In 2014, Rolf Harris was convicted of sexual offences against girls. I wrote in this space that this would have represented more of a cultural change in the treatment of celebrities if he had been unmasked at the height of his fame. Current stars, I suggested, are much more rarely denounced: ‘I would not dream of suggesting that Russell Brand is a sex criminal, but we know, from his own account, that he has slept with a great many women.’ He had even, on his infamous Radio 2 show, boasted of sleeping with Andrew Sachs’s grand-daughter, yet ‘the BBC broadcast this as comedy’. ‘If the celebrity wheel of fortune ever went against Brand,’ I went on, ‘would it be surprising if some of the women decided to accuse him of “inappropriate” acts? Would the BBC then find the whole thing less funny?’ Nine years on, young Russell Brand is now 48. Has he been ‘called out’ because the culture has finally turned against the exploitation of young women by powerful men, or because he is now, by the cruel judgment of showbiz, a has-been?
This provokes reflection on the fate of Bernard Looney, the chief executive of BP, who has resigned. The formal reason, which presumably is genuine, is that Mr Looney had failed to be ‘fully transparent’ with the board about the full extent of his ‘personal relationships’ with staff members. Was another factor also in play? Mr Looney had won many plaudits for moving BP away from fossil fuels and into renewables. That trend was all the rage in the early days of net zero. But it was perilous to expose BP, a company made rich by oil and gas, to the intermittent power of wind. In February 2020, announcing his ‘new purpose and ambition for the company’, Mr Looney said, ‘We all want energy that is reliable and affordable, but that is no longer enough.
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