UKC

Apparently there is a current MP, who - when she was 15 years old - had some photos taken of her, topless

She is the current Shadow Minister for "Women and Equalities" and has been critical of "Page 3"

Now being targeted by an unnamed paper that is offering £thousands for those photos.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-24563683

Listen to the interview, she is obviously quite upset and distressed that a - probably National - newspaper is trying to put huge pressure on her because of something she did when she was 15 years old, for political purposes.

ie we own you, we can destroy your political career, we will make your life hell, we have power over you.


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In reply to Dominion:

if she was 15 when they were taken, is the paper even allowed to publish them?

In reply to rallymania:

Good point. Arguably not - if they depict "erotic posing" but it might be dependent on what reason they were taken.

In reply to Dominion:

How could anyone suggest the press need regulating.....

In reply to rallymania:


They don't have to publish them, all they have to do is put pressure on her, so she loses her job as Shadow Minister, or is "owned" by them, because her role is "lessened" in the eyes of the public to which the tabloid press speak...

Power games, who runs government, who runs the Shadow Cabinet, who can give the press ammunition to use when and where they please...

In reply to Dominion:

I am currently emailing her, as it happens, and am about to ask her to give them hell.

Publish and be damned, she will not be bullied.

In reply to Dominion: what a complete disgrace, if the newspaper go ahead I hope they will come out of it far worse than she will.

In reply to Dominion:

50p says it's a Murdoch rag.

In reply to Dominion: If someone gives the paper the image I hope they are prosecuted for distributing child porn.

In reply to Dominion: its a similar situation to that teenager that was hired by a council as their young persons tzar thingy. She was bullied and made to quit after the newspapers found some not very nice comments she made on fb 3 years previously.
Im not condoning their behaviour as teenagers and im sure theyve grown up since then.

Damn it I tell you, she's worse than all those MPs who didn't 'inhale' at college/uni! She's not fit to be an MP, she should have thought of that when she was 15.

In reply to pebbles:


They don't have to publish, all they have to do is infer they have the photos, of course...

This is a bit like the Louise Mensch incident, where LM was part of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee that was questioning Rupert and James Murdoch over phone hacking, and then was outed a few days later as having partaken of Class A drugs back when she was a student. She is no longer an MP, and works for Murdoch's Sunday Sun...


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Mensch#Phone_hacking_scandal


Going to email Cameron, Clegg and Milliband about this, asking them to insist that if the papers respect and want freedom of speech, then they must publish all their correspondence about Gloria de Piero, as proof that they respect what they are asking for.

In reply to Dominion:

Nobody (very few?) will condone publishing pictures of a topless 15 year old.

Nobody (very few?) will condemn querying that the MP for "Women and Equalities" had previously posed topless for money, and had not aknowledged that fact when condemning the practise.

A missed opportunity - she could have said "this happened to me. It's wrong. I want to help change it" and no one would have argued.

But, yeah, Dworkin was spot on and that - just saying it's a bit of an obvious missed goal for a politician.

In reply to Dominion: In the end you couldn't resist naming her.

In reply to Dominion:

The story came out before she was elected in 2010, the difference now seems to be a bit of vigour being put in, perhaps.

In reply to aln:


It's on the front page of the BBC news web site.

It's not like I'm getting a journalist abroad to tweet the name of a footballer in regard to a super injunction that the tabloids were losing loads of money over - web-site clicks - by not being able to mention the words Ryan and Imogen, for example.

In reply to JJL:

The UK's biggest problem.....a complete lack of understanding that people can learn from their mistakes and are often all the better for it.

and also on the blog on her web-site

In reply to Father Noel Furlong:

UK's biggest problem? Don't think so.

In reply to Dominion:

Dear Sirs

It has come to my attention that the Shadow Minister for Women And Equalities - the MP for Ashfield, Gloria de Piero - is being pursued by - possibly - a national newspaper over topless photographs taken of her when she was 15 years old.

