Sarah Vine In The Mail Today

[andy-hughes]

It's no secret that Mail columnist Sarah Vine is married to Michael Gove -

but are either Ms Vine or the Mail justified in spending two pages of today's edition bigging him up and essentially writing an election manifesto for his leadership bid, drenched in planet-sized levels of cant and hypocrisy.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7129687/SARAH-VINE-opens-heart-Michael-Goves-cocaine-past.html

I understand that Ms Vine will stand by her husband, but I think it wrong that her employers give her such a massive soapbox from which to preach the wonders of her husband who is - whatever she may say, a hypocrite for publicly denouncing the use of Class A drugs, when he has been a user himself, and not, as both the Vines are trying to spin it, as a feckless teenager, but actually as a man in his thirties - old enough to know better.

Any thoughts?

[anotheoldgit]

Is it any different from Left-Wing papers, using a large proportion of their pages, slagging down those who have chose to put themselves up for being the next Prime Minister?

[youngmafbog]

Well judging by the comments the Mail readership didnt buy into her BS.

[jackthehat]

///Is it any different from Left-Wing papers, using a large proportion of their pages, slagging down those who have chose to put themselves up for being the next Prime Minister? ///

Yes. Very......

[andy-hughes]

AOG - // Is it any different from Left-Wing papers, using a large proportion of their pages, slagging down those who have chose to put themselves up for being the next Prime Minister? //

It's very different.

This is not just the paper grandstanding about Mr Gove, it is the allowing of his wife, who mentions him in virtually every column she writes, to expand her output to two entire pages to write what is effectively a plea for him to be forgiven for his drug-taking (she slides out of the thorny issue of his rampant hypocrisy as a politician) and voted as the next PM.

That certainly eclpises anything any other paper, of whatever pursuasion, has allowed in terms of 'advertising' for the post of PM, for which Mr Gove is a candidate - a poor and likely unsuccessful candidate, but a candidate none the less.

[andy-hughes]

jack and I cross-posted, but I can see she understands my point.

[zebo]

I'm not sure if her Polyfilla columns are an advantage or a hindrance!

[andy-hughes]

zebo - // I'm not sure if her Polyfilla columns are an advantage or a hindrance! //

I am!

[anotheoldgit]

andy-hughes

Who else is there to defend him and also to stand by him, if not his wife?

Can't blame her for being in such an advantageous position, so as to do so.

Wouldn't any devoted wife use any possible legal measure available to them , so as to stand by their man?

[anotheoldgit]

andy-hughes

/// jack and I cross-posted, but I can see she understands my point. ///

That is not unusual, she generally does and you hers.

[agchristie]

//Who else is there to defend him...//

Naturally, you would expect her to defend him but as to whether it is morally defensible for the DM to print the extended column is a different issue.

[agchristie]

Wasn't Christine Hamilton dubbed a 'Lady MacBeth' figure?

Now there is another loyal and devoted woman..

[andy-hughes]

AOG - // andy-hughes

Who else is there to defend him and also to stand by him, if not his wife?

Can't blame her for being in such an advantageous position, so as to do so.

Wouldn't any devoted wife use any possible legal measure available to them , so as to stand by their man? //

Indeed - but that does not make this acceptable.

Either the Mail said to Sarah Vine - Why don't you trot out two pages of wheedling apologising guff to give your hypocrite of a husband a leg-up in his doomed attempt to be PM, in which case Ms Vine adopts the simple morality common to mature adults, and advises her employers that such an action would be an inappropriate abuse of her position as a journalist, and the paper's position as a newspaper and not a political propaganda machine …

or …

Sarah Vine says to the Mail - Why don't I trot out two pages of wheedling apologising guff to give my hypocrite of a husband a leg-up in his doomed attempt to be PM, in which case the Mail adopts the simple morality common to newspaper editors, and advises her that such an action would be an inappropriate abuse of her position as a journalist, and the paper's position as a newspaper and not a political propaganda machine …

Whichever way round this was created, it leaves both parties with their integrity and dignity damaged.

I am all in favour of spouses defending their other halves - but there are means that are appropriate with which to do so, and ways that are inappropriate - it's obvious which this is.