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Seven years ago anything I wrote would be carried in the newspapers.
The main reason for this was because I was famous. I’d had hit records.
Secondary to my celebrity as a pop star was the fact that I was an intelligent, educated observer. A rare combination, so I was encouraged to pontificate on anything. Travel, entertainment, social issues. My opinion was sought and published.
Now however I’m notorious. I’ve been (wrongly) convicted of sex offences.
As a result, nothing I write is considered worth printing.
Fortunately this no longer matters.
The Internet enables me to comment on anything.
My website, www.KingOfHits.com, has attracted tens of thousands of readers for the decade it has been active (including my three and a half prison years, thanks to the phone and friends as board keepers).
But you would think, wouldn’t you, that my personal experiences in the areas of justice, prison, media demonisation and contact with offenders, be they genuine or innocent, might make my opinions even more valuable, given that my education and intelligence remain the same?
But no. Editors appear to cherish the thoughts of pop stars but not of convicted criminals.
So on Saturday, when I read three stories in The Times that shocked me to the core, I decided to compose my feelings and share them with my Internet readers.
First, buried away on Page 46, was the tiny story (I quote it in full)… “ATLANTA: The Georgia Supreme Court has ordered the release of a 17 year old boy who was given a ten year mandatory prison sentence for having consensual oral sex with a 15 year old during a New Year’s Eve party in 2005 (Reuters)”.
Second, a two page spread on 6&7 about a missing child, Andrew Gosden, who ran away from home on September 14th. Nowhere in the article does it touch on the possibility of sexual confusion as a possible reason for teenage distress.
Third, a Page 43 article on Charity Workers seized at an airport for “trafficking” children from Darfur to France.
To me, these stories indicate the fact that humanity has lost the plot.
We no longer appear to have a correct or accurate moral compass.
So far this century two unbelievable incidents have pointed at an imbalance in social awareness.
How could a country have invaded another without planning for the structure after such an act?
And how could we not care when a mother is discovered to have been wrongly jailed for murdering her babies?
Iraq and Sally Clark.
If we didn’t get messages from them, how can we ever hope to get messages from these other daily revelations?
The words HELL and HANDCART spring to mind.
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