With the current debate raging over Press Regulation and Freedom of Speech, this is a perfect opportunity for the paper(s) involved to demonstrate that they uphold those principles and publish all communications - nothing held back, the whole truth and nothing but the truth - regarding all attempts to get hold of those photos - any payments made, private investigators hired, editorial discussions, et al.

Full Disclosure, nothing held back.

The press rightly want to hold MPs and Parliament to account. Can they demonstrate that they are also accountable?

A perfect opportunity for them to enlighten the public, and prove their credentials.


Regards




Sent to Cameron, Clegg, and Milliband

In reply to Dominion:

Which papers do Cameron, Clegg and Mililiband publish?

In reply to JJL: Bit difficult, but I can't help thinking she should turn it round with sarcasm, humour and contempt. She is responding as bullies like people to respond.

In reply to aln:

Ooooh you disagree without qualifying your statement. F*ck off.

In reply to JJL:

Doesn't matter really. Dominion has a fair point.

In reply to aln:

"Politics should not just be for people who have been planning their careers since their teens"

Can't argue with that.

In reply to JJL:

They don't. I'm contacting them to see whether they are going to raise this issue the press, particularly after last week's furore.

And since I have all 3 of them as the recipient of my email and have also contacted the aforementioned MP for Ashfield about this, they can hardly pretend that they do not know.

Have had an automatic response from Clegg, and DePiero, so far. I am guessing that Milliband and Cameron have similar addresses.

I've used forename.surname.mp <at> parliament.uk

which seems to be the convention...

In reply to Trevers: Politicians should be robust enough to cope with what they did in their teens though.

Obama admitted smoking dope, (and inhaling), pretty much being atheist, screwing around... didn't seem to harm him much. The electorate are adults, after all.

In reply to Dominion:

Surely if a paper gets hold of them and publishes they should be tried for distribution of indecent images of a child, and if they merely get hold of them they should be done for possesion of said images and possibly blackmail?

In reply to Dominion:

and my point about naivety?

In reply to off-duty:

There is regulation, in the form of the current laws of the land.
Publishing these would most likely break the law, therefore making the newspaper liable to be prosecuted.
Or would you much rather have some state-run panel that approves each story prior to publication?

Our newspapers have become a disgrace. Fuelled by a large fecklees, tactless and tasteless proportion of the population.

Bring in the immigrants, they've probably a better idea of Britishness.

In reply to TryfAndy:

Sometimes laws change because they are seen to be inadequate.


is this ignorance or a deliberate lie! Nobody in this debate is advocating this.

In reply to TryfAndy: Would I prefer our news content to be approved by a panel that answers the electorate, or to be approved by a rich elite that own newspapers?

In reply to Dominion:


Seems unwise to react like that publically to me. A shrug and sort "go on then, if you can find them, so what?" would have been more effective surely? The only reason they are of interest is because she wants them to not be of interest. None which is to suggest that publishing them would be anything but a crappy thing to do.

In reply to MG:

Seems like a clever thing to do, any reasonable person will feel sorry for her, the undisclosed newspaper, so by default all of them, looks bad.

In reply to The New NickB:

You seem to assume most people are reasonable...

In reply to MG:

The Ralph Milliband story showed that most people are, even the majority of Daily Mail readers supported Ed Milliband on that according to the polls.

In reply to Dominion:


...not for Cameron and Milliband, though it appears that I can't spell Miliband...

Doh.


so ed.miliband.mp <at> parliamnet.uk should work

Have used a Contact form on the number10.gov.uk site to email the PM




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In reply to Dominion:

There's a pic of an 18 year old completely starkers Angela Merkel out there in internet land. Doesn't seem to have harmed her career any. Maybe it's a fake.

In reply to TryfAndy:

>Publishing these would most likely break the law,

Would it? Why?

jcm

In reply to Dominion:
As the saying goes "Publish and be damned!"

