F-B-F.org -

But there were no police officers on that lane, and I was not a prime minister’s son, and I can now tell this story 30 years later in my own time.Which luxury, of course, brings me to the fourth thought I had. What earthly purpose could possibly be served by the tale of one boy’s inelegant escapade being the front page of the tabloids, or top story on the Beeb, gloatingly analysed by journos as an embarrassment to his father?No 10 has taken it on the chin, allowing that it was an event that was bound to become public sooner or later. But at what point exactly did Euan Blair lose his right to make his adolescent mistakes without becoming a national icon and turning into the chundering child of New Labour’s darkest night? And at what point might you or I or our children lose our rights to be our relatively private selves?That was broadly the question adjudicated upon by Mr Justice Toulson two weeks ago, when he refused to grant an injunction against The Sunday Times printing a story concerning the tax affairs of Lord Levy, a confidant of Euan’s dad’s.Lord Levy had argued that details of his dealings with the Inland Revenue must have been obtained though deception. But Justice Toulson felt that the utterances of the Labour Party in condemning tax avoidance meant that there was a clear public interest in any story regarding the taxes paid by one of its leading supporters.

It was “relevant and proper that his tax details should be in the public domain”. Toulson went on: “He who actively involves himself in public life, as Lord Levy has, cannot altogether complain if he is caught by the heat.”This ruling was greeted within the journalistic world as being a new judgment of Solomon. The powerful would not be able to gag the popular tribunes; the Aitkens would be defeated by the trusty pen of truth and the shield of public interest. Toulson’s ruling suggested that the onus would always be on the public figure to show why they should be exempted from the general proposition that, by being “public”, they had forfeited some of the privacy enjoyed by the rest of us.

More specifically, if they were associated (even loosely) with a particular world view, their private affairs could be investigated to discover whether their own actions were strictly in line with that world view.In the immediate aftermath of the Lord Levy story, the presumption was that The Sunday Times had indeed scooped the pool, with a revelation that, according to the BBC, was “a severe embarrassment for New Labour, which has in the recent past condemned the use of tax-avoidance schemes”. Further stories appeared in The Sunday Times, and one in the Daily Mail which revealed: “Lord Levy faces the prospect of an Inland Revenue investigation into his tiny tax bills.”It has since become increasingly clear that there are some major problems associated with the Levy stories. First, there is no evidence that he was engaged in tax avoidance at all, and quite a lot of evidence to show that he actually avoided avoidance. Second, the Mail story centred on the deliberate misuse of a quote from the Inland Revenue. The question the Revenue was actually asked was: “Was it investigating the manner in which The Sunday Times obtained Lord Levy’s tax details?”Finally, it is now apparent that The Sunday Times story was either obtained or confirmed (most probably both) by the device of having someone phone the Revenue pretending to be Lord Levy. Such impersonation is clearly illegal, but even so, what is interesting is the improbable nature of the paper’s denials of its involvement in such calls.Even so, what Mr Justice Toulson was saying was that people in the categories listed above had to expect to see details of their private affairs – even if obtained illegally, and even if distorted – laid bare in newspapers and on the broadcast media. Strangely, in a discussion of the ethics of such reporting on BBC Radio 4’s excellent Broadcasting House programme, the managing editor of The Sunday Times sought to exempt newspaper editors from the Curse of Toulson.Journalists – even editors – were not public figures in the way that those involved in politics were (he said), so they weren’t fair game.That’s scary.

A few months ago, a source so close to Frank Dobson’s running mate, Trevor Phillips, that they wear the same trousers, called me out of the blue and asked me if I would be prepared to help out with the occasional bon mot for one of Frank’s barn-storming speeches No one, he told me, needed to know. And I told him that I’d be happy to, and that – if he wanted – he could put it up in lights on the Millennium Wheel.Nothing came of it But suppose it had. Would I have crossed the magic line between having my bank account known only to myself, the kids, the wife, the nanny and my mother-in-law – and having it splashed all over page 113 of section 24 of The Sunday Times? Or the magic line between my eldest daughter having her inevitable first puke as a private citizen, or as the property of the population of London?If so, and if Toulson is the way we’re going, then I suggest we save time and money by establishing a register of public persons. Those who appear on it will be required to deposit details of their bank accounts, sexual peccadilloes, minor legal infringements, brushes with the law or anything else that could conceivably provide any kind of contrast with the public policy of the paper, party or organisations with which they are linked.Childless saints only need apply. Otherwise I only hope the one genuine revelatory story of the year is worth the thousand intrusive, distorted, meretricious and voyeuristic tales that will be printed alongside it.David.Aaronovitch btinternet . At the bar of the Royal Opera House studio not so long ago, I eavesdropped on a conversation held by the great historian and intellectual Paul Johnson. One of the older women in his party was telling him how her granddaughter had recently asked her to which class they belonged.