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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

to think the super-injunction couple and David Cameron could take a PR lesson from Justin Welby?

79 replies

LuluJakey1 · 09/04/2016 19:09

I think the dignity and humility with which Justin Welby has handled the disclosure about his biological father, the circumatances of the conception etc makes a fascinating contrast with the super-injunction couple and David Cameron.
Justin Welby's position is much more sensitive in terms of public scrutiny of morality, values etc, yet he has behaved with humility, openness and emerged from it all probably with new-won respect from many.
Contrast the super-injunction couple who have mishandled their seedy behaviour being exposed trying to cover it up and prolonged the agony and speculation and press interest.
Contrast also Cameron and his shenanighans this week over his family wealth and tax matters.
Welby has followed the three rules of PR in this sort of situation: Tell it all at once, tell it yourself and don't try to hide stuff. The other two have made a bigger mess by not doing, have encouraged further scrutiny and hypothesising and have emerged poorer in the perceptions of many because of their choices.

OP posts:
Cerseirys · 10/04/2016 16:56

Try searching for 'Scottish Mail super injunction', as they've revealed who it is.

Scaredycat3000 · 10/04/2016 17:06

I think Welby's made an utter fool of him self. Insisting he and his Mother had no idea. The Fathers own wife said Welby was his son, his father asked to see him on his death bed and Welby was told, and look at the photos. Whilst I have no direct experience of alcoholism I understand the concept of black outs, etc. But his Mother has gone from no idea to extreme clarity and some serious TMI, the contraceptive failed! Welby wanted this out there, links into all the judging ready for forgiveness that christians love so much. Pretty despicable to not protect your own aging mother into making personal statements.
I suspect SI couple have got what they want, there is so many decades of far worse gossip about the famous one this is nothing. All very odd.

to think the super-injunction couple and David Cameron could take a PR lesson from Justin Welby?
to think the super-injunction couple and David Cameron could take a PR lesson from Justin Welby?
Scaredycat3000 · 10/04/2016 17:11

And just as an anecdote Liv Tyler tells the story of when she first met Steve Tyler at 8 yrs old. She took one look at him and realized her Dad wasn't her Dad, Steve Tyler was. Yet Welby and his mother had no idea!

Boogers · 10/04/2016 17:57

But Lulu, firstly how do you know that safe sex wasn't a factor in said liaison, and secondly you used them as an example first, to which I say what business is it of ours? It's only because some odious toad at the Mail has got hold of the story and wants to report it as a front page page splash that we're even bothered.

Exactly what would you suggest a married couple engaged in consensual adult activities do to protect their private life?

I agree, if it's someone who perceives a life of virtue and holiness, and has made a hefty living out of that persona, then that person deserves to be exposed for the fraud that it is. However the Twitter couple have never done that, and have only done the same thing as many people on MN have talked about having done.

Boogers · 10/04/2016 18:10

Plus, Cameron was very badly advised. The mantra of 'deny everything until you know the evidence against you' doesn't hold when it's the Prime Minister. The time for admitting was Tuesday morning. It would have been forgotten about by now with good PR.

Millionsmom · 10/04/2016 18:17

I can go to bed knowing the 'mystery' is solved!

But I agree OP, they should've kept a dignified silence. I wouldn't have even bothered to search it if they hadn't taken out the super injunction.

Scaredycat3000 · 10/04/2016 18:23

Was it abit of an anticlimax Million when you found out? There is far more shocking things about them than threesomes and oil.

ChameleonCircuit · 10/04/2016 18:35

Am I incredibly dim in not knowing who the super injunction couple are?

Scaredycat3000 · 10/04/2016 18:39

No I had no idea until I read what to google. Bit surprised stories of coke and orgies, fine, a couple and oil get a SI.

Abed · 10/04/2016 18:46

It was hinted at weeks ago who it was, I don't think anybody cares apart from the press Grin

Boogers · 10/04/2016 18:48

It's only because the Daily fucking Mail decided to make an issue out of it that it's an issue at all!! My God, if this is the depth of thinking we so deserve the shite press we have at present! And it's only because the Mail wants to detract from the Cameron tax fiddle story that the "shock horror: adult couple engage in consensual threesome" is coming to light right now! Fuck me!

Millionsmom · 10/04/2016 18:57

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Boogers · 10/04/2016 19:04

Millionsmum Can you explain what you mean by 'traditional family' and how the Twitter couple aren't that?

AugustaFinkNottle · 10/04/2016 20:51

Lulu, the whole point with the celebrity couple is that neither did anything that is in any way incompatible with their public personae; in particular, there's no suggestion that safe sex wasn't practised. That really is the whole point; the Mail wanted to present it as somehow in the public interest to publish because of their alleged image, but wasn't able to produce one shred of up to date evidence supporting what they said.

Millionsmom, I think in essence their case was precisely that they are living their lives they way they want on their own terms, and consistently with the way they've always portrayed their relationship, and it shouldn't be the subject of tabloid shock horror stories.

I'm really quite glad to think that, huff and puff as it might, if the Mail ever does get permission to publish their names the sting of the story will have been pulled and the public reaction is likely to be a bored "so what?"

Boogers · 10/04/2016 21:27

Augusta is absolutely right.

I still think it's fluff and guff to detract from Cameron, though saying that won't stop the clickbait. And it is nothing more than clickbait, and it's worked for the hard of thinking who have nothing better to do than read OK or Hello or whatever and think nothing of how those intimate photographs of such and such's children were obtained. It's embarrassing.