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

As one of the legal lay people on here I would have assumed that publishing 'glamour' photos of a 15 year old was illegal, and I don't really want to google it at work.

Is it not?

In reply to Papillon:

Oh, sorry, she was 15, was she? Maybe it would, then. In fact one might think that maybe some offence was committed when they were taken. In the spirit of Jimmy Savile, shouldn't we be pouring police resources into prosecuting the now-85-year-old photographer?

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

In that case it would clearly be illegal to publish them under the Protection of Children Act 1978, assuming they're actually 'indecent'. I believe openly topless photos would be classified as indecent (there's a system of levels of indecency, I think, though I don't really know much about it. At least if showing the subject from the front.

Journalists are such scum, aren't they? It's a mystery to me how anyone, other than journalists, could oppose regulation of the press in this kind of regard.

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

It's all about what is technically illegal and what is offensive. One is clearly stated in law the other open to intrepretation. It's similar to the NRA's arguement for lack of gun control. If you look at many instances of political oppression they begin with controlling guns and information, then the dictatorship take shape and the killing begins.

In reply to Father Noel Furlong:

>One is clearly stated in law the other open to intrepretation.

If you mean what is 'indecent', I'm not sure that's right. I think there might be some subordinate legislation which creates these Levels of indecency. But I don't really know and can't be bothered to look it up. I expect offduty knows, though.

jcm

Sam Fox was 15 when she first appeared in The Sun page 3 remember. I don't know whether she lied about her age or what though.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:


the ones involved in this certainly are.

In reply to Milesy:

the controversial one I can recollect was Annabella Lwin and her posing nude at 15 on a Bow Wow Wow Album cover, which instigated a Scotland Yard investigation after the her Mother complained.

In reply to Milesy:

16 according to Wikipedia. The law has changed since then though, the minimum age for glamour photography is now 18.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

Going back to my computers and the law lectures. Isn't it illegal to store such pictures without exception?

In reply to Dominion:


You can't spell parliament, either...



I agree that it's a missed opportunity on her part; bring personal experience to her job, etc.

In reply to Dominion:

Apparently (or should that be allegedly?), women are allowed to have tits even though they are MPs. Also, they are allowed to have brains, honesty and integrity as well as tits.

Rumour has it that dozens of male MPs have bigger tits than Gloria.

In reply to anyone: I've been pretty busy so don't know where we are and don't really have time for a fruitless search so, to cut to the chase, has anyone seen them yet?

In reply to Milesy:

Sam Fox was 15 when she first appeared in The Sun page 3 remember. I don't know whether she lied about her age or what though.

The Sport/Sunday Sport had a countdown to Lindsey Dawn McKenzie's 16th birthday, on which, it would show topless photo's of her. During the countdown, they showed more and more revealing/provocative pictures.
Traci Lords appeared in numerous adult films before she was eighteen.

In reply to MJ:

If they show the photos I hope they end up in front of the bench. Pathetic and disgusting and published by men who last used their dicks in anger around the time Heath was in power.

BTW, if she is the Gloria I recall knocking about with, she was a nice lass and would never go garden hopping or sit on the bus stop roof smoking Superkings......

In reply to Duncan Bourne:



Indeed.

This (thread) is not about the legality of publishing photos of a - currently - 40yr old MP that were taken when she was 15 yrs old.

It's about sections of the press choosing to chase after those photos because this MP is the Shadow Minister for Women and Equality, and is likely to have to make statements in Parliament on the issue of newspapers that publish photos of topless women either in their papers or on their web sites - either commissioned photos of models, or Paparazzi photos of "celebrities" who have been snapped in private circumstances, or in public locations with an exposed nipple... (Shock Horror!!)

So is about getting an angle on a shadow minister, so a newspaper can embarrass her at a time of their choosing, or get her removed from her position in the Shadow Cabinet because the press can stitch her up when they choose to do so.

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....

