Vicky Price

You're not alone in wondering that, jingle. Taking someone apart by referring to their posts on other threads is not what we do - unless we deliberately want to upset GNHQ.

I didn't hear the Today item, but evidently 'great minds.....'

I have written social inquiry (pre-sentence) reports on quite a few women over the years, convicted of a variety of offences such as extracting electricity, benefit and credit card fraud, perverting the course of justice, making hoax/threatening phone calls or texts, neglect and violence to children. After they were sentenced, quite a few have claimed that they took the blame for their partners, who would have received more severe sentences or consequences, if they had faced the court themselves. A cowardly way to treat your partner, and a lost opportunity to address the problem with the offender. The women were not all shrinking violets - I have dealt with professional women, middle class working women, a woman whose female partner coerced her into taking the blame for benefit fraud, as well as poor and deprived women with low self esteem.

Vicky Price is not unusual. I do have a degree of sympathy for her (her ex-husband is a jerk), although I think the alleged coercion was more likely the threat of loss of their prestigious lifestyle, which is tough luck. Justice has been done in the end.

I must admit I have not followed the Vicky Pryce/Chris Huhne story very closely. But the comparisons with the mythology has suddenly made it interesting!

Sorry Galen - didn't see your post!

j08 you keep doing it. Having a dig and then saying things like "no offence", or "i was joking". No offence - I am just pointing out that it is becoming a habit.

btw it wasn't speeding in the post, it was in the car

Did anyone hear the last item on the Today programme this morning? Apparently Vicky Pryce is being compared to Medea of Greek mythology. She (Medea) married Jason of Golden Fleece fame but he deserted her for a younger woman. Awful consequences followed (of course).

Back to Wikipedia.............. (it is so hard to follow it all! So many different Greeks involved!)

A friend of mine received a summons for speeding in the post. Luckily for her, she and I were enjoying a very rare lunch at the precise time of the offence (we live in different countries). She phoned the police and demanded the photograph which clearly showed her OH at the wheel. He desperately tried to insist that it was truly her in the driving seat (the rat). She divorced him. She's happy now.

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY TO MY FRIENDS AT GRANSNET!!

On the wireless this am, she was being compared to Medea or Clytemnestra!

It's ironic - or significant? - that Vicky Price is Greek because her story has the makings of a Greek tragedy: a talented woman destroyed by her own overwhelming desire for revenge on an unfaithful husband. Or perhaps Shakespeare could have made something of it.

Oh dear everyone is getting very heated here, lets just think of the long lasting effect on thier children.

You seem to want to be "tough" which could be interpreted as something else on a forum.

Bluebell have you come here from Mumsnet by any chance? Or from Saga when they had to shut the forums down? No offence. Just wondering.

I am sure marital coercion exists for women under pressure and who are in very dominating relationships. I would would very much doubt that such a sucessful, well educated and financially secure woman as she is could be easily cooerced by anyone.

They committed a crime, and have been found guilty. (But still the "coercion" bit lingers in the mind, given the heartfelt evidence from some Gransnetters..)

Jane - nowhere near as tough as it could have been!!

That's a bit harsh bluebell.
As for Vicky Pryce, I like jadey's summary.
Lady Moon's(anyone remember her?) mode if revenge was far more sensible in my opinion.
(She just cut up all her husband's suits, making incisions in strategic anatomical parts)

Ana - I have a 'bee in my bonnet' that your latest comment is part of a trend - on Frank's tree-planting thread you came in very early with comments about criminal damage and trespass and then, when some of us said it wasn't that big a deal, you talked about pro- council posters getting aereated and told us to calm down. Then on the D of C baby thread, there was a comment from you about anti- royalists who can't resist letting everyone know about it. So just 3 examples in the last couple of days where your comments can be seen as quite snide and dismissive of a certain set of views that don't coincide with yours rather than addressing the issues. As for Vicky Pryce, plenty of people seem
to have a bee on their bonnet about several important issues that this case illustrates. Argue with the issues Ana and try and do it without putting the poster down.

Ana if you say to someone they have a bee in their bonnet, many people will interpret that as "you're over reacting" or "you're obsessed" . It's having a go at the person, not debating the issue.
I agree kitty that it was a demeaning defence because there must be many circumstances in which women do illegal things because they are afraid of being attacked by their husbands. On the other hand if he was a bully in the relationship it is very hard to stand up to such a man, or indeed to leave them.
It highlights the continuing inequalities. I'd bet there are loads of women who take their husbands speeding points. I wonder how many husbands do the same for wives? Wouldn't it be utterly fascinating to know.
She made a huge mistake in revealing this to a journalist. Beware of sympathetic journalists buying you a nice lunch. It does highlight that revenge (or indiscretion over a nice lunch) can turn round and bite you doesn't it.

This is just what the pair of them have been caught for. They may not have done anything horrendous - murdered anyone or such - but it doesn't say a lot for their moral values.
No sympathy.

Ana

It makes me smile that Chris Huhne will get a reduction in his sentence for pleading guilty and Vicky Pryce won't. I feel that she has done a great disservice to women who really do suffer marital coercion and abuse.

One has to feel sorry for the children who had the misfortune to be born with those two as parents.

You know what the best punishment would be? Make them share a cell!!!

Half of me feels sorry for them both, the other half just sees them as the rich and shameless getting what they deserve.

The story is a true tragedy in the Shakespearean sense, the way they've both been brought down by their own character failings.

A woman of great expertise in economics, a frequent contributor to Newsnight, she has committed career suicide, quite unnecessarily.

Obviously a women scourned but basically she bit off her nose to spite her face and made herself look like a crazy lady in the process.