws everything but the kitchen sink at him (also probably deserved).

As a bare minimum the email writer would have to come forward and present their evidence to authorities, his employer or the press. Then you'd need alleged victims to be identified or come forward also.

None of that has happened as yet. It might down the line at which point I imagine the story would gain bigger traction.

The email and the fact that BJ failed to meet the deadline to hand over his phone, seem to have been lost in the TV presenter debacle.

Yes, it absolutely needs investigation rather than being either believed or disbelieved straight off.

The email names a supposed witness to the alleged sexual assault, which is somewhere for the police to start.

On thing that's really struck me regarding the TV presenter, is that the investigation is being carried out by their employer, the BBC.

The police have looked at the presenter allegations twice now and said they haven't seen evidence of criminality and are no longer investigating.

So what is coming out relies heavily on the BBC, which has access to his work phone. If this person had been working for a different employer or been self-employed, who would be doing this investigation? Possibly no one with adequate access.

Eg I can't see The Evening Standard carrying out an investigation into this, especially with daily public statements on progress, even though Osborne was working for them at the time of the alleged behaviour.

People have been talking a lot on other threads about how powerful men get away with sexual misbehaviour. If Osborne's behaviour were to turn out to be sleazy or abusive, but not criminal, then unless alleged victims were willing to put themselves out there in public, it might never get beyond the point of being rumour and gossip.

Osborne may, of course, be pure as the driven snow and every word of the email might be untrue, even the claim he was having an affair with Thea.

Without a full investigation, we can't know.

He was accused of having sex with a woman potentially too drunk to consent. I have no idea whether there's any truth to that accusation, but it would be illegal however old the person was.

I don't really know who people think should be investigating this. George Osborne is a private citizen now.

The thing is, without a name on the letter or a name for the alleged victim, there isn't much to investigate. Anyone can say "Fred Bloggs did X"- the bar for a criminal investigation is much higher and there needs to be a complainant or some evidence. People make allegations against public figures all the time- it's one of the perils of being a well-known person. It's not comparable to the presenter case where there are specific people who may or may not be victims, bank statements evidencing payments, messages sent from an identified phone number etc- and I'm not saying at all that any of this is evidence of crime - I've no idea-or justification for the media circus but it's a hell of a lot more than there is in the GO case.

The only crime that there is any evidence of in GO's case is malicious communication on the part of whoever sent the email.

Yeah, it’s outrageous how underplayed this is compared to the outcry HE is getting from a 17 year old in what appears to be slightly less grim circumstances than the alleged GO and heavily inebriated 16 year old in pub toilet debacle, which if true is far more sordid and sleazy!