Would I lie to you?

by Rick Johansen

I wonder how ITV head honcho Kevin Lygo feels today after earlier this week describing the disgraced TV presenter Phillip Schofield as “hands down one of the best broadcasters of his generation.” That’ll be alongside the likes of John Simpson, Clive Myrie, Jeremy Bowen and Huw Edwards, then. Right up there with the Dimbleby dynasty. I don’t like to kick a man when he’s down but puh-lease.

I am not an avid viewer of lightweight daytime shows, like ‘This Morning’, a show which I often had the misfortune to catch when visiting people with brain injuries while working for a brain injury charity. No jokes about that, thank you. From the limited knowledge I have of the show, it was television for the hard of thinking and for those who don’t want to think at all. But horses for courses and all that. And there is clearly a market for that kind of stuff. Clearly, I am not the type of viewer they’re looking to attract, even if I am not always the sharpest tool in the box.

I don’t want to get into the stuff surrounding Schofield’s ‘private life’, such as it is. While it is fair to say that celebrities can and do cultivate their private lives to benefit their professional lives, I have little to no interest in their private lives. Who someone wants to shag, regardless of sex, holds no interest to me.  It’s liars and hypocrites I can’t stand.

Having lied through his teeth to all and sundry – has he considered joining the Tory party? – Schofield choose to apologise for being a liar and a hypocrite in the Daily Mail, a sick apology of a newspaper and a rest home for elderly hate-mongers, a publication that will be first in line to bury the remnants of his career. Why would you do that, except for perhaps for money, or out of desperation, suspecting this awful publication had something else on him?

Is there some sadness in this? Well, of course there is. I don’t celebrate the self-immolation of anyone’s life and especially not the trauma Schofield’s family must be going through, nor indeed how the person he had an affair with is feeling.

God alone knows (that’s just a figure of speech because there probably isn’t a god) how this goes from here. We have seen before how the rapid descent of those who appear to have everything and now have nothing can turn sad, and even disastrous. Whatever happens, the less than glorious red top community will be present with long lenses to record it all.

All I can say is this: tell the truth. I made mistakes in the past, got things wrong and wasn’t always as honest as I should have been. Few among us can claim we are perfect.

In a better world, Schofield could have come out as gay and that would have been that. As a society we are on the way to a better place where sexuality doesn’t matter, but we’re not there yet. Perhaps that influenced Schofield to lie and to a point I understand that and feel a bit sorry for him. And his sexuality is, sadly, the biggest part of this story.

I certainly won’t join the hate squad that’s rapidly assembling to crush what’s left of Schofield. Already the usual suspects like professional Ulsterman Eamonn Holmes and his fellow GBeebies presenter the hate merchant Dan Wootton are on his case to do what they do best, which is to kick a man when he’s down far harder than I ever could.

There’s no way back for Phillip Schofield. I hope he takes the money and runs, learns his mistakes, vows to stop lying and picks up the remnants of his life. Lying is hard to do. Just tell the truth. It’s so much easier to remember.

 

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