Another point of view

The 'upskirting Sir Christopher Chope' story (have I phrased that correctly?) is an interesting one. 

The almost universal political clamour (two minute hate?) for the Christchurch MP's damnation (perhaps suggestive of what Douglas Murray was describing on Free Thinking the other night) after he halted a Private Members Bill making 'upskirting' an imprisonable offence for up to two years and, thus, prevented it from passing into law on a lowly-attended Friday nod-and-a-wink vote without a full parliamentary debate has been echoed across much of the media and social media - though I've seen a fair few expected dissenting voices - from Spiked to The Conservative Woman. 

As you can see from the way I phrased it there, in full-blown biased fashion, it's perfectly possible to put up a defence of Sir Christopher, however bad the signals such a defence might send.

In other words, it's perfectly possible to believe that 'upskirting' is immoral and should be illegal (if it isn't already) whilst also believing that if you’re going to create a law that could put someone in prison, it should be considered worth debating and worth the time of the government’s legislative agenda rather than being rubber stamped on a Friday afternoon when few MPs are there.

Wearing my usual blogging hat, the odd thing that struck me here is that the BBC seems to have given more of a context to Sir Christopher's actions than other prominent media outlets, And, in parallel to that, I've read a few articles and plenty of comments about this and was struck by how many people were also citing the BBC's reporting in their criticism of other media for simply berating him. 

Why? Well, people had spotted the BBC's Mark D'Arcy veteran parliament correspondent reporting that:

Sir Christopher is a leading member of a group of backbench Conservatives who make a practice of ensuring that what they see as well-meaning but flabby legislation is not lazily plopped onto the statute book by a few MPs on a poorly attended Friday sitting. He insists on proper, extensive scrutiny. 

And I spotted a passing reference to that same contextual point on BBC One's News at Six before watching ITV's take and noting its absence from ITV's reporting. 

Yes, from ITV News to The Times, the others I've come across have given that counterpoint far less attention than the BBC. 

It's not a point I was expecting to make and I need to be clear here. It isn't that the BBC hasn't given it great prominence either but that at least the licence-fee-funded corporation has been better at giving the noose around Sir Christopher's neck a little more slack than most of its media confreres.