From what I garther is that she had been with him for months and the press found out and she warned him. She had no interest in publicising it. So the considering that Judge Eady slandered her by calling her a blackmailer she is screwed both ways. The injuction should have protected her as well.

As for the injunction still standing that is stupid. The fact that the newspapers will now report parliamentary news and let Ryan Giggs squirm on the front page is excellent.

Tomorrow's print media is going to be an absolute feeding frenzy. To say they've been somewhat dischuffed about being gagged while the 'new media' just does and says pretty much whatever they like is an understatement, and they're about to unload all their frustration on Giggs. I believe the phrase is 'incoming!'.


Dear God, do they have to? They'll only make things worse for the rest of us...

The news had a brief bio of him. He was clearly playing the family man card but shagging a glamour model shoots that down in flames. He should have been outed as a hypocrite. Now lets see how his sponsors like the association? He had been a very private person so that would have gone in his favour, but he actually spent more than the newspaper were offering for the story. Plonker.

I don't think anyone should care other than those involved.

I've never thought of him as anything other than a footballer, quite frankly I don't care. He doesn't make laws or have any influence on our lives and so I don't think anyone should care to report or read about it.

Trouble is he's acted like a tw@ with the injunction, which themselves are stupid.

Nobody really did. And nobody would have after a day or two if it had just been reported as these things normally are - after all, 'professional footballer sleeps with woman he's not married to' isn't exactly a particularly novel story. But the moment he ran to the courts it became more than just the story of his infidelity. It became the story of how people with money attempt to control what is printed and broadcast about them and about how the judiciary acquiesces to this desire. About how the freedom of the press - regardless of whether you agree with what they want to print - is increasingly subject to the whims of the rich and only the rich. Then it became about how the internet, a system designed to work without national boundaries and to go round any obstacle in it's path, makes these kinds of legal constriction obsolete and how the internet is a force to make a mockery of censorship and the desire for control of the unprivileged many by the fortunate few.

In the end he started the story by taking legal action but it rapidly span out away from that to a much bigger, broader issue. In the end, the story wasn't 'Ryan Giggs has affair' the story was a proof in action of William Gibson's maxim - 'information wants to be free'.

Jon

But it's also about how scrutiny and borderless, unstoppable dissemination of data combine with innate human curiosity to produce something that IMO should make us very uncomfortable.


I'm starting to think that, as far as affairs are concerned, the press should be restricted to those who claim or require a specific moral or authority as part of their vocation.

So that's judges and priests.

Well what about politicians who say one thing and do another? Ryan Giggs said one thing and did another. If had done nothing we would probably have ignored it. As many fans on the news tonight have said they do not care. He has made Imogen Thomas look bad even though she warned him that the press discovered and what did he do? If he was a gentleman he would have got her covered by the injuntion as well, rather than leave her to face the press pack alone. His behaviour became a bigger story then a simple footballer and glamour model story. Andrew Marr came clean and his story has almost been forgotten about.

What about them?

The role of the news media is very important in a democracy - they should be presenting fact, not rumour, gossip and half-truths. If a politician claims moral superiority or campaigns about moral rectitude and then is found seriously wanting then reporting his moral lapses could, arguably, be rightfully up for grabs.

However, most politicians make no such claims nor do they campaign on such matters. Their authority as representatives is based not on their morality but on their having been voted in. So why, for instance, have Chris Huhne's marital issues been in the press? Any reports about him should be about how he does his jobs of representing his constituents as an MP and running a department as a Minister of the Crown.

Furthermore, Chris Huhne's reputation has been impuned by the media over allegations regarding a speeding offence. These are only rumours at the moment. If he had been convicted of perjury that would be one thing but he hasn't - he could be perfectly innocent. Until such time as malfeasance is proved the story should not be in the media at all.

The politician I was thinking of was Tim Yeo who made speeches about single mothers yet created one when he got a Conservative councillor pregnant, when challenge he said that he could afford a mistress and the child support payments. Or make claims about how safe the NHS is in their hands and then go private. Most politicians campaign for something or other and if they do the opposite then they should be exposed. I also think that the witch hunt on Chris Huhne is probably more about something else. The driving incident is a red herring. He is probably more popular with his party than the leader.

Indeed - and I agree.

But in those circumstances there is a genuine public **need** to know. If Tim Yeo had made no such allusions then his affair should have been off-bounds.


Yes but that exposure should be limited to things relevant to that campaign.

What's happening at the moment is that as soon as a politician annoys a certain newspaper, they get subjected to a drumhead trial. For instance imagine that Tim Yeo had made no such speeches - in such circumstance a chunk of the press would "out" him purely because they didn't like him, regardless of whether the public needs to know. It's wrong. If you're going to go after someone, leave their private life and family out of it until such time as their private is a public interest issue or the family decides to get involved.


Not really tbh.

Most LibDems (myself included) think he's a total twunt.

I'm aware that there are people who consider John Hemming's actions as self publicist, and I'm equally suspicious of the MPs who are slating him for it - probably in fear of this being the first step to loss of, or at least major reform of, parliamentary privilege.

The most intriguing aspect of this though, for me, was when Hemming questioned the "enforceability of a law that does not have public consent". That sounds like someone prizing the lid off a whole new can of worms.

Tim Yeo actually mentioned single mothers in his election literature. So was outed as a hypocrite. The fact that MP's have affairs like footballers is nothing new and as such should not be an issue. My only with Ryan Giggs is that he claims to be a family man but clearly isn't. For me that is the end of the matter. It does not bother me any further, apart from what he put his girlfriend through. If I were a sponsor then I would have a very different attitude, especially if there was a morality clause. Since this was exposed last November and had been happening for seven months prior then he has claimed sponsorship money under false pretences (if there was a morality clause) for around a year and that is fraud.

Indeed.

However my point was that the media might have outed him whether he'd mentioned single mothers or not.


When did he make this claim? One advert about Quorn burgers in 1995 doesn't justify a story about an affair in 2010.

He's not sponsored because he's a family man - he's sponsored because he's a superb footballer. He hasn't used his family image in any recent advert I can find.

The family man image defence gets trotted out by the media every time they fear they might be forced to behave themselves.

Being able to communicate thoughts, ideas and information has brought humans a long way. Gossip will always be a part of this communication be it in a small village or national press. Time to move on to the next story, oh and Ryan, say goodbye to that knighthood.

The public don't have a right to know about Giggs. The media have that overshadowing the real issue of when and how superinjunctions can and should be used for their own aims.

Giggs shouldn't have been allowed a SI but then the media shouldn't be able to intrude on his personal life in the first place, we don't need to know about it.

My main concern is when and who use SIs, I do want to know if they're covering up things that the public should know.