And in reply to this thread in general


and, yes, in emails I cannot spell Miliband, and on this forum, I cannot spell parliament - although I did eventually get the email sent to ed.miliband.mp <at> parliament.uk

The PM does not appear to have a david.cameron.mp <at> parliament.uk address, though.

Just FYI...

In reply to Dominion:

Part of the reason people object to the topless industry is the exploitation of young models, though. There's no hypocrisy, to intelligent people at least, in GdeP sounding off against the industry despite having apparently participated in it as a child.

She really ought to MTFU and stop saying that publication of these photos would 'humiliate' her, though. It's only a body; we all have one. In managementspeak, I suspect this represents for her an opportunity rather than a threat, and I'm not sure she's grasping it.

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

In managementspeak, I suspect this represents for her an opportunity rather than a threat, and I'm not sure she's grasping it.

Perhaps in a rather cynical and calculated way she is. She knows that the media will do their damndest to find and possibly publish these photo's. So, her current attitude makes perfect sense i.e. pre-empting any such publication and portraying the media as being evil manipulative ogres in the hope that the public quite rightly sympathise with her.
If the photo's are published, then the relevant paper/media source will be immediately heavily criticised, possibly prosecuted and in essence hoisted by their own petard.
It might even totally prevent publication, which would be the best outcome.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:


It may be that she has more insight into what angle the press are likely to take, as they have apparently been pursuing these photos for a while - according to a post higher up in this thread.

Also, it is true that some people are more vulnerable to "criticism" of body image, and she may have psychological - or family issues - that make this more (or very) stressful to her on a personal level. Things that it's very probable that the people who are trying to get these photos are all to well aware of, and an angle that they are hoping to exploit

And that's why, when the press are arguing how they "hold government to account" because they are champions of freedom of speech, we should see their motivation for this.

If they have nothing to hide, they should publish all their communications that they have had about Gloria since she was elected. If they want to put themselves forward as the guardians of freedom of speech, here is a perfect opportunity for them to prove their credentials.




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In reply to MJ:

>Perhaps in a rather cynical and calculated way she is

I hope so, certainly. But with me, at any rate, bleating about how this would 'humiliate' her doesn't strike the right note. By all means say how unprincipled etc. of the press it would be, but don't play the poor little woman card.

jcm

In reply to Dominion: Would you have asked this question if she'd been a Tory?

In reply to FesteringSore:



see http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=499811&v=1#x6815078

ref Louise Mensch - ex Conservative MP of Corby - being got at by the press because of her position on the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, and criticising James and Rupert Murdoch, and also Piers Morgan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louise_Mensch#Phone_hacking_scandal

something I've mentioned several times on UKC, and also if you read higher up this thread, you'll see I mention it yet again about an MP being targeted in their earlier life and being "got at" when they criticise Murdoch...

It's the 12th post on this thread

In reply to FesteringSore:

And I've also pointed out how Cameron was made "Public Enemy Number One" by Murdoch because he had the audacity to set up the Leveson Inquiry.

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I am a Labour voter by inclination, but Cameron was absolutely correct to set up the Leveson Inquiry, and the change in support for him by News International (or whatever they've re-branded themselves as nowadays) after he did so was an absolute vindication of that decision.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

I hope so, certainly. But with me, at any rate, bleating about how this would 'humiliate' her doesn't strike the right note. By all means say how unprincipled etc. of the press it would be, but don't play the poor little woman card.

Yes, but you must admit, the vast majority of the British public now side with her over this issue. If she had ignored it, or publically declared "Go on then, publish them. They're only pictures", do you think the same public would be equally sympathetic?
I personally, like you, couldn't care less about such things, but unfortunately some people do and her being an MP has to take that into account.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:


I think this current scenario has to be taken in context of the aftermath of the Leveson Inquiry, and whether the Press get to run their own "oversight" committee or whether government can hold then to account when they over step the bounds of common decency.

