The Whippingdale Saga: A drama in one Act

It has been reported that the editors of The People, the Mail on Sunday, The Sun, and The Independent all decided not to publish a story about John Whittingdale's private life.

REPORTER: 'Hey, boss, we've got a great story for you -- "Cabinet minister has it off with Miss Whiplash."'

EDITOR: 'Sounds good. Who's the minister?'

REPORTER: 'John Whittingdale.'

EDITOR: 'Smashing. Love it. So while he was trying to slap tougher restrictions on us, he was being slapped about by a fetish lady.'

REPORTER: 'Not quite, boss. This was before he became a minister.'

EDITOR: 'Ah, pity. But he's married, right? Betrayed his marriage vows?'

REPORTER: 'Er, no. Divorced.'

EDITOR: 'Ah. So the story is worth publishing because …?'

REPORTER: 'C'mon, boss. He took her with him to public functions, for Christ's sake. Blackmail? Security risk? Remember Profumo?'

EDITOR: 'Not quite the same, is it? Whitters ain't exactly the man with his finger on the nuclear button.

REPORTER: 'Yeah, but still …'

EDITOR: 'Does he know we know?'

REPORTER: 'Yup.'

EDITOR: 'So if we publish, will he then be more or less likely to push through all the Leveson stuff that we hate so much?'

REPORTER: 'Dunno, boss …'

EDITOR: 'Yeah, well I do. If we piss him off, he'll come down on us like a ton of bricks. And we don't want that, do we? Much better to be "responsible" for once in our lives. It'll make a nice change …'

REPORTER: 'Yeah, but hang on, he's a right-wing Tory bastard, hates the BBC, loves Murdoch …'

EDITOR: 'What's the public interest defence? Why are we invading his privacy?'

REPORTER: 'We do it all the time. Politicians, celebrities, footballers -- c'mon, it's what we're paid for.' 

EDITOR: 'You know what? If we publish this, we'll regret it. He'll push through Leveson and we'll all be worse off. Including our readers. So my decision -- and I'm sorry, cos it's a cracking tale -- is that in our interest, and in the public interest, we won't publish it.'

Something like that, anyway ...