The Daily Mail Doing What It Does Best

Evidently no-one's off limits to the DM.  Not that I wouldn't have guessed that, but it's still rather sad.

Super glam SamCam, the bikini babe - but how DID she get beach body ready? As PM courts European leaders she 'chillaxes' in Ibiza

She has spent the past few months travelling the country, sharing her husband’s punishing Election schedule.So there’s one question everyone is asking: just how did Samantha Cameron find the time to get this beach-ready?The 44-year-old showed off her slim, toned figure as she spent a few days unwinding on the Spanish party island of Ibiza. 

Is that what they're asking ?  I'd have gone for how is this appropriate or how is this newsworthy ?  I'm guessing that what the woman who happens to be married to the British Prime Minister was doing was not showing off her figure so much as just spending some time at the beach with her children.  And perhaps hoping for the modicum of privacy any family would wish to have.

But carry on with the breathless speculation about her fashion-choices and obsession over her fitness-regime, adorned with not one paparazzo-shot but four, along with a bonus pic. from 2011 so you can talk about her post-pregnancy figure.  Not at all creepy.  Sigh.

The photos are sure to make husband David a little wistful – far from being able ‘chillax’ himself, the Prime Minister is on a whistlestop tour of Europe in his efforts to reform the EU.

Fuck that guy.  But maybe leave his family alone ?

Think of the Children

So some paparazzo takes (very boring) pictures of Paul Weller and his teenage daughter out shopping in LA with Weller's twin babies in a pushchair or stroller.  So the Daily Mail publishes some of these pictures, misidentifying Weller's daughter as his wife.  The Weller family sues the Daily Mail, wins damages, and now Weller's wife is pushing for a law in Britain criminalising the publication of non-pixelated potentially recognisable pictures of childrens' faces without their parents' consent.  Common-sense measure to protect children or slippery slope ?

Personally I think it's rather pathetic that there's a market for such pictures in the first place, and the world would be a much better place without paparazzi scum harassing and stalking individuals who happen to be celebrities or friends and relatives of the same.  But must we really legislate everything to this degree ?  Would the measure apply only to newspapers ?  What about street photography ?  And why, if we're going down this road, shouldn't adults be entitled to the same protections ?

In a sane world, surely we'd agree that publications that engage in or encourage this type of activity should be shunned, and that would be that.  But ooh, look...they got pictures of Brangelina at the beach, ooh look at that actress without makeup, doesn't she look old !  Oh look, evidence of space aliens in Hitler's bunker.  I'll just add that to my basket at the checkout and have a nice read later over tea.