The press have been absolutely been portraying themselves as the Champions of Free Speech, and telling us that if government gets involved then democracy is finished in this country, and we might as well be in an Orewellian (or Marxist, run by Ed Miliband / Robert Mugabe) scenario, and they are the only people responsible for preventing that...

In reply to MJ:

You're probably right. Bleating about humiliation probably plays better with the GBP than with me, and GdeP knows more than me about how to get people to vote for her.

Oh well.

jcm

In reply to Dominion:

I'm a bit confused. I would have thought that posession of such photos - let alone publication of them - would constitute an offence these days. Child pornography and all that.

Distributing them - in the sense of publication - would land the editor and publisher of said newspaper a one-way trip to jail and sex offenders register for life, and posession - in the form of buying the paper or looking at the website - ditto for any "reader" who gets off on 15 year old nudity.

If a.n.other can be prosecuted for a picture of someone under the age of 16 sans clothes I am utterly failing to see why a newspaper cannot be?

In reply to MJ:


She wasn't an MP when she was 15, when the photos were taken.

This is not about what happened when she was 15. It's not really about her at all.

It's about the press, and how they claim to be the only hope for "freedom of Speech" in the face of government attempts to hold them to account, and how the press actually, behind the scenes, really go about their business, and what they think they can use to put pressure on MPs, or what they can use to make money by selling advertising on their web sites.

But in this case it's almost certainly so they can have a go at someone who is in a position where she might be influential at some point about whether newspapers print photos of women with their breasts on display, and are willing to chase photos taken 25 years ago when this MP was 15 years old...

As I've been trying to say, it's all about the reasons why someone in the press is trying to get hold of these photos, and to what end, and if they really support freedom of speech, then they should have no problem whatsoever at revealing their every discussion about this attempt to get the photos.

In reply to Dominion:

You can see JH's point, though. Assuming these are standard page 3 pictures of a 15-year-old, possession of them is a criminal offence. So any kind of attempt to use them can in theory be replied to by a knock on the door from offduty. It's a bit puzzling therefore to work out exactly what the newspapers hope to do with them.

jcm

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

That's the police who are currently getting it in the neck regarding the Plebgate scandal - which was stirred into a political feeding frenzy by The Sun - and who also happen to seeking to prosecute journalists for "phone hacking" and - as was news today - being involved in receiving a phone that was stolen from an MP's car and getting access to the data on it?

I suspect that item was front page on The Sun, as it was their journalist - Nick Parker - named today as someone who will be charged over this.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24581901

In reply to Dominion:

She wasn't an MP when she was 15, when the photos were taken.
This is not about what happened when she was 15. It's not really about her at all.

She is now an MP however and she has to use what she considers the best strategy of 'Damage Limitation'. I hasten to add, I don't think she should have to do anything, but that is unfortunately the business that she is in.


But in this case it's almost certainly so they can have a go at someone who is in a position where she might be influential at some point about whether newspapers print photos of women with their breasts on display, and are willing to chase photos taken 25 years ago when this MP was 15 years old...

Maybe, maybe not. It could just be 'pure sleaze' and nothing more. The lower end of the media market know full well that such photo's will sell their papers/get internet hits and probably don't care about anything else.

In reply to johncoxmysteriously:

I imagine they might publish them with the naughty bits blanked out and claim they're doing it in the "public interest"?

Anyway, nice timing re Levenson. Looks like they've blown their foot off.

In reply to Removed User:



The Public Interest lies in the motivation of the Newspaper editor(s) who is / are pursuing this.

A right to reply in circumstances like this should mean that newspapers should have to be open to Freedom of Information requests to the instructions and motivations discussed in Editorial Meeting about things like this.

This is clearly an attempt to intimidate an MP for something they did 25 years ago, when a teenager. If the paper has a legitimate public interest in pursuing this, then they should not be afraid to publish, fully, their motivation for doing so.

If they want to portray themselves as the guardians who keep politicians honest, then they have to be seen to be honest themselves.