Me and Phillip Schofield

Britain is currently obsessed by someone called Phillip Schofield, a (now ex-) breakfast television presenter. I’m not a habitué of the genre but it reached such a pitch I felt in need of enlightenment from a television forum I contribute to from time to time. This is taken verbatim from it with some light weeding to assist comprehension.

“We discuss the long-term implications of this episode for ITV whose bosses have been summoned by MP’s over the scandal.” (Newsnight) [Newsnight is the flagship highbrow BBC news programme. ITV is Britain’s second most important media organisation after the BBC.]

Mick Harper: I’m not tremendously clued up about these things but can someone tell me who Phillip Schofield is and why him having a relationship with someone at work means the end of ITV? The rules about sex with work colleagues are pretty well established, aren’t they? It is formally banned because of its generally deleterious effect so you have to be a bit circumspect, but the rules are not fiercely enforced. Everyone’s at it and there wouldn’t be a workplace if they were.

Grant: The suspicion is that Schofield groomed the boy when he was underaged.

Mick Harper: If a particular relationship gets widely known — and a media organisation like ITV would presumably mean it would be — then the hierarchy have a choice. If you’re unimportant, you’ll probably just get your cards and that would be the end of it. If you’re important you’d be called in, questioned about it, and deny it. Any competent…