blair daughter suicide bid?

Has anyone else heard this rumour? Could there have really been a media "blackout"? Should there have been a media blackout? Will this site be censored?

Just type "blair daughter suicide" into google ...

Let me guess the tabloids thought it would be the 'nations right to know'. We all like scandals to varying degrees but sometimes I think you've just got to respect the lives of those involved - whether or not this is true (and I haven't clicked on the link).

No, the tabloids haven't printed it either.

This has been reported in Australia and probably a few other countries. I think that the UK press have been banned from reporting it.

I'm not sure where the law stands on message boards talking about things like this but it might be an idea to censor this thread or to remove it.

It's on indymedia, so we're fine http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/06/293456.html (there's fucked up logic).

Their article, I would say, is a little wrong though. If someone trys to commit suicide it is not because of the family failing. It will be a personal thing, that we will never truly understand the motives behind (I suspect) of the person involved. You can guess -- but you shouldn't report these. By implication this says that everyone who has ever had a child try to such a thing is a failed family, which I would strongly disagree with (if anything they are closer).

It would be wrong to say that it was because of Tony, it does though, retrospectively, explain more about why he might have quit, and helps us understand his motives.

It also might explain his recent interest in saving the world by cutting back on emissions & recycling more http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3654042.stm (although I was suspecting this was a way to bring the mid-left back into his arms).

Here's an interesting Australian take on it ...

http://theage.com.au/articles/2004/09/17/1095394005096.html

It's probalby worth pointing out support is available for any family facing similar issues:
http://www.samaritans.org/talk/bereaved_suicide.shtm">http://www.samaritans.org/talk/bereaved_suicide.shtm
Or just
http://www.samaritans.org/

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The thing I dislike about the Indymedia report is this:

In a democracy, the public have a right to know about the family failings of anyone in public office - it enables them to judge whether to vote for that individual or not. When that failing family is the Prime Ministers the press have a duty to inform the public - not to protect politicians' images from public scrutiny.

It's position in the article implies (though it doesn't say it, true), that the suicide attempt is an indication of "family failings" within the Blair household, and consequently any household where a suicide attempt occurs is a failed family.

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WARNING . . . RANT ALERT

I think the real point of this story is that the Media is a tool of social control used to form our beliefs (amongst other things) about the character and moral fortitude of the various players on our political stage. This political play act keeps most people happy and docile while true power resides with who ever owes those big American corporations. Anyway, what Im trying to say is, if it had been the daughter of a Union activist or leading socialist thinker, it would have received the full 'need to know' treatment and dam the liberal right to privacy. But if it is the daughter of a useful puppet, then the liberal right to privacy is held high and the story remains unreported. On a vaguely related note Im shore we can all think of Media stories which were used to create or prop-up a belief in order to lend moral validity to a State action . . . think of all the hundreds of stories to do with WMD in Iraq which turned out to be lies.

END OF RANT

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so am I, it was making me squint :)

Joosy Pigeon ranted:
I think the real point of this story is that the Media is a tool of social control used to form our beliefs (amongst other things) about the character and moral fortitude of the various players on our political stage.

Not really. It shows that there are still some standards of decency in the mainstream media. It also shows that there aren't the same standards in the politically extreme "alternative" (yawn) media.

if it had been the daughter of a Union activist or leading socialist thinker, it would have received the full 'need to know' treatment and dam the liberal right to privacy.

Complete nonsense. Suicide attempts are very rarely reported by the UK mainstream media, out of reasons of respect and taste. Your conclusion is not justified.

I'm falling between the two of you here... There's no public "need to know" that someone attempted suicide, whoever it is. However, it can be mentioned as a sideline to another story.

Eg, Blair misses press conference to attend to his daughter in hospital would be ok.

Consequently, it's the blanket non-admission it occurred in the mainstream media that is wrong, if anything is wrong. Ie there's two lines, and the press should sit between them, not cross one to be safe, or cross the other to say "you're too scared to say it".

