Watching the gazillionaire Goldsmiths trying to justify their illogical and self-serving stance on privacy is excruciating
Can you bear to watch the Goldsmith family hit ideological puberty? Of all the awkward sights currently on offer in public life, the spectacle of Jimmy Goldsmith's children and heirs attempting to direct the debate about privacy and freedom of expression is surely among the most excruciating. If only we could superinjunct the whole embarrassing business, and thus spare ourselves the spectacle of Zac Goldsmith and Jemima Khan adopting outlandish logical contortions that really do belong behind closed doors.
To recap: Jemima Khan (Goldsmith as was) is the freedom of information champion – "Twitter's greatest advocate", as she described herself last year – who recently used an infinitesimal amount of her gazillion-pound inheritance to post bail for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. On Monday she awoke to what she called "a bloody nightmare" as a Twitter user falsely claimed that she had taken out a superinjunction to prevent intimate photos of her and Jeremy Clarkson becoming public.
Well. Were the union a matter of fact, it would surely represent history's greatest instance of a man punching above his weight (don't forget Quasimodo never actually pulled Esmeralda). But it is a fabrication, possibly chinese-whispered out of the fact that Jemima and Zac did take out a privacy injunction in 2008 when their emails were hacked.
So now our WikiLeaks devotee – Jemima is particularly passionate about "the free flow of information in this digital age" – is frightfully cross that someone has published sensational material with no regard for its consequences. She insists people distinguish between government and corporate transparency and an individual's privacy, to which the only response is: have you been on the internet lately? People do not care to distinguish between the importance of a North Korean nuclear test and whether Miley Cyrus is wearing knickers. Good luck regulating it.
Perhaps Jemima really is unable to see that in the brave new technological world it is impossible to have freedom of information without freedom of misinformation. But she will find it difficult to escape the irony that the existence of the Goldsmith siblings' superinjunction was first revealed by a certain website close to her heart. WikiLeaks: proudly bringing you details of secret US drone strikes and minor celebrity gagging orders since 2006.
And so to brother Zac, who this week called for parliament to make a privacy law – as though they'd do any better balancing the competing claims of the European convention on human rights than the judges do, on a case-by-case basis. Can you warm to Zac? "I do not need a career in this world," he declared loftily a few years ago, adding: "In 10 years' time I might be an eco-terrorist. But I'll take the most effective path, whatever that is." No doubt, no doubt. It subsequently emerged that the "most effective path" had been to retain the non-domiciled tax status he had inherited, a privilege he relinquished in 2009, about 27 minutes before standing for parliament. So while Zac's attempts to cast himself as some kind of radical add to the gaiety of the nation, he'll forgive us if we take them as seriously as the idea of Clarkson giving his sister one.
Much is made of Zac's charm, but it might be helpful to distinguish between good looks, which he undoubtedly has, and charm, of which he is in shorter supply. Try to imagine his public pronouncements being made by someone with the visage of George Osborne, and they boast all the charm of a minibreak in Mogadishu. If Zac loses his hair and puts on 30lbs by 2025, you might as well hand him the white cat. He is a chip off the old block.
Goldsmith père once stormed off the Money Programme after being questioned in a manner that displeased him, a moment echoed by his son's infamous Channel 4 News interview concerning his election expenses last year. Indeed, given his father issued more than 60 writs against Private Eye in a single year and tried to get its editor imprisoned, it is perhaps inevitable that Zac should decline to devote his time to the more worthwhile reform of laws which have turned this country into the libel capital of the world. This week he preferred to wheel out that old chestnut about the need "to distinguish between what is in the public interest and what is merely of prurient interest to some of the public".
Yet that aphorism now seems a relic of an age both more civilised and less civilised. From newspapers to rich men to government agencies, those used to controlling and deciding what the public are interested in are either playing catch-up or seeing their powers profoundly warped. Perhaps Zac and Jemima wonder what sort of world we live in when inherited wealth can buy bail for a freedom of information radical but cannot silence the free exchange of information and – alas – misinformation among the public.
But while they mull it over, a period of self-imposed privacy from them would be most welcome. The posturings of the Goldsmith family may titillate us and give us all a laugh, but it should be perfectly obvious to all civilised people that they are really not the proper business of public life.