Brand furore

Brandgate - to coin a snowclone - has added greatly to the world supply of empty rhetoric without much enlightening anyone, so I'll be brief.

Of course Brand and Ross were wrong to leave the offending messages, and they have said as much. The show was recorded, and other individuals are also to blame who may not (yet) have resigned or been suspended. However, the offence was to two individuals and not to the thousands of private individuals who have seen fit to complain, nor the many public figures - I could add links, but Google will keep up faster than I can - who have taken the occasion to sound off. News presenters and politicians alike seem unable to resist overblown terms like "lewd" and "obscene"; if the messages were a film, they would be PG.

The BBC has shown the same dignity and good judgement in the face of criticism that stood it in such good stead after the Hutton report. The presenters were suspended during inquiries - fair enough - but the BBC news shows Ross's studio being dismantled before any results have been announced. In my country we used to have the investigation first, then the trial, then the verdict and sentence.

The Mail seems to have stirred the whole thing up, and while I haven't read any of the Mail coverage that gives me just as much right to an opinion as any of their readers who chose not to complain to anyone until their minds were made up for them. If public affairs are being run to suit such people it seems only just that they should pay a higher rate of tax for the privilege; a punitive levy on the cover price of the Mail newspapers might lead some to learn a little from more challenging material.

And while the original incident doesn't matter much except to those involved, the fuss and the posturing, the empty rhetoric, the caving to fake popular pressure, and the injustice - fortunately against people who may be well able to weather the storm - don't promote much confidence in our ability to handle more serious issues. Though this, sadly, is not news.