Andrew Marr has revealed in today's Mail that he has an injunction on his extra-marital affair with another journalist. He told the paper:
"I did not come into journalism to go around gagging journalists."
As Private Eye editor Ian Hislop pointed out on the Today programme this morning, Marr's use of a controversial legal tool to gag his fellow journalists while continuing to work as one himself has raised eyebrows all over the place.
The existence and nature of Marr's injunction has been common knowledge in Westminster for years. Has it affected his reputation as journalist, though?
In the most recent Total Politics poll to find the top 100 political journalists, Andrew Marr came third, up from sixth the previous year. Not bad - he was beaten only by BBC colleagues Nick Robinson and Laura Kuenssberg.
But if you look a bit further down at the breakdown of the voters, you see that for those inside Westminster, at least, his private life has made an impact. Marr doesn't feature in the top 10 for Labour or Tory MPs, and, perhaps most tellingly, came 29th in the results from the Lobby and the Press Gallery.
The fact that the details of Marr's affair was an open secret among journalists and politicians surely should inform the future debate about the effectiveness of injunctions as a way of protecting reputations.
See the full results of the TP poll of political journalists here
Comments
Mike Cunningham / April 28 2011 10:01pm
As i commented upon another blogsite:-
The words of Chairman Andrew include:-
“Teachers are the most effective anti-racist campaigners in the country, this means more than education in other religions, it means a form of political education. Only people who understand the economic forces changing their world, threatening them… have a chance of being immune to the old tribal chants.
And the final answer, frankly, is the vigorous use of state power to coerce and repress…
I firmly believe that repression can be a great, civilising instrument for good.
Stamp hard on certain ‘natural’ beliefs for long enough and you can almost kill them off…
A new Race Relations Act will impose the will of the state on millions of other lives too.”
The lying thieving hypocritical clown!
Mr Marr told the Daily Mail that he took out the super-injunction to protect his family’s privacy but says he will not pursue it any further.
The unnamed woman is understood to be considering taking out her own High Court super-injunction to protect the privacy of her own family and her guide dog.
http://mikecunningham.wordpress.com/2011/04/26/the-thoughts-of-chairman-andrew/