10/06/2008
FEATURE BY MIKE LAWRENCE
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It would have been pleasant to think that the vote in Paris would have settled Max Mosley's future, but that would be hoping for too much. I do not believe that his being caught on camera precipitated the threatened split in the FIA but, rather, has been used as an excuse.
It would ill-become me to be cynical, but I wonder why the story broke when it did. The sting was a long time in the planning and it involved substantial cash. The News of the World pays for scandal delivered to its door, but it has no record of spending big money on investigative journalism.
Now that Max has retained his position, Pitpass can resume criticising him when we feel it is justified. We suspended that on the grounds that it is not fair to kick a man when he's down and anyway the treatment of Max has been grossly unfair.
What has bothered me is the sheer spite some people have displayed. There seems to be many an old score being settled and a minor piece of tittle tattle has been blown out of all proportion. Many moons ago the head of a motor racing team was accused of being in a sex scandal by the News of the World. When I arrived at the circuit, the photocopier in the press office was working overtime so that everyone got the story.
The team boss kept a low profile all day. Then his cars scored a 1-2 in the feature Formula Two race whereupon he joined his drivers on the back of the truck for the victory parade. That evening he held a cocktail party and everyone in his apartment block was invited. He said, "You have all seen the News of the World and you are all curious. Some of what they wrote is true, a lot isn't. That is all I am going to say. If that does not satisfy you, I will understand if you leave. Otherwise, enjoy the party." I am told that everyone stayed for the party.
The allegations against him and his wife were more serious than those against Max since they could have led to criminal proceedings. The man guided his team to Formula One and I have heard many people speak well of him.
Motor racing, like many another community, protects its own. The gossip goes round, of course, but the sport has been traditionally permissive when it comes to how people get their rocks off. An exception is being made in this instance and it is Let's Put The Boot Into Max time.
I do not mean people like Jackie Stewart or Martin Brundle, both of whom might be excused for Mosley-bashing, but who have been measured in their responses. Sir Jackie has said that Mosley should go and, as always, he has presented a cogent argument.
I happen to disagree with him. I do not believe that entrapment and publication in a sleaze rag is reason for him to step down. Some people say he is the author of his own misfortune, but he did not knowingly walk into room which was bugged. It had been something he had been doing for years, every few months, and with the same whoremistress.
On the other hand, regular readers will know that I think that he should have stepped down long ago. His jibes against Stewart were unacceptable. So was his legal action, since withdrawn, against Brundle.
I have the tape of an interview with Max from 1996, in which he said that two full terms as President would be enough. After a time, the office could corrupt. We have seen enough examples of that in international politics.
What gets me is the indignation from the sanctimonious over Max being filmed having paid for sexual pleasure. Some sports agonise over whether it is right to participate in the Beijing Olympics, given China's appalling record on human rights. Torture is part of the Chinese system, but who cares if they can build a nice circuit.
Turkey has been trying to join the EU since 1963, a small part of it is in Europe. The main reason why it has been refused admission is its record on human rights. While we are at it, do not enquire too deeply into the conditions of (mainly Bangladeshi) workers in Bahrain.
Some sports boycotted South Africa under the Apartheid laws. But not Formula One, as long as the money was right. The same was true of Argentina under the military junta, when tens of thousands of citizens were tortured and murdered.
Max likes S&M to get aroused and all hell breaks loose. It is not even as if it was hard-core S&M. You'd feel short-changed if you had paid for a video of a session which ended with a nice cup of tea. Hard-core S&M is when it is done for its own sake not as a method of sexual arousal.
Motor racing tolerated the Nazi regime, even though atrocities were well-known. Concentration camps were not initially created for racial persecution, their first inmates were Germans who opposed the Nazis.
After WWII, motor racing made its one political stand, it barred German teams and drivers from international motor racing for five years. How brave it was to do that since Germany was a pile of rubble.
What has got me about some postings on the Net is the sheer hypocrisy. It has been asserted, with confidence, that he has betrayed his wife. All sorts of things go on in marriages. For all we know, Mrs Mosley said, 'Your tie's crooked, you want to look your best for Mistress Switch.'
If you return home with a black eye, having been in a fight, you can always claim that you bumped into a door. There is no easy excuse for welts across your bum.
By the way, I don't know of any religious objection to sado-masochism. Some branches of some major religions embrace the mortification of the flesh. Apologists for these cults will say that this is devotion to the divine, but a great deal of extreme religion is repressed eroticism.
Blogs have repeated the phrase, the slur, 'Nazi-style orgy'. By using inverted commas. or 'alleged', they cower behind an interpretation on an S&M session provided by the News of the World. Excuse me, but when The Screws makes a statement, I am not automatically inclined to take it as true.
The Nazis borrowed from S&M, it was not the other way around.
Another quote which seems mandatory is 'son of Sir Oswald Mosley, Britain's wartime fascist leader.' Sir Oswald's brief period of influence was over before 1939. He did not do much leading of Fascists during the War, he being banged up in gaol.
If you think that it is reasonable that someone filmed Max's sex, presumably you would not mind if someone fitted cameras in your bedroom.
Some have cited Max's defence of the FIA's use of sophisticated surveillance in the Stepney/Coughlan affair. They seem not to know the difference between uncovering a crime and intrusions into privacy.
The first time that the term 'masochism' was used was in Richard von Krafft-Ebing's seminal work, Psychopathia Sexualis (1886). Von Krafft-Ebing was the first academic to identify the pleasure of being spanked as an identifiable habit. He cast around for a way to describe it and fell on Venus in Furs, a novel by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and a classic of erotic literature.
Von Krafft-Ebing wrote, "As a man, Sacher-Masoch cannot lose anything in the estimation of his cultured fellow beings simply because he was afflicted with an anomaly of his sexual feelings."
Note that von Krafft-Ebing wrote "cultured fellow beings".
Some contributors to blogs are cultured only in the sense that mouldy bread can be said to support a culture.
If everyone who has played away from home or who has consorted with whores was absent from the pitlane, there would be a good few gaps.
Let us get something right. A major supporter of the high-rent whore business is big business. According to newspaper reports, Deutsche Bank, which has been involved in Formula One, via a subsidiary, has had to tighten its belt. Executives are no longer able to put prostitutes on their expense accounts.
What we should be looking at is why it has come out at this particular time, when there is discontentment within the FIA. It is perhaps right that the Touring clubs break away and form their own organisation. If that is right today, it must have been right a year ago.
The Concorde Agreement is being renegotiated. Max played a large part in the original treaty, but there are now other players involved. I am not certain that many people know how ownership of the rights to Formula One are currently distributed.
It comes down to this. Someone decided to have Max tailed and to bribe whores when they found a weak spot. It cost a lot of money to arrange. Who benefits from Max being caught on camera with his trousers down, and why now?
Follow the money, always follow the money.
Mike Lawrence
mike@pitpass.com
To check out previous features from Mike, click here