Westminster’s Festina Affair

Cycling fans will recall the Festina Affair that crippled the 1998 version of the Tour de France. The discovery that the peloton could be considered a travelling pharmacy did not surprise veteran cycling aficionados, even if the extent and sophistication of the doping was enough to shock some. Entire teams withdrew from a race that, with grim inevitability, quickly became known as the Tour de Farce.

Well, this phone-hacking scandal is, for the press and parliament, a comparable scandal. Just as it was no secret that doping was a staple part of the professional cyclist’s diet, so it was hardly hidden that the newspapers, especially but not exclusively, the tabloids had a range of “dark arts” which they used to fill the dossiers they kept on public figures and, consequently, their newspapers.

And all of this was, if not fine, then accepted as a part of the price of doing business. Perhaps this was regrettable but it was the way of the world and there seemed no point in getting too upset by the realities of the world since, well, that was just the way it was and you couldn’t do a damn thing about it.