Vicky Pryce is guilty

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The judge has already said VP will go to jail and the tone of his comments made it sound as if he intends to go for something quite substantial. Obviously she'll appeal.

I don't think Vicky Pryce thought she would definitely get away with it, but I think she was prepared to take the risk in order to end Huhne's career. I feel very sorry for her and the Mail said that experts think she may get a longer sentence than Huhne because he admitted guilt. Very sad for Vicky.

I like Oakeshott on the Sunday Politics show, but I was very disappointed in her today when Andrew Neill interviewed her and he asked her if she felt sorry for Vicky and she didn't answer that, but just said that she felt sorry for the family.

Also it seems that Pryce went to the Mail on Sunday first but they didn't run the story and it was later that Oakeshott and teh Times took the lead. Alos it shows how our press works. The Mail hinted that Pryce had other things to reveal about Huhne but she was told that the Times and even the Mail on Sunday were unlikely to run those things. So we are not told everything, only what they want us to know.

I watched the Sunday Politics too. I took it that the Mail on Sunday and The Sunday Times didn't tell us everything, not because of a conspiracy, but because Vicky Pryce wanted them to print things that were irrelevant or libellous and all without having her name associated with it at all.

In fact she did get her wish to be kept anonymous in the Sunday Times before outing herself in the Mail on Sunday.

It was horrifying that she tried to pin it on a totally innocent assistant to Huhne who turned out not even to have a driving licence.

It made me feel sorry for the journalists involved with her . I'm biased. I am one. We deal with these people so you don't have to.

' I took it that the Mail on Sunday and The Sunday Times didn't tell us everything, not because of a conspiracy, but because Vicky Pryce wanted them to print things that were irrelevant or libellous and all without having her name associated with it at all.'

I read it differently.

'Vicky Pryce threatened to ?out? Chris Huhne as she plotted to destroy his career and reputation, it can now be revealed.
It is not clear what the Greek economist meant by ?outing? but it was connected with his personal life and is a well-used phrase for revealing a man?s homosexuality against his wishes.
The threat emerged in a previously unreleased email from Sunday Times journalist Isabel Oakeshott about the end of the couple?s 26-year marriage after he walked out on her for his bisexual PR ? referred to by Pryce as ?your **ing man? in a phone conversation with Huhne.
The journalist rejected the opportunity to publish the claim, saying her newspaper ?takes the moral high ground when it comes to ?outing? people?.
The email was sent on March 5, 2011, as part of an exchange between Pryce and Miss Oakeshott before publication of the damning penalty-points story.
In it, Miss Oakeshott mapped out how the story could develop and what other material could be used against the politician.

She wrote: ?Re the other issues ? the Sunday Times takes the moral high ground when it comes to ?outing? people and even the Mail on Sunday would struggle with it.'

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2289935/Lib-Dem-cover-Vicky-Pryce-confessed-Vince-Cable-hinted-Nick-Cleggs-wife-scandal-broke.html

"Out" is ambiguous - she might just have meant "out" him as a criminal or a not very nice person or whatever.

LOL at the Sunday Times taking the moral high ground.

Yes I think it is interesting that 'moral high ground' is used.
If you read the full Mail article, there is talk of financial affairs.

But where is the 'moral high ground' interest?

It sounds as if VP did not tell Miriam G about points but VP may have told her about other things so in a sense they may both be accurate in what they say. Did VP say she had told MG about the points issue?

I doubt CH is gay. I suppose he might have experimented and he certainly seems to have broken up the civil partnership of his bisexual lover. I suspect the word out was not being used as code to infer he is bisexual.

I wonder if they got a clean break on their divorce or whether one pays support to the other in which latter case today's events may affect that - on going payments and who pays whom. Hopefully they got a clean break divorce and it is all finalised.

Another LOL at 'feeling sorry for the journalists involved with her'. The poor delicate dears.

I assumed 'outing' was being used in the sense of revealing homosexuality. The press used to be all over that, and not that long ago either - remember the hoo-hah around Hague. They have become much more circumspect since then.

The fact that VP is using that insult 'your fucking man' to refer to CT seems like another hint.

I can see how any newspaper would struggle to justify calling anyone gay who claimed not to be.

That's libellous and would be bound to fail because no ordinary jury would believe that a straight-looking man who'd been married for 20+ years and fathered three children was anything other than straight no matter who his new girlfriend was.

It's also irrelevant. The main issue is the taking and receiving of speeding points and the subsequent cover up which was a perversion of the course of justice.

That Mail piece doesn't do Pryce any favours. Not that it's meant to. Its purpose is to get the gossip out there and to snipe at the Sunday Times.

The Mail have 'outed' him because there's no way Huhne is going to sue anyone now short of being called a paedophile. If there's a plot in the way the newspapers have behaved in this matter that's it.

