The other day many will have been surprised (if not appalled) to see described as ‘news’ an incident involving a sportsman, his wife and a ‘celebrity’. The sportsman readily admitted to having cheated on his then girlfriend, with the celebrity; (it was not a one-night stand). Furthermore the girlfriend (now his wife) ‘knows the truth’. Equally surprising (if not appalling) however, is the fact that one of the land’s top Judges decided to grant a so-called ‘super injunction’ preventing a newspaper from publishing the lover’s account. Apparently, she wanted to ‘set the record straight’.
This state of affairs presents us with the perfect opportunity to yet again revisit the distinction between morals and laws. They are not the same thing. Recently a High Court Judge, chided a Local Authority for removing a child from an EDL supporter, reminding them that ‘this is a Court of Law, not a court of morals’. Indeed. Cheating, lying and supporting racist parties are all thoroughly reprehensible, breaching almost every moral code that has ever been ordained, but none of them are against the law. However it is most important that we do not miss the point that the newspaper was trying to make. What exactly is wrong with publishing the lover’s account? We’re here to make profits, not adhere to a code of morals! Maybe they went too far to suggest that the celebrity was a ‘shallow, one-dimensional, cut-out character, who broadcasts and is known to broadcast, her entire private life’. No one, moral, immoral or amoral would ever believe that!
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