Naturally I would say my conclusion is justified. The Media is owned by interests that represent a very very very tiny percentage of humanity. Decency has nothing to do with its function, just the routine setting of the political agenda in support of the status quo. I appreciate that that the UK media may not report suicides very often, but if we leave the particular aside and look at this in general, then time and time again stories are manufactured to support an anti-collectivism consensus and part of this is the rubbishing of collectivist thinkers. That is, the creation of stories that single out collectivist thinkers as moral reprehensible in some way. This is a very strong theme in the Media and it would be difficult to deny it in a rational way.

I konw that everyone thinks this but I think it is worth mentioning.

If true then clearly an unhappy tennage girl and my heart goes out to her and her parents.

Does make Melvyn Bragg's comments more interesting though!

For those who missed the Bragg comments:
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour/story/0,9061,1304778,00.html

A suitable quote woudl be:

"But in my view, the real stress was personal and family, which matters most to him. And my guess is that the considerations of his family became very pressing and that was what made him think things over very carefully. That is my guess," he said.

Though Lord Bragg later explained that he was not suggesting matrimonial problems - "I have never seen a couple get on as good as those two" - he repeated that his guess was that the "colossal strain" earlier this year was the result of pressures of family life.

The Blairs have four children...

Ha, interesting quote, WB (in defiance of your name). I would hope the general populace would be think that a child (above a certain age? at least one that could be considered responsible for their own actions) committing/attempting suicide is no reflection on the parents; having a fucked-up kid doesn't mean you're not fit to run the country. (Though I suspect the conservatives would have a go at arguing the case.) It is strange that absolutely no mention of it was made at all... Occam's razor... it never happened?

occam's razor is a techinque for taking the simplest explanation for something as the correct one. I think everybody will benefit from that here. The reason it wasn't reported is that journalists did not want to give blair another stick with which to bash them so soon after hutton and butler reports. It woudl have been too easy for blair to turn the agenda around to the press invading his privacy... because most people will do that for him, by posting messages about how her privacy shouldn't be invaded. Think voxpops on the street... the common man talking about serious suicide is and how it shouldn't be published in mass media. So if we think that journalists themselves had a motive not to publish then we don't need to get into complicated conspiracy theories do we?

i don't know if this affects blairs capability as leader. i don't think so, therefore where is the public interest?

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Good point Ms Choc. Where is the privacy for Ken Quigley's family? Why not ban press coverage of that story? Do we really need to see pictures of him begging for his life?

sorry, this is kinda my fault I think but i think public interest is something of a red herring.

There is a difference between (1) 'the public is interested' and (2) 'the public interest' which I think gets confused. What the public buys (we assume this is a reliable guide to what they actually are interested in) is not always in the public interest.

so what do we really mean when we say 'the public interest'? Perhaps we mean that something is in the public interest to report if by reporting it, people's lives get better. This will do as a def. for now.

Therefore, if Mr. Bigley's kidnappers see lots of publicity and as a result release him, then it was in the public interest. If they do not, and (God forbid) he is murdered anyway, then it was not in the public interest to make publicity. So we can't decide sense (2) until after the event.

Now, because news organisations exist to report what sells, they are not interested in (2). Whether we *need* to see these pictures is irrelevant. Whether we *want* to is more appropriate. Only by exercising our rights and responsibilities as economic units, and transferring our monies away from investing in (1) can we fix this problem (?not sure that this has been shown to be a problem yet, but choc and rocker both seem to think so?) - that means an end to Heat magazine. And an end to the historical obsession with celebrity which has been with us for a very long time.

To come back to Miss Blair, again, (1) is relevant. And we are perpetuating it, demonstrating our interest in supposedly pointless subjects. (that is not to say that we should stop. Celebrity highlights these questions so we can discuss them).

if it bleeds, it leads. you all love it.

Sigla Mag on the suicide story: http://www.siglamag.com/features/0411/TonyBlair.php