A President, A Woman and an Editor 05/08/2008 Chris Balfe of PitPass has been fairly outspoken in supporting Max Mosley through the sex scandal that has tainted F1 this year. He is entitled to his opinion that the "outing" of Max was a worse sin than the sordid event that made outing possible, but I have found his reasoning questionable, to say the least. Now he has written an article that goes even further in its horror that Mosley's habits should be revealed to the public; it was all a dastardly plot to sully the name of a fine, upstanding citizen, it seems, and we should be grateful that Max has shown us how vulnerable we are as long as MI5 is staffed by a horde of amoral incompetents.Max MosleyThis is all occasioned by the appearance of an interview with the notorious "Woman E" in the pages of the Mail Online. What upsets Balfe about her story is the claim that it was all her own and her husband's idea; this doesn't suit him as he wants Mosley to find the scoundrel who set the whole thing up. The result is a fine piece of contradictory logic and unlikely conclusions, well stirred and then served up as a sort of stew of moral indignation and scare tactics.For instance, we are invited to see the woman's quest for money as something so vile that we should be disgusted. The trouble is that, when reading that Woman E and her husband "have loyalty to only one thing, money, and they are driven purely by the desire to get as much of it as possible", I find my mind wandering to as unlikely a subject as Bernie Ecclestone. Never mind that the woman has already explained that they were heavily in debt and that the sting appeared to them as a quick and easy way out of their problem - we must see this as the sole driving force in the couple's life.I dare say that greed for money is a pretty common failing among many of the population these days and we are all too ready to accept it under the guise of ambition and the will to succeed. Welcome to the real world, Mr Balfe. The plain fact is that Woman E is a product of a society that has abandoned any moral pretensions - she is nothing unusual or special.We are invited to consider why Mosley was the chosen target, rather than any of the doctors, solicitors and bankers amongst Woman E's clients. Apparently, these are the sort of people who might be far better known to the public than the mere head of the FIA.Pardon? I cannot think of a single member of those professions who would have any public profile at all - apart, perhaps, from McLaren's lawyer (whose name I have forgotten in the meantime, strangely enough) for the WMSC hearings and what little fame he had was thanks to that obscure sport called Formula One. The likelihood is that the list of Woman E's clients contains none more famous than a certain Mosley, Max.As for Balfe's suggestion that the husband and his MI5 colleagues withholding of information from their employers is evidence of a lack of morality in that institution, I can only ask what else is new. It is a dirty job and employs those prepared to go beyond normal morality in the execution of their tasks; should we be surprised that Woman E's profession was seen as little more than a joke by such people?It is a bit much to go on from there to a danger to the security of the state, however. Generally speaking, people are reasonably good at their jobs and I cannot see why MI5 operatives should be any different. Indeed, by Mr Balfe's own logic, a man's private habits have no bearing upon his ability to perform adequately in his work (I would argue that but hey, let's at least get some consistency from Mr Balfe).The Woman's story is quite plausible, in fact, and Balfe's dismissal of it as lies induced by yet another pay-off extremely unlikely. The fact that she is clearly making money from interviews with the media is no more than one would expect from someone whose means of making a living has been removed. There is no mysterious and malignant entity behind the sting - it was simply a matter of an unscrupulous couple seeing a way out of their financial problems.And, if we insist on finding a culprit who "set the whole thing up", I suggest we look at Max himself for, without the indulgence of his peculiar tastes, there would have been no scandal possible. If we are pointing fingers at amoral behavior, it seems to me that our Max is as good an example as any.
