The great and the good of the British music industry have clambered onto their high horses once again, this time to issue a collective condemnation of the rape investigation engulfing French singer Patrick Bruel. One might almost mistake their bleating for moral clarity, were it not so thoroughly predictable. The industry’s statement, released with all the gravity of a papal bull, insists that “the presumption of innocence must be respected” while simultaneously demanding that Bruel be “held to account”. This is not a stance; it is a contortion act, a desperate attempt to have both due process and mob justice, depending on which way the wind blows.
Let us recall that the same industry was notably silent when Liam Payne, a British pop star, faced accusations of assault. Then, the chorus was muted, the support tepid. Now, with a Frenchman in the crosshairs, the British establishment finds its voice. Why? Because Bruel is an outsider, a convenient target for a profession that loves nothing more than a moral crusade against foreigners. The hypocrisy is as thick as the fug of a Soho nightclub after last orders.
This is not a defence of Bruel, for the truth must be determined by a court, not by a claque of self-righteous executives. But the speed with which the music industry rushes to judgment, its eagerness to don the robes of the Inquisition, reveals a deeper rot: an intellectual decadence that prioritises virtue signalling over justice. We have seen this before. In the final days of the Roman Republic, the Senate would condemn foreign princes for crimes they had not proven, all to distract from their own corruption. The British music industry, with its tax dodges and its diversity quotas, is playing the same game.
What is to be done? Perhaps the industry should look inward, to its own complicity in a culture that normalises abuse of power. Until then, their condemnations ring hollow, a tinny tune played by the same old orchestra of the self-regarding. The crisis is not Bruel’s legal woes; it is the industry’s moral bankruptcy.
