Kiss and Tell Nation

There’s quite an outpouring of anger in the wake of Melissa Jacobs’ kiss and tell on Lord Triesman – some of it is even being directed at Max Clifford, who is attempting to sail over the affair with the caveat that he was only doing his job.

It’s worth bearing in mind that, had this been a high-ranking politician, people would be doing all they could to find out whether Jacobs had planned this and would be doing all they could to destroy her. As it stands, it is unlikely to get investigated fully and the only true losers will be football fans – particularly if Triesman’s unguarded slurs on the Spanish and Russians lead to the UK not hosting the 2018 World Cup.

Nobody in the media will follow this through to the bitter end – and certainly no one will investigate Max Clifford’s role too deeply, as he’ll surely be coming with another story that packs the same sort of carefully gathered emotional punch that sells shedloads of papers.

It’s an absolutely shocking state of affairs if we have come to a point where everyone knows the value of kiss and tell and where anyone who wants it has the know-how to leverage the most amount of money out of the media, regardless of the damage it could cause. Even those that do not know what to do know where to turn to get it done: Max Clifford’s door.

But it’s a terrible, self-defeating state to be in if the media and all the people feeding it such choice titbits are concerned about is a quick profit without any consideration for the good of the nation as a whole.