Clive
Steven Roy Given that papers of this type are habitually full of stories of well known people's personal habits being exposed are we to assume each of them was set up by an enemy seeking to gain advantage or revenge? The whole point of cheque book journalism is to encourage people to double cross those richer and more powerful than themselves.Had I been setting out with a master plan to make sure Mosley was embarrased to the max( I know) I would have made certain that there was Nazi regalia of some kind in plain site or at the very least that it appeared even for a couple of seconds on a 5 hour video. It is incredibly unlikely that someone who planned to politically discredit him and was aware of the nature of Max's planned entertainment would not have made sure that the Nazi theme was blatant. All it would have taken was a small swastika badge anywhere in the whole scenario to remove any doubt anyone had that there was an underlying Nazi theme. Although to me from the little I saw of it there seemed no doubt whatever that it was intended to mimic a Nazi prison. Date Added: 05/08/2008
Pink Peril What a misogynistic, vitrolic piece of drivel that article was ! Not yours Clive, Balfe's. This is not the place for a feminist rant so I'll contain myself, but men who condem the women working in the sex industry rather than the men who use it (and therefore create the demand for one in the first place), really get my goat. And call me naive, but I fail to see WTF the woman's job has to do with anything at MI5? She was not employed by them, and I hardly think it's a threat to national security that one of the MI5 officers was married to a Dominatrix. That again just stinks of a deep seated sexist agenda to the Intelligence force.Of course I do not agree with chequebook journalism, but every two bit, wanna be these days kisses & tells. This woman is no different, although Balfe would like to beleive she is. His moral judgement on her is quite repulsive. She is a provider of a service, that quite clearly there is a demand for. If you think the service is repugnant - then surely your revulsion should lie with those seeking it, rather than those simply meeting the demand? The article might have made Balfe feel vindicated in his support of S&Max, but really all it served to do was to highlight that Balfe is clearly a sexist ******And as for his 'terrorist' angle, don't make me laugh. What a populist peice of crock ! Date Added: 06/08/2008
Clive Good points, Steven. It will be interesting to see whether we ever hear any more of Max's investigation into the instigator behind the sting. I suspect it will all quietly fade away... Date Added: 06/08/2008
Clive Peril, I couldn't agree with you more. The article is quite insulting in its attitude to women and the easy assumption that they are to blame, not their clients. But, when you're trying to minimise the faults of someone like Mosley, I guess it's any port in a storm! Date Added: 06/08/2008
Stuart C Well said, Clive. I often feel that site is contrarian for the sake of it. Date Added: 06/08/2008
donwatters Right on, Pink! Date Added: 06/08/2008
Steven Roy This is probably one for Mad.I closed the browser I was using to view this site a few minutes ago and after a few seconds another browser showing this thread followed by another and another until 60 of them opened. This is the third time I have had the same problem with this site in the last few weeks and I have never had it with any other site. Date Added: 06/08/2008
Alianora La Canta There will probably continue to be an investigation until some scapegoat of a size Max likes is foolish enough to blunder into Max's path. Whether there is any point whatsoever in the investigation is another matter.If MI5's vetting criteria are anything like GCHQ's (another branch of British intelligence), then the fact that the MI5 operative's wife's occupation was not revealed would have been sufficient for dismissal, even if the job had been helping out for an hour a week at the local chip shop. Their view would have been that the operative had not opened up their life to sufficient scrutiny at the normal time and therefore could be hiding more dangerous secrets (Woman E's husband probably isn't, but to intelligence's point of view the "probably" is irrelevant). Apart from the increased risk of having a brush with the criminal underworld, Woman E being a dominatrix in itself would hold no more difficulties to MI5 than a job in a chippie. However, there would probably have been considerable scrutiny of her background just in case she was involved in something illegal. Being part of a brothel, for instance, would probably be incompatible with her husband being in MI5 because the intellligence services would worry about the risk of blackmail. Also, being in a brothel being illegal in the UK and condoning a criminal's activities would be a major offence for an intelligence officer to commit because they are supposed to help enforce the law, not help to break it. It's not so much a security problem as a capability problem.Personally, I blame the controllers of pimps for the wider prostitution problem. If only women who chose to be prostitutes of their own free will were involved in prostitution, they would probably do what other industries do and set up the conditions so that there was no problem, at least on a social level (some will always object on a personal level). One of the more interesting things in the Balfe article was that Woman E was in a position to consider paying £800 for a throne. This offers a small window into the sort of things that would happen if prostitution in general was run like other entertainment industries. Some organisations would make mistakes and overspend on stuff, but the others would build up until they could afford to customise their working environments as they wished, thus improving their ability to work, create niches that allowed more workers to work in the