The idea that the Fraser Brown story should have been suppressed is extraordinary

In the week past, Gordon Brown has been involved in a sad dispute with the Sun about whether that newspaper did or did not have his and his wife’s approval for publishing news of the then prime minister’s baby son Fraser’s cystic fibrosis.

The Sun (in the form of Rebekah Brooks) has claimed the couple consented to publication. The Browns claim they did not but, believing nothing could stop the report, tried to negotiate with the Sun about the manner in which the story came out, in order ‘to minimise the damage’, as Mr Brown put it.

Those two accounts are reconcilable. There is much in life to which we’re obliged to ‘consent’: the word can be used in different ways. But this argument is a mirage. The interesting assertion is the one both sides sidestep: not ‘did the Browns consent?’ but ‘was their consent required?’