There was a about feeling sorry for journalists. Most of us have a sense of humour. It comes in handy.

And it's true that the papers used to be all over homosexuality. They still are, in a more covert way. In most cases it's irrelevant and downright nasty

And can I remind you that we're talking about it now.

Sorry, I don't do sarcasm even with little yellow faces - and I seem to remember you having a sense of humour bypass upthread which was dealt with very politely.

It's perfectly possible for him to have had gay relationships but I think in these days people just wouldn't be interested and the paper would have made themselves look, as oakeshott might say, 'tawdry' by printing the stuff. Most people's reaction would be that his sex-life is his own business.

The big moral outrage these days is reserved for financial wrong-doing. If there's anything like that brewing CH might as well tell them to chuck the key away.

Re outing: please. Look at Liam Fox and William Hague. Both outed by stealth. And papers and public lapped it up.

The media lapped it up the Hague 'scandal' but the public didn't have anything like the same appetite - that's why he held on to his job and eventually the media had to drop it. He was not outed, he vehemently denied there was any relationship with his assistant.

I don't even remember anything about Liam Fox so it can't have been that big a deal.

Oh what bollocks. People were chatting about the Hague thing for ages.

The Liam Fox thing was huge. He lost his job.

He lost his job because he abused his position to give a financial advantage to his friend not because he was 'outed'!

I daresay people were 'chatting' about Hague and what a lot of them were saying was that as long as there was no wrong-doing it was none of anyone else's business.

Well yes, I know that it wasn't because he was gay, obviously. But don't think that that didn't add a certain frisson for a lot of people.

I'd like to think we lived in a world where people didn't care about other's private lives. I am really struggling to believe that you actually think that's the case, considering the appetite for shite like Heat, Closer etc.

I didn't say they didn't care, I said they didn't have the same appetite (the appetite of the media being that of a ravenous hyena) and that where 'outing' is concerned people are far more tolerant these days.

If there is wrong-doing involved it might be tied in with that story but just on it's own - i.e. the whole story being the 'outing' - people are far more likely than they ever were to consider it a non-issue.

A few people cannot recall Vicky Pryce telling them things that she claims she says. If the press wanted to they could chase the issue further, but they may instead choose to take the "high moral ground" and not investigate further. They decide what they will tell us.

So if you're not interested in tittle tattle about what people do in bed why are you talking about it yellow?

Putting quotation marks around Pryce's slur against Trimingham doesn't let you off the hook.

Hague was damaged by sexual slurs as well as the general idea that he was a nerd who wore his baseball cap back to front. A lie btw but the public lapped it up because it looked like it could be true. Just like to some people it looked true that he was gay.

He didn't hold on to his job. He was sacked as Conservative leader. A few years ago he defended himself against more gay slurs with the distasteful revelation that his wife had suffered miscarriages. Last year there was lots of chortling about his judo sessions with Lord Coe.

And if you don't remember anything about Liam Fox and Adam Werrity you may not have been following the story very well.

All those people are married. All are extremely ambitious. Suggesting someone is gay is a handy way to keep an ambitious politician in his place. The tactic wouldn't work if lots of people weren't happy to read about it no matter what they say.

claig Mandelson is out, Portillo is married and maintains that he is straight. So does Mrs Portillo.

How is it wrong to take the moral high ground by refusing to indulge in tittle tattle about their sex lives?

Why should the papers pursue Vince Cable and Miriam Clegg after they've denied knowing about Huhne and there's no proof they did? Even if there was, what would be the point? Although I did enjoy that footage of Cable legging it away from reporters.

Huhne will be sentenced to prison today for perverting the course of justice. What more do you want?

'the appetite of the media being that of a ravenous hyena'

I think this whole story reveals that this is not true. The media is not a ravenous hyena, it is in fact a guardian of the truth. The media knows many things that they choose not to reveal, and they only reveal what they want to.

It took Vicky Pryce months before the story that she wanted revealed came out, and the paper she first approached did not run it. It sounds like she told the papers different things in addition to the driving points, but that the media takes teh "high moral ground" and does not choose to reveal those things.

When Oakeshott was interviewed by Andrew Neil on the Sunday Politics she said something like about an hour before the story was about to run that a phone call to Pryce was made saying something like the story may not be able to run. Can you imagine what Pryce then felt after all the time that she had waited for something to come out about Huhne?

Oh dear limited I wonder why you feel the need to be so rude?

I thought I was discussing the issue of press behaviour etc, not people's sexuality and as you would see from my reply to Mechanical above I actually remembered the Fox story better than some.

Hague was sacked as Tory leader because the party was buried in the 2001 election, not because of his private life.

"Putting quotation marks around Pryce's slur against Trimingham doesn't let you off the hook." I put quotation marks around a quote - you see? What hook do you mean?