There is a huge amount of coverage of Lord Browne's departure for lying about how he met his gay lover, Jeff Chevalier. (It seems he met him through a male escort website). The facts seem to be that:
* Browne provided BP resources to help his lover set up a phone ringtone business
* Browne was well known to be gay and surrounded himself with gay assistants
* Browne made unsubstantiated allegations about Chevalier's use of drink and drugs. The evidence for drink was that Browne's butler told him that the stocks in his wine cellar were dropping more quickly than would be expected
* That Browne's resignation may cost him as much as GBP 15m,
* That nobody seems to mention that the culture of cost cutting that Browne created resulted in 15 people losing their lives in the Texas refinery explosion
* That Browne once lived next door to a gay lover who was an investment banker
* That Browne paid fees for Chevalier to study, in order that he could stay in the country on a student visa
I find the following things particularly annoying:
1. the reports are presented as if Browne's sexuality was well known. He has had a great deal of coverage in the press over the years, and I'm pretty sure I didn't miss any reference to his being gay. It was repeatedly reported that he lived with his mother, and went to social functions with her. It seems that he was frequently accompanied by his gay lovers too,
2. that Browne, in spite of unbelievable private wealth, thought that he could steal from his employers computers and staff to run his boyfriend's private business
3. that some parts of the press considers that the Daily Mail has no right to publish this kind of article because there is no public interest in Browne's private life
The great thing about the blogosphere is that all kinds of interpretations are put on these things. The most intriguing one is that this story has been allowed to break to avoid linking Browne's departure with the Texas explosion and bad management of BP, and that he will somehow been fully compensated for the loss of the gbp15m in exchange for taking deflecting publicity away from BP. I'm not convinced, but it's an interesting analysis. Certainly it would explain why Browne has so egregiously resigned for lying when most others who are caught just try to brazen it out. Certainly it's hard to imagine him as being a particularly honourable man, or one for whom money isn't everything.
