"One day in December 2003, after he had dared to question the ethical standards of Britain's bestselling newspapers, Chris Bryant recalls, he was approached by a senior editorial figure of a popular tabloid. "We will have killed you," the journalist said, "by Christmas."
Your tabloid media at work - nice.
Another - rightly - glowing profile of Chris Bryant - this time
from The Independent On Sunday.
For those who haven't been following the story, Chris Bryant MP is the alpha and omega of Hackgate.
Way back in 2003 complaints by three constituents about press intrusion made him suspect the News Of the World were getting stories from the police.
So he - famously (though his question is often edited out of the now endlessly repeated footage) - asked Rebekah Brooks (then Wade) in a Commons committee hearing; "Have you ever paid police officers for information?"
Forgetting her script, she said "yes" - and the rest is the beginning of the end of a media empire.
Naturally, News International went for him.
Chris is gay - easy target...
"Looking through his file of press cuttings, you see the extent to which Chris Bryant has been vilified. In the first week of December 2003 alone, he inspired headlines including "Gay MP Faces the Axe", "How Gay Is My Valley?" (Daily Mail) and "Voters Must Give Bryant A Rhondda Rogering" (The Sun). The Mail sent a man to show the photograph to constituents. "A window cleaner," the journalist reported, "gasped, 'God help us!'... then the colour drained from his cheeks.""
If Chris Bryant is now synonymous with Hackgate, once he was always the "gay Labour MP - and former Conservative vicar".
Inbetween he was best known for that Gaydar picture - something he reveals he never actaully posted on the site.
"If I had £1,000 for every time I've read, 'Chris Bryant who once posed in his underpants,' I would be a very wealthy man."
"One thousand? I think you'd be financially secure if we said 10."
"Indeed. Or if anybody had paid me for the copyright: because I am clearly the photographer. I received proposals from middle-aged women who had clearly not grasped the main point of the story. And I increased my majority at the next election. Which possibly shows that it pays to advertise."
"If you didn't post the picture on Gaydar, how did The Mail on Sunday get it?"
"I don't know."
"Curious?"
"I am. I imagine it came from someone I had emailed it to."
"To me, that photograph was something and nothing. What surprised me more were those reports of you blogging under the name of Alfa101."
"I didn't blog as anything."
"Have you ever used that particular nom de guerre?"
"It's a fact that I was on Gaydar."
Anyhow, I tell Bryant, it was his alias as "Alfa101" that I found bizarre.
"Why?"
"I suppose because it's not a pseudonym I'd choose myself. Perhaps because it would encourage expectations that might be problematic to fulfil."
"It's a car."
"Pardon?"
"It's a car. It's an Alfa Romeo. What did you think it meant?"
"I thought it referred to Alpha Male."
"But that would be spelt with a 'ph', wouldn't it?"
I've never thought of using my own vehicle name as an online sobriquet, I tell him, "maybe because I drive an elderly Sharan".
"I don't know what a Sharan is. The 101 is actually a very cheap Alfa. And it wasn't the car I drove..."
Bryant's tone indicates that this somewhat surreal conversation has gone as far as it will go.
"OK, you've put your £10 in the pot," he says. "The irony of that story was that it was about a gay man who failed to get sex. I'm fortunate that my constituency was very supportive."
3-0 to Mr Bryant.
Posts
