No one should be shamed over private texts

Having the freedom to express yourself privately is crucial to a free society. It is a totalitarian society otherwise

Few people had heard of Jo Marney before the Mail on Sunday splashed her views on race and royalty on its frontpage. Marney’s texts, in which she said black people were ugly and Prince Harry’s marriage to Meghan Markle would ‘taint’ the royal family, were clearly intended to be read only by the male friend she sent them to. Yet there has been no significant criticism of this breach of her privacy. On the contrary, the wrath of the political class was turned not on the newspaper, but on her and her now former boyfriend, UKIP leader Henry Bolton, who was expected to choose between her and his job.

Most people can take it for granted that their privately expressed views will remain private. In fact, even people in the public eye can expect their private correspondence to friends not to become frontpage news. In early December, when Marney sent a series of texts to a friend, she had no reason to think they would ever appear on the frontpage of a national newspaper several weeks later. She was not yet with Bolton, and when the comments were revealed their relationship was just days old. She had no reason to be either savvy or paranoid when she sent those texts. She had no reason to expect that her right to communicate privately with one individual would be breached.

Privacy is important. Private comments are made for a known audience and often, as in this case, for one person. That one person is likely to be somebody known and trusted, a person who knows both the context of the comments and the person making them. Private communication builds trust and understanding. It is an elementary building block of friendship and family life. She who fears that her private communication will be made public is unlikely to be able to build trust or understanding with others. Society as a whole will be impoverished if its members cannot rely on their private communication staying private.

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