There has been much amusement, in recent weeks, at the sight of the former UK Minister for Health, Matt Hancock, eating various bugs and other critters on ITV’s “I’m a celebrity, get me out of here”, a TV show loved by the public, but presumably greeted with mortal terror every year by Australia’s entirely innocent population of invertebrates, who are its true victims.
As anyone who follows the news knows, Hancock ended up in the Australian Jungle, eating live crickets, because his tenure as the UK’s Minister for Health came to an end when he was recorded in a somewhat awkward embrace with a married woman other than the now former Mrs. Hancock. By itself, he may have survived a mere case of infidelity. His misfortune was that his infidelity came at a time when other straying wives and husbands were cooped up at home on orders signed by his hand, because of lockdown, and prevented from conducting their affairs. He’d have survived adultery, most likely. He did not survive hypocrisy.
Nevertheless, in the UK, political sex scandals are ten a penny. For all of Liz Truss’s failures as PM, it is oft forgotten that her own career was nearly derailed way back in 2005, when news broke of a lengthy affair with a fellow MP, one Mark Field. Boris Johnson, famously, has a personal life worthy of a character from Eastenders. Even John Major and Edwina Currie, it later transpired, saw things in each other that were not necessarily immediately obvious to the rest of us.
In Ireland, though, things are done differently. This week, a video of a senior Irish politician is doing the rounds, purporting – purporting – to show that person in a Hancock-esque awkward embrace with a person other than their publicly identified partner in life. The reaction to that video, like so many things in Ireland, has become sort of a status signal. A friend remarked to me that “it’s all anyone is talking about on twitter” – well, not really. In some corners of twitter, yes. In other, more rarified corners, there’s a very determined effort not to discuss it. In fact, the biggest brag you can make is that you haven’t even seen the thing, so low class would it be to talk of it.
There’s a long tradition in Ireland of ignoring infidelity by politicians. The most famous example would still be a closely guarded secret known only to a select few, if the late Mrs. Keane had not gone on the Late Late Show herself to brag about it. In fact, to this day, there are those who somewhat unkindly do not forgive her for the pain that she caused to the entirely innocent Maureen Haughey. Perhaps that anger might be better directed at the person who made a vow of fidelity to Mrs. Haughey, but I digress.
If one is even half-heartedly plugged into Leinster House gossip, then the stories of who is having an affair with whom are not hard to come across. They range from the low-level stuff like journalists having it off with press officers, to senior politicians having long-running affairs. The stories never see the light of day, partly I think for the very good reason that nobody wants to be the person who causes chaos and pain in the personal life of an injured party, and partly because, well, some prominent journalists may not be entirely immune to such sins themselves.
But should that be the case?
For example, given what we now know about Mr. Haughey’s attitude to money, and how it might be obtained, was his extra-marital relationship with Mrs. Keane not, in retrospect, an obvious signal that he did not take promises or commitments, or the rules, or morality, particularly seriously? Did it not also run entirely contrary to his public image as committed family man, and faithful catholic? Was there not a story there, all along, that this man was not quite what he seemed?
In the case of the politician at the center of this week’s videoing controversy, there are a few things one might say: First, it is not particularly acceptable to video people in nightclubs without their consent, if indeed this is what occurred.
But, that having apparently happened, it cannot be reversed. If a politician presents themselves to the public as being in a happy, committed, monogamous relationship, and evidence emerges that this is not the case, then it is surely fair to ask whether that politician’s other efforts at presentation are equally as honest?
These standards, I would wager, would not be applied to certain other figures: Imagine for one second that the video which emerged this week were not of a politician, but of a Roman Catholic Bishop. Would the media’s present vow of omerta hold? After all, the same principles would apply: The Bishop, too, would be guilty of presenting one version of their personal life to the public, while conducting an entirely different one in private. No doubt, the standing of such a hypothetical Bishop would be deeply damaged by the controversy.
Celebrities, too, do not escape with the freedom that Irish politicians do in these circumstances. I would wager that a prominent Irish celebrity who was captured on camera in a clinch with someone other than their partner would make, at the very least, tabloid headlines.
The British and Americans are not hypocritical about this: If you’re a politician, you get held to the same standards by the media as any other public figure would, concerning your personal life.
In Ireland, we have a different rule. I will not give a definitive answer to the question I asked in the headline, because in fairness, it’s easy to understand the reluctance to humiliate people. But we should also be aware that such reticence has potential downsides.
Finally: The Irish media has no qualms at all talking about the personal scandals of foreign politicians: Jokes about Boris Johnson’s various marital and extra-marital entanglements are entirely mainstream in the Irish Press. Donald Trump’s somewhat mortifying lawsuit with a porn star was reported upon endlessly. Even Emmanuel Macron’s apparently happy marriage to an older woman is not off the table for jokes and commentary. It’s Irish politicians, and Irish politicians alone, who get the special kid glove treatment.