The brave new world of trial by media
by David Kurten, TCW:
The world outside Westminster is once again looking on astonished as Parliament lurches into another bout of deep irrelevance by conducting a witch-hunt against its elected members for acts of flirtation and banter.
Rape and sexual abuse are terrible crimes, of course, and must be taken seriously and referred to the police and the courts. However most of the claims against almost entirely male MPs seem trivial, if not ridiculous, to most people outside the political bubble by comparison with the grooming and rape of white girls by gangs, often of Pakistani background – revealed in one serious case review after another, the latest being last weekend. Yet in the case of ‘Pestminster’ there has been no proven illegal activity, and it is unlikely that any cases will end up before the courts.
And now, in an echo of the witch-hunts of the medieval era, one of those involved has apparently taken his own life. His family and supporters say he was deemed guilty without due legal process. The injustice of witch-hunts in the past was that the woman accused would be tried by torment and deemed innocent only if she died. In a curious inversion, the same is true today – trial by torment of women has been replaced with trial by media of men, and the mere accusation of harassment for something as innocent as touching a knee or clumsy flirtation is enough to bring an accusation which could cost someone their job, their family, their home, their reputation, their freedom, and possibly, in the case of Carl Sargeant, his life.
In the brave new world of trial by media, the common law assumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law has been thrust aside, particularly for people who have no ‘protected characteristics’. At the root of this is the cultural Marxist axiom of victimhood.
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