(no it’s not satire – it’s a Murdoch hack)
I’ve just finished reading through the email exchanges between Chris Huhne’s ex-wife Vicky Pryce and the Sunday Times.
To me, they reveal a breathtakingly cold-hearted, manipulative woman who would do anything to get her own way.
No I’m not talking about Vicky Pryce – I’m talking about Times hack, Isabel Oakeshott.
The jury decided Vicky Pryce wasn’t forced into taking her then husband’s speeding points. Which – if you think about it – means she willingly took them.
Well it might technically be against the law – but surely being willing to take your own spouse’s points to help him or her out would be considered to be a pretty honourable thing to do outside a court room?
No – the really interesting thing to me revealed by the emails is the ruthlessness, disloyalty and downright dishonesty of someone who wasn’t even accused of anything herself. Isabel Oakeshott.
In the email correspondence – which can be seen here – the Sunday Times political editor Isabel Oakeshott underhandedly cajoles and – like a slippery snake oil saleswoman – ‘advises’ her so-called ‘friend’ Vicky Price to drop the Mail on Sunday for what she calls ‘a more respectable paper’, for example the Sunday Times.
Which just happens to be the newspaper she works for.
As part of her oily attempt to hook her friend, Oakshott also casually drops into the correspondence that Vicky could be in line for a seat in the House of Lords. This is significant because Isabel’s cousin is Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott – who Vicky might presume has some inside knowledge of such ideas.
I would guess this is what is known technically in journalism as ‘a lie’.
Oakshott also amazingly ‘advises’ her ‘friend’ that the likelihood of being convicted for taking the points was very small.
Ms Pryce would have been feeling very vulnerable at the time and she would have presumed advice from a ‘friend’ and journalist who had full access to Murdoch’s legal resources would be reliable.
This is what is known technically in journalism as ‘bullshit’.
The truth is that reading the emails made me feel sick to the stomach at how someone can so cold-heartedly sell out her friend just to further her own career.
Mind you – I shouldn’t be so surprised. In the emails, Oakshott goes on at some length about how terrible tabloids like the News of The World are with their chequebook journalism.
Well she should know. Everyone else knows that Murdoch rags like the Times are just like the Sun and the News of the World in a pin-striped suit.
If Isabel Oakshott had been put before a jury accused of being a greedy, hard-hearted, back-stabbing con artist, willing to sell her own grandmother for a good story – I’m sure the jury would have found her fully guilty as charged.
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Please feel free to comment – you don’t need to register and I’m extremely minimal with the moderating – so please go ahead.
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By the way, if you click on any of these buttons below, you’ll be doing me a favour by sharing this article with other people. Thanks:
Lesley Farrington said:
I feel really sorry for Vicky Price, with friends like Isabel Oakshott and Constance Briscoe advising her. At least one of them will get their comeuppance
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Tom Pride said:
Lesley – it’s a pity it won’t be Oakeshott.
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Loverat said:
Tom
Personally I do not think the article could be regarded as defamatory. You have published a set of facts which I assume are correct and stated your opinion. That is honest comment and incidentally, the best case to read for a range of defences to libel (on a blog/forum) is Smith V ADVFN. Entertaining too as High Court judgements go.
http://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2008/1797.html&query=smith+and+v+and+advfn&method=boolean
If anyone sues for libel, they will have me to answer too as I do not like vexatious litigation.
On the subject of the article, I tend to agree. Loyalty is a rare quality these days and I would agree that dropping people in it to further one’s career is just not British.
One thing more generally about this case which does make me less sympathetic is the lying involved and perjury. I hate seeing any abuse of the legal system by liars, perjurors and money grabbers. Mind you – I would expect that probably applies more to Vicky Pryce’s ex husband more than her. As far as I recall she has not outrightly lied to the court but argued that in the circumstances it was difficult for her to refuse taking the points. Therefore without knowing all the ins and outs, I am sympathetic to her. Her ex husband though does deserve a jail sentence – not for the original offence but for the continued lying. We all make mistakes but it is what we do to put them right that matters.
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Raging Leftie (@ragingleftie) said:
Oh what a tangled web we weave…
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Miss Mac (@MaggieMac42) said:
I too feel sorry for her – in particular regarding the dismissal of “coercion” defence on grounds that she was an accomplished career woman. It is often the case that women who are successful at work are submissive in their domestic life.
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Simon HB (@norock) said:
Miss Mac – that wasn’t the grounds for the dismissal of coercion – in its legal meaning, “marital coercion” has a very limited definition, and the defence failed to prove it. It may well be that Pryce felt she had no choice but to go along with Chris’s plan, but that’s quite a different thing from the legal definition.
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syzygysue said:
Thing is that the Huhnes both lied to the police and that is perverting the course of justice. The original ‘crime’ is irrelevant. I imagine that the only explanation for either or both’s behaviour is stupidity or more likely hubris.
The average 8y old would know that lying to a policeman is very different from lying to parents/teachers.
