Emma Cowing: A sordid little tale of everyday media folk

Published on Monday 25 April 2011 15:28

IT WAS, of course, the worst kept secret in journalism.

While much of the wider world was unaware that BBC presenter Andrew Marr had an affair with a fellow political journalist, most people in the media, and within Westminster, knew that the man once described as an unfortunate cross between Martin Clunes, Vladimir Putin and a Bash Street Kid had not only cheated on Jackie Ashley, his wife of 23 years, but had, it was believed, fathered a child with his mistress and then taken out an injunction to stop the media from reporting on it.

Yesterday he abandoned the injunction, admitting he was embarrassed by it and remarking that he did not "come into journalism to gag journalists". One presumes he didn't come into journalism to have affairs either, but he does not elaborate on this point.

It is an extraordinary volte face from a man who went to incredible lengths to keep his private life private. Of course, it is not a decision he made voluntarily. He was approached by a publication, believed to be satirical magazine Private Eye, which planned to challenge the injunction, taken out in 2008. When a newspaper then contacted him, he said he would no longer seek to prevent the facts being reported.

What a stand up chap! How noble of him! How open and honest in the face of such a terrible invasion of privacy!

Oh, give me strength. The ludicrousness of the Marr injunction has always been that someone whose job is to shine a light into the dark corners of the political world was himself trying to unscrew the lightbulb when it came to his own life. He said he believed the story "was nobody else's business". Of course, the irony is that had he never bothered with the injunction, and allowed the story to emerge of its own accord - as it inevitably would have - it would have been a gossipy sensation for a couple of days before disappearing back into the stream of celebrity tittle-tattle and remained, for the most part, "nobody else's business".

Instead, by kicking up a fuss, Andrew Marr has become the poster boy for everything that is wrong with the behaviour of men in Britain who cheat on their wives and believe they get away with it.

The nature of an injunction means we have no idea how many women have taken them out, but I suspect there are far fewer women than men.Not least because women are slightly better at self-control, but also because they are, when it comes to such affairs, more likely to face up to the consquences of their own actions.

Instead, the courts are clogged by rich men who behave as amorally as they please, and then behave like a spoilt child who has had his toys taken away when someone threatens to tell people what they've been up to.

One of the most extraordinary elements of this case is that Mr Marr believed he had fathered a child with his mistress, and had paid maintenance for the child - now aged seven - for several years before a DNA test proved the girl was not his.

Talking of the injunction on Monday he said; "Am I uneasy about it? Yes. But at the time there was a crisis in my marriage and I believed there was a young child involved."

Well Andrew, there still is a young child involved. She might not be yours but thanks to your injunction she was, for years, the subject of feverish speculation and discussion, and once again is back in the spotlight. That is entirely your fault.

I have little sympathy for women who choose to have affairs with married men, and they too must shoulder a portion of the blame here, but it is not them running to the courts, having suddenly realised that maybe an affair wasn't such a good idea after at all.

Instead it is the likes of Mr Marr, and the serried ranks of anonymous celebrities he now stands shoulder to shoulder with, who make a mockery of this country's legal system, make a mockery of their marriages and their families, and ultimately, a mockery of themselves.

What will Andrew Marr do next? Will he carry on asking awkward questions about the personal lives of prominent politicians? If he does, will they merely shake their heads, and ask if he had better not answer that question himself?