It could have been the son, but if it had, then why would the husband take the flack? Like you say, porn and teenage boys is not exactly an unusual combination - who’d be more shocked by a teenage boy watching porn than by the husband?
What kind of a parent sells their kid out to national embarrassment. He would still have to go to school, get teased by his friends, made fun of by his enemies. How about girlfriends, does he have one? Does he have a crush on a girl? What does he do when he meets her parents? His teachers giving him a smirk when he talks to them, his friends parents.
Kids have committed suicide over less
Nobody at school would tease a 15-year-old boy for watching porn. Well, certainly not in the UK - I guess it’s possible people are more puritan where you live.
Whether the kid did it or not