“Net gossip forces MP into painful confession”

Net gossip forces MP into painful confession

Posted: 02 Sep 2010 07:18 AM PDT

The British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, with his wife, Ffion. Photo: Getty Images

LONDON: The photograph is hardly fodder for the tabloids: two men dressed in T-shirts and jeans, smiling broadly behind hip sunglasses as they take a walk in a park on a sunny day in London.

Yet the snap is likely to haunt the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, forever. Its publication has unleashed a maelstrom of internet-based rumour and speculation about his friendship with the 25-year-old man pictured with him and the state of his marriage to his wife, Ffion.

Taken before Mr Hague was installed in the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition cabinet, the photo was re-published in the Daily Mail last week ostensibly to question his decision to hire a third aide when his predecessors had two. What followed - feverish blogosphere inferences about his sexuality and claims he had shared a twin room while campaigning with the aide - culminated on Wednesday with a harrowing, confessional statement in which Mr Hague rejected suggestions of homosexuality, logging his wife's miscarriages and failed attempts to have a family as proof.

The right-wing blogger known as Guido Fawkes went so far as to quote an anonymous witness about the two men's body language at breakfast and allowed a spate of ugly, homophobic comments to be posted on his site by readers.

The British press's homophobic obsession with the sexuality of its elected officials has been a hallmark of the first few months of the coalition government.

Last week, a threatened public outing at the hands of a Sunday newspaper led the Prisons Minister, Crispin Blunt, to announce he had separated from his wife to ''come to terms with his homosexuality''.

In May, the finance minister, David Laws, resigned over revelations about his expenses that revealed his sexuality.

Events in Britain over the past few days have once again highlighted questions about the internet, privacy and laws to protect individuals from defamatory or damaging innuendo.

While there have been successful defamation actions against those using the internet to disseminate offending material, the speed of communications provide little relief beyond principle because when they emerge, like a genie out of the bottle, they become impossible to put back.

For Hague, who is an elected official, responding to legitimate questions about the circumstances of his employment of a friend as an aide is part of the accountability attached to those on the public payroll.

What is tragic is that Hague's wife - who is neither an elected official nor a public servant - has been forced to endure a terrible outing of her own at the hands of her husband, who has tried to salvage his political career by laying out the distressing circumstances of their failed attempts to have a family.

Has this saga been in the public interest? Probably not. But it does show that unlike traditional media, some kinds of internet ''journalism'' lack the accountability they purport to uphold.

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