field and earn money without the exploitation that is currently common.The clients tend to take what they find without thinking about the wider consequences. Doing stuff without thinking about the consequences has caused more problems in the world than nearly anything else, but it is the controllers of the pimps who cause the problem by forcing bad conditions and allowing only very low wages (often, a controlled prostitute will get to keep no or very little of the money received from a client). Clients just perpetuate the status quo, whatever the status quo happens to be at any given time. At the moment, the clients are perpetuating a bad status quo in prostitution, but changes elsewhere in the industry could change that to getting clients perpetuating a more beneficial status quo.I would suggest that the actions of Woman E and her husband make this a two-person conspiracy (as opposed to the one-woman conspiracy I mooted a couple of months ago). Furthermore, it appears to be a question of desperation-triggered idiocy rather than anything more serious than that. There may have been a security risk, but I do not believe any was intended. Also, more serious security risks exist in the fact that the MoD lost, on average, one laptop a week across the span of the last decade... Date Added: 06/08/2008
maddening Come on you sillies, it is about money darlings ... It cost real money to set up those sessions and the sting, CVC and Bernie wanted to do Max in, your invective might be down to non financial motives but only a money motive spends the sort of money that went after Max. Max's commercial actions & tactics since clearly points to who he thinks set him up. He is spending on the investigative side only because he thinks he can turn up a result. Whatever you think of him, he has been trumping at every turn since and I wouldn't want him after me. Date Added: 08/08/2008
Journeyer Where's your evidence, maddening? We'd love to see it.Otherwise, don't go around pointing fingers. Only trolls do that - I hope you're not one. Date Added: 08/08/2008
Steven Roy CVC and Bernie are after Max for financial reasons. I have to say I can't follow the logic of that or the timing.Max sold Bernie 100 years of commercial rights for what CVC earns from them in 6 months. I think we should be after Max and the FIA for giving away all that long term income. Last year allegedly Bernie paid Max a one off payment of $300 million no doubt as his commission for organising the above deal. Why would you give away that amount of money and then try and embarrass the guy in the papers? Date Added: 08/08/2008
verasaki completely off topic- journyer makes a reference to a troll. this is the 3rd or 4th time i've read that term in brit blogs (yes, clive i know you're an honourary yank). i'm sort of middle aged and the term has apparently taken a twist in recent times. what is the definition a troll in 2008? Date Added: 08/08/2008
Becken Vera,Usually some guys use this term when the discussion is around Lewis and Alonso, the hottest and wild one at this moment. But using it in a discussion about Max is the first time that I see it… Date Added: 08/08/2008
Alianora La Canta If Max Mosley hadn't been so foolish in the direction and methodology with which he is taking F1, he'd be under much less threat than he is now because he wouldn't have antagonised so many people. Besides, thus far Woman E and her husband have come up with a much more coherant account than Max Mosley.A troll in internet parlance is someone who deliberately disrupts the running of a forum or similar internet site by being provocative without cause. There are different versions of the phenomenon, ranging from the mildly annoying argument-without-attempting-foundation types to the more troublesome people who deliberately spark off flame wars (angry disputes between two or more people that dissolve into ad hominien attacks on each other). There are a small minority of trolls who are downright dangerous.A good example of the milder variety I dealt with last year was when someone went on a pro-Spyker forum and accused the team of being out there purely to annoy the other teams (without giving any elaboration or evidence of his point). This could have caught a lot of outrage among other board members were it not for his lack of spelling ability. When it was pointed out that "gird filler" was a witty way of saying "knight" rather than an insulting way of referring to backmarkers (as the troll had intended), he shut up and hasn't been heard from in a long time... Date Added: 08/08/2008
verasaki thanks, alienora. most recently i've seen it used in some of the political forums but not the american sites for some reason. i had a feeling it didn't mean a repulsive, cretinous individual you'd rather not invite into the gene pool anymore...well, maybe it still does by the sound of it. why do i have a feeling you may have pointed out the meaning of a gird filler? too funny! Date Added: 08/08/2008
Alianora La Canta You've met me before, haven't you verasaki? :) Yes, it was me who explained the "gird filler" thing to the troll and the other members of the forum. It gave a few people a good giggle. Maybe it was a bit sad to laugh at someone who simply had no understanding of forum etiquette or Queen's English spelling, but sometimes there just isn't any other sensible response... Date Added: 09/08/2008
Journeyer "repulsive, cretinous individual you'd rather not invite into the gene pool anymore"I just love that! Hahahahaha!Gird filler? Wow. Haven't even heard of that before. Something new I've learned today. Thanks, Alianora! :) Date Added: 10/08/2008
Journeyer Oh, and verasaki, I'm not a Brit. Not even a European! Hehehe. Just thought you'd like to know.Nice to see mr. maddening hasn't come back. If he had come back with evidence, it would sure make for some great sleuthing, though. :) Date Added: 10/08/2008
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