William Hague's SpAd resigned to media shambolics

Mid-week has been dominated by the news that William Hague's (Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs) Special Adviser (Christopher Myers) has resigned as a result of rumours circulating Whitehall and Fleet Street about the nature of their relationship. This as a result of a well connected media hack's comments regarding photos of the pair taken over a year ago.

What has been remarkable and consistent across the majority of news outlets has been a sense of unease about covering the story. With the broadsheets trying to focus the story on whether the Secretary of State's judgement is sound and the tabloids switching tack at the drop of a statement to 'Hague's heartache at struggle for family', it is self-evident that this is not concrete news. All of this was picked up by every outlet in the mainstream media as a top story with no evidence further than a dated and unrevealing snapshot and some internet gossip. In an attempt to justify coverage there has been a nuanced suggestion of homophobia in the new Government - but with several gay members of the Ministerial team this line alone is not nearly robust enough.

That a Cabinet Minister was so overwhelmed by comments emanating from the blogosphere as to his sexuality that he - a notoriously private person - felt the need to publicly disclose intimate details about his marriage is an outright demonstration of how senior public figures are unduly influenced by the perception of them, not in the public (as there is little evidence to suggest that this was a widely held belief), but in the media.

With MPs sent away by the Prime Minister to relax after an arduous election campaign and first session of Parliament; Westminster and it's lobby groups have largely rung silent. This has left news outlets struggling to find anything newswothy to talk about, for example Alex Thomson of Channel 4 visibly squirmed as he attempted to fill a 3-minute segment on Sunday evening with a report on the nefarious content of his own Tweets. Why hasn't the media used the let up in relentless press releases as an excuse to broaden news coverage on other, less media savvy issues. The role of the media is to tell a story, not to wait for press offices to control the news cycle.

Something largely uncommented upon is the appointment of Special Advisers - David Cameron issued new guidance at the start of his term stating that each Department is permitted to appoint two Special Advisers. This rule was wavered by the Prime Minister for William Hague to enable him to appoint a member of staff with no knowledge of foreign affairs and little parliamentary experience. The Prime Minister is driving to increase accountability of government, including appointments, yet seems to have little concern about the lack of merit required to be appointed to a position which steers the direction of major policy at the expense of the public purse.

The coverage of this story is not news, and so-called political journalists should be ashamed of succombing to regurgitating a story that is neither of political, nor public, interest.