This Philip Schofield stuff is madness

Just turned on the telly (partly to test the theory that it is all dross at this time of day).

There's a phone-in debate on C5 about whether ITV should be subject to a judicial inquiry about one of its presenters having an affair. Wtf?! 

dux I am not sure it is homophobic in the sense that the brickbats would be just as bad and possibly even worse if the accusation was of a late middle aged man seducing a young girl.

Pretty sure the job description for "runner" on an ITV production does not have "willing to suck takent's cock" as a minimum qualification.

I think the CEO and HR should genuinely be concerned about this.

It seems to be filling an unusual gap in serious news (ukraine aside) at the moment.  Crime stories are also getting more coverage than usual for the same reason.

There are major safeguarding issues raised by this. I’m surprised the usually so vocal parents on here seem to care so little, given their general fears about older men.

i’ve done a bit of a dive on twitter and there’s a “timeline” going around that seems to be a fairly creepy stalking of the runner’s twitter and instagram profiles/comments as well as random rumours about this “feud” with holly

and it ends with “it doesn’t actually look like they interacted much while the runner was a minor and so phil probably didn’t do anything wrong here”

and then all the comments to the twitter post are bluetick mumsnet types calling him a groomer

twitter is a cesspit, is my point

btw i’m not saying he didn’t do anything, i’m saying that until the runner decides if he wants to say something there’s absolutely no “proof” of anything on twitter

What has actually happened here?

Did Holly make a play for Phil to be released for artistic reasons not realising his previous relationship would come more in to publuc domain or did she ditch him as she knew this was coming?

This whole thing has cemented my faith in karma. Clear he was always an arse. The fact he sat and lapped up all the attention for being “brave” when he came out when he had being lying and now cheating on his wife. 

The whole thing shines a light on the desperation of the talentless who get into a celebrity type world and the power that they are desperate to hold onto knowing that they are nothing without it. These characters could have walked out of the toxic situation or resigned a long time ago but stayed to the last sitting on the sofa gushing about themselves. 

And what’s the gig about “helping” unskilled young people get into TV. Going the normal route to employment much better imo ie getting qualifications and applying for roles. 

It's not about the affair.  Like with Zahawi, it's not about the error on the tax return.  It is the layers and layers of cover-up, denial, and it is all unravelling horrendously for all involved 

Tattle have been covering this story for years and store the info in their wiki on it so that people can read it and get up to speed quickly.
 

That was why I was confused about the timing that this has blown up so much now on msm because it’s been on there for 3/4 years. 
 

some new info has come out since this all blew up, but the bones of it has been there for ages - inc all the screenshots of the online convos / pics and timelines 

Yes what Heff says. Completely disproportionate response from media. It’s click bait but front page news on broadsheets?! Is there an under current of deflection from other issues? 

I would guess ITV want to be sure they don't have another BBC scenario on their hands.  Because if BBC had announced a similar inquiry in the 80s the reaction would also most probably have been - What has Jimmy done wrong other than help kids with their dreams - just as some of the halfwits on here are reacting now.