Perhaps Isabel Oakeshott’s betrayal of a friend was the initiation rite required for induction into the Murdoch circle… like burning £50 bank notes in front of a tramp or gangland shooting the first driver to put their car lights on. It is almost unimaginable that the journalist wasn’t told by the paper’s lawyers of the legal consequences for Vicky Pryce of revealing the story.
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Patrick Jones said:
I agree with you entirely. The only thing that really bothered me about this story – politicians lying hardly surprises anyone these days – was the underhand behaviour of Oakeshott. I cannot believe the slimy lengths she went to to snag this story.. knowing full well the consequences for Pryce. The ‘in line for a peerage’ part was the worst. I can respect, to an extent, Pryce’s efforts and loyalty to her husband. Oakeshott, on the other hand, has shown herself to be dishonourable, manipulative and opportunistic..
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Luke Miller said:
Absolutely my feelings on reading the emails, but better expressed. Isabel Oakeshott is shown through her own words to be grubby, disreputable and deeply unpleasant.
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Kaiser Of Crisps (@KaiserOfCrisps) said:
Oakeshott? Oakeshitt, more like.
And that’s not libel, Isabel, it’s low insult, which is entirely permissible, legally.
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guy fawkes said:
no wonder nobody wants a female boss anymore than a male one they are all as ruthless as each other. No doubt if the Tory party start going down in the polls they will vote to elect a token womanTeresa May as the fall guy premier and she will be daft enough to do it.
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BenSix said:
I also find it depressing that the Sunday Times political editor appears to think that “jeopardising” is spelt “jeapardising”. Sub-editing must be a harder job than it appears.
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Tom Pride said:
That kind of thing depresses me too. Journalists being bad at spelling is like a surgeon being bad at cutting people open.
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Alistair Kelman (@alikelman) said:
I feel that is unfair on Ms Oakshott. Before Vichy Pryce went to Ms Oakshott Vicky Pryce went to the Mail – and afterwards under the tender advices of the Judge/Barrister Constance Bristoe QC (who has been suspended by the judiciary) she went back to the Mail and revealed her identity to them by giving them the transcript of the tape which made it pretty obvious that she was the person who took the points. It was VIcky Price herself who by going to the Mail, after the Sunday Times story, outed herself. Just because Ms Oakshott worked for a newspaper owned by someone you have a visceral hatred of does not mean that they are a bad person or a hack – I really cannot see what more Ms Oakshott could have done. The story was a good scoop, all proper safeguards were applied by the paper and Vicky Price was fully warned of the risks associated with her actions. It was she who decided to go to the Mail and the consequences were that the police were called in, applied for a court order to get Ms Oakshott’s e-mails (which application was strongly resisted by the Sunday Times) and the DPP decided that there was a case to answer on the evidence.
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Tom Pride said:
Alistair – I agree that Vicky Pryce made a lot of mistakes but you are being extremely naive. Pryce was in a poor state of mind after being unceremoniously dumped after 25 years of marriage.
Oakeshott was clearly using this to reel Vicky Pryce in like a fish on a hook – at a time when she was feeling very very vulnerable. This is extremely obvious from the emails -which is why I imagine the Sunday Times fought so hard to keep the emails secret.
Bizarrely, you say – “Vicky Price was fully warned of the risks associated with her actions.”
No she wasn’t. Oakeshott told her the likelihood of being convicted for taking the points was very small.
That was a lie, pure and simple.
I hope you never have to speak to a hack about anything personal. Your naivety will put you at risk of being filleted like a kipper and served up for breakfast by them – much like Pryce was.
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Alistair Kelman (@alikelman) said:
>>Bizarrely, you say – “Vicky Price was fully warned of the risks associated with her actions.” No she wasn’t. Oakeshott told her the likelihood of being convicted for taking the points was very small.<<
That is what Ms Oakshott said in her e-mails at an early stage. But later on before the articles were published she got the ST lawyers involved who disabused both of them regarding the risks – this is set out later in the e-mails. Indeed VIcky Price was told explicitly of the risks. Just before the story was run it was nearly pulled by the Sunday Times because of the risks to VIcky Price whereupon Vicky Price "exploded" and demanded that the story be run. She then went to the Mail too and this resulted in matters coming out.
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Chris Lyon said:
It would appear Isabel Oakeshott can’t do carefully written…
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Hugh Avonalaff said:
I’ve been a hack and an editor for many years.
If I ever caught a reporter:
1) Pursuing a personal agenda (ie getting Huhne slung out of the Cabinet)
2) Rubbishing the competition (“the Daily Mail is a down market publication”)
3) Offering cod legal advice to a source
4) Revealing a source
I would sack the miscreant hack on the spot and suggest he/she takes up a career in PR.
Oakeshott’s emails portray her as a first year cub reporter who has read too much pulp fiction about how reporters get their scoops.
It wouldn’t have happened in Harry Evans’ day.
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Tom Pride said:
I completely agree.
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penniewoodfall said:
Some sense….at last!
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penniewoodfall said:
I’ve had enough…. wot nonsense!
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penniewoodfall said:
Row Row your boat gently down the stream………
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