Credit: Found On Internet

Oh, the glee I which the tabloid news have had in reporting the news the Babyshambles frontman, Pete Doherty, has been sentenced to 14 weeks in jail. The headline that the right-wing reactionary rag of choice, The Daily Mail used, was particularly odious in its joy: Pete Doherty FINALLY sent to jail after breaching his probation order. And that’s their use of capital letters, not mine. As if the situation of Pete Doherty being in jail is the correct and proper situation needed in order for the British status quo to be restored.

Music Towers doesn’t normally run stories about Doherty’s drug problems, and related run-ins with the law, as the tabloid press does enough sensationalist reporting on the subject as it is. When Doherty was last in court, the NME ran a bizarre running-commentary in their “News” section, along the lines of ‘Pete Doherty has arrived in court’ and ‘Pete Doherty has walked through the doors’ and ‘Pete Doherty has sat on a chair’. Personally, I don’t like Babyshambles at all – I find his voice airy and irritating, and the cult of personality built up around the greasy-cheeked chancer never appealed either. He makes himself easy to hate – he isn’t the Lord-Byron-meets-Joe-Strummer figure he would like to be. Why do these idiot fans of his idolise someone who has trouble showing up for his own gigs?

Let’s not make excuses for the boy: Pete Doherty is guilt of the crimes he has being punished for. He breached the terms of his probation elating to his drug offences. Nor are we going to get into any arguments about the impact of drugs on popular music – Bill Hicks did it first and did it better. And we aren’t going to get all sanctimonious and condemn a man for doing drugs – something a significant number of people do every weekend. The fact that the man in question is a celebrity merely means people pay more specific attention to his actions – it does not amplify the right-or-wrongness of them to a degree greater than that of us mere mortals.

Oh, you might like to suggest that Doherty has been getting special treatment until now? That he’s been getting a better deal than the average junkie because of his fame? Perhaps it is the reverse – that he was unfairly targeted because of his fame. For tedious legal reasons, it would be defamatory for Music Towers to comment on the practices of the tabloid media and the Metropolitan police force in regards to the levels of attention that has been specifically aimed at Doherty. There are plenty of people who have done, continue to do so, and will do in future that are the equal of Doherty. But they won’t go to jail for it. And while I see it is okay to see loss of privacy and invasions into privacy as a side-effect of fame and celebrity, I don’t think it is fair for the justice system to bend and distort itself because of them, to either the benefit or hindrance of the plaintiff.