Thing is, we're next. You think what you do behind closed doors is between you and your partner, but what if some hack decides different and thinks that because you work for the council or police or government or military you should be held to higher account and thinks that because you have an online dating profile you're fair game, or because you have a LinkedIn profile they're allowed to go through your bins for a story?

7Days · 10/04/2016 21:50

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gruffaloshmuffalo · 10/04/2016 22:10

That's what I was thinking 7days. I was wondering if I'd missed something there!

cavedescreux · 10/04/2016 22:13

He's not the man they think he is at home... Grin

Boogers · 10/04/2016 22:14

7Days Yes.

And by giving those details I do believe you've compromised the injunction.

LuluJakey1 · 10/04/2016 22:36

Augusta You are wrong- it has been stated by the person involved in a sworn affidavit that the half of the couple involved in the affair insisted on unsafe sex regularly.

It isn't just the Mail, other newspapers have raised the same fuss and another is preparing a challenge to the Super-injunction. The Mail is just more prurient - and does not like the couple involved. But the Press nationally are angry about the farce of this Super-injunction and how the couple have used it to restrict Press freedom here.

DH has a good friend who writes for one of the broadsheets and he reckons there will be at least one challenge, possibly more this week because editors are becoming more and more hacked off by the ludicrousness of the freedom of the Press issue- their colleagues are now printing it around the world, it is all ver social media and the internet and is now being printed in newspapers as close to us as Scotland. DH and I could have driven across the border today, we were up near Kielder on the border, and bought one of the papers but could not buy it in Northumberland. Not that we want to buy it but this couple should not have that power to control the media in those circumstances and dictate what we can and can not read. We can make that choice for ourselves- read it or not.

They have made poor choice after poor choice and they want to protect their image and people's perceptions of them by controllng what we are allowed to read- yet everyone else in the world can print it. The public is aware of what they have done. There is an argument it is a public interest story for reasons I outlined in a previous post, and there is an argument the law has allowed itself to become an ass in these circumstances.

I go back to my original point- once info is out there, there are ways to handle it to ensure it become fish and chip papers quickly. They are still trying to control knowledge - the law looks farcical now, it has allowed itself to be used completely ineffectively to no moral or ethical purpose.

I have no interest in this couple or their life choices but I do have an interest in how some judges appear to allow celebrities to use super-injunctions in ways that are more about self-interest and so called 'protection of human rights' which is always the claim for the SI. These appear to over-ride one of our basic and fundamental freedoms as a society- the freedom of the Press. I think it is very dangerous when we allow celebrities to compromise that over issues of their own making- always related to sexual choices it seems thinking back to recent SI's eg Ryan Giggs, the bloke from Downton Abbey, footballers,other actors, rock stars. They court publicity, live off the money and celebrity it brings creating false realities about themselves.

The real numpties are the people who love celebrity gossip and hang on every word, who worship the cult of celebrity. Just as I choose not to buy any of those magazines (although I defend the right of publishers to print them and others to read them if they choose to) I think I ought to be able to choose not to buy a newspaper with this story in it rather than not be allowed to make that choice because someone else controls what the Press here publish.

OP posts:
Scaredycat3000 · 10/04/2016 23:00

The Church are the grand master of controlling what we know. They act as their own judge jury and cover up merchants. So many investigations into historic abuse state how the church moved the person on and let them re offend, before moving them on again. Hundreds of years ago the Bible was only to be written in Latin, so the poor couldn't read it, only the holy men. They know exactly what they're doing. Welby has the power to control this, it is a PR exercise in how it's all ok his faith has got him though it, wouldn't you like to join me?
And yes both Cameron and the SI couple have handled it badly, Welby has done much, much better.

Scaredycat3000 · 10/04/2016 23:05

And this is a couple of months after CofE published it's own report on how low church attendance is 18 in1000 and in 30 years they expect it to be 10 in1000. CofE is actively recruiting, it's in their report, this is part of that, recruitment drive.

GiraffesAndButterflies · 10/04/2016 23:06

I am intrigued to find that googling the name of the main celeb plus "threesome" gives me the Daily Mail's superinjunction story as one of the first hits. Do you think that in itself breaches the superinjunction? Or would it have to be a super-superinjunction for that to be a problem?

Boogers · 10/04/2016 23:13

Lulu You and I agree on the content of this kind of story. It is of no interest to me at all. I do not read OK or Hello or any of those kinds of publications, not for any other reason than I'm not interested.

Your argument is interesting in that it broaches the subject of freedom of speech vs right to a private life. Personally I would have a camera on Paul Dacre 24/7 so that we could see what he gets up to in his private life when he's not on his high-and-mighty anti-EU perch, but I'm sure what he gets up to in his spare time is far seedier than anything the Twitter couple could imagine.

I'm all for freedom of speech and a free press, but when the press has an agenda and uses that agenda ruthlessly to pursue matters which really aren't in the public interest, that's what I have a problem with. It's a dossier of crap that's built up on every famous person, from Vernon Kay to Helen Mirren, and whenever they step out of line and say something against a newspaper's agenda that crap dossier will be dragged out.

With your insider knowledge you probably have access to dates, times and even photos, but I just can't help but think this particular shitstorm is a deflection from what's happening in the wider news.

7Days · 10/04/2016 23:59

I'd still like to know what is, and is not, a 'traditional' family, by your lights, boogers.

I quite agree with your wider point, though. I am in favour of lines being drawn, in all sorts of areas, but who is it that gets to do that?