Newt Shoots back

I have been following the U.S. Republican primaries with interest. If I were a G.O.P. member I suspect I would be supporting Mitt Romney, but I had some sympathy for the response Newt Gingrich made below to a question about his private life. (Hat tip to CNN for the clip and Mike Smithson at Political Betting for drawing it to my attention.)

It can be unhealthy for stories about the private lives of individuals, where these do not involve criminal behaviour or abuse of public office, to be given far more attention than how good those individuals are at their jobs. We have seen this culture in this country, as much of the evidence to the Leveson inquiry demonstrated and the same is true in the states.

It is possible, and appears to happen in some countries, for the press to be too subservient in failing to probe where an issue affects not just private lives but the allocation of jobs or resources provided by the taxpayer. If there are genuine reasons to suspect this, then the issue becomes one of legitimate interest to the taxpayer.

But in many cases I suspect that political debate in both Britain and America would be healthier if more public figures were prepared to respond to an allegation, true or false, with the words "None of your business." See what you think of Newt's comments here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nick Herbert on his visit to flood hit areas of Cumbria

Please note that the post below was published more than ten year ago on 21st November 2009 Nick Herbert MP, shadow cabinet member for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, was in Cumbria this morning to see the areas affected by the flooding. He writes on Conservative Home about his visit. Here is an extract. I’ve been in Cumbria today to see the areas affected by the floods. I arrived early in Keswick where I met officials from the Environment Agency. Although the river levels had fallen considerably and homes were no longer flooded, the damage to homes had been done. And the water which had got into houses wasn’t just from the river – it was foul water which had risen from the drains. I talked to fire crews who were pumping flood water back into the river, and discovered that they were from Tyne & Wear and Lancashire. They had been called in at an hours’ notice and had been working on the scene ever since, staying at a local hotel. You cannot fail to be impressed by the
Read more

Quotes of the day 19th August 2020

Image
"Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise."  ( Cato the Elder , who lived 234 BC - 149 BC, quoted in "Lives" by Plutarch.) There is a similar saying by Germany's Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: Benjamin Franklin is supposed to have put the same saying in a more humorous form: "Wise men profit by the mistakes of others, while fools will not learn even from their own blunders." See also this thread on the "Quote Investigator" website . Let us all be wise and learn from the events of the last few days.
Read more

Quote of the day 24th July 2020

Image
I was moved to put the passage below forward as a quote today when I saw a horrible post on twitter from someone writing that it was "excellent" that someone who took a different view from her about Brexit had died. I won't write which way round it was so that all the Remain supporters can assume the post was from a Brexit fanatic welcoming the death of a remainer and all the Leavers can assume it was a Remainiac welcoming one less Brexiteer. There's been plenty of nasty stuff on both sides but if you catch anyone of your own viewpoint  posting something like that who might listen to you, please do call them out on it - and point out that they're giving everyone on your side of the argument a bad name. Anyway, here's the quote from John Donne.
Read more