The Max Factor with Max Clifford
Above: Max and his partner Jo outside St Isaac’s Cathedral in St Petersburg
Originally published in September's Surrey Life magazine
Every month, Elmbridge resident Max Clifford gives us an insight into his busy life in Surrey and beyondPress freedom at riskA vast amount has been written in recent weeks on the subject of press freedom in the wake of the recent court battle between motorsport boss Max Mosley and the News of the World.
I’m sure most of you will remember that the News of the World accused Max Mosley of arranging and taking part in Nazi-style orgies. As it turned out, he did take part in group sex sessions, but there was never a Nazi theme.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve given many TV and radio interviews about this case and the question it raises.
In the end, it came down to a battle between personal privacy and press freedom, and in this case the judge came firmly down in favour of Max Mosley’s right to privacy.
As someone who has broken many newspaper stories and stopped even more, I found myself in total agreement with the verdict and findings of Mr Justice Eady, who tried the case.
In recent months, the British tabloid media has been financially punished and damaged for its excesses.
Firstly, the McCanns sued Express Newspapers for a series of very damaging and totally untrue claims made by that newspaper group about them, and won over £550,000 in compensation as well as front page apologies.
Then Robert Murat, whom I advised, got £650,000 compensation from several newspaper groups for similarly cruel, untrue articles.
Most recently, in the case mentioned above, Max Mosley cost the News of the World close to £1 million pounds when the paper falsely accused him of the Nazi orgies.
Naturally, a free press is a vitally important part of our democracy and one that I firmly believe in, but in all three stories, the British tabloid media revealed nothing like the truth. We must have a free press, but when newspapers break sensational stories involving the private lives of anyone, those stories must have real substance.
These three examples help to make a privacy law increasingly likely. To combat this, the press must make sure that sensational circulation-boosting exclusives must at the very least reveal the truth.
A land of contrastAlthough I’d heard and read a lot about Russia over the years, I’d never been there. So when I was invited to address a recent business conference in St Petersburg, I jumped at the chance to go.
My first impressions, as our plane approached St Petersburg, was the sheer vastness of the open spaces surrounding this city – literally hundreds of miles of open land as far as the eye could see.
St Petersburg itself is a place of great contrast. Magnificent museums, art galleries and palaces surrounded by hundreds of huge, drab, two-roomed apartment blocks where most families live.
I have a Russian client living there who took Jo and I everywhere – boat trips through the many canals, visits to some lovely restaurants as well as to the spectacular great summer Palace of Peterhoff and the State Hermitage Museum.
The Hermitage is the largest museum in Russia: contained in five buildings are three million exhibits including works of paintings, sculptures and archaeological finds. It’s taken over three centuries to assemble and just about every area we visited in the Hermitage was closely guarded by formidable looking elderly ladies. I was told ‘touch anything and they’ll bite you’ – and looking at them I could well believe it.
We hear regularly about the vast wealth of Russians like Roman Abramovich and others, some of whom live in and around the Weybridge area, but my brief impression of the country was a total contrast from all that.
Shops like the Co-op straight out of the Fifties, and buses and trams, looking very old and rundown, travelling between vast grey apartment blocks where families often share a bathroom with several others.
State control under President Putin seems to have virtually banished democracy. From meeting lots of Russians that were friends of my clients, I learnt that once again the KGB seems to be at the heart of every aspect of Russian life.
I’m very glad that I went but, personally, I wouldn’t be in any hurry to go back.
From one extreme to anotherIt’s a very long time since I visited the Channel Isles. However, a few weeks ago, I spent a weekend in Guernsey as guest of the GTA University Centre. I was invited to give an opening address to delegates at a two day international fraud conference.
It’s only eight miles by five, but it’s a quaint, quiet and very pretty island with the natural beauty of the countryside surrounded by lovely unspoilt beaches, and full of very friendly people.
Max Clifford has kindly donated his fee for this month’s column to The Royal Marsden Children’s Cancer Unit in Sutton. For more information on the charity, call 020 8642 6011 or visit
www.royalmarsden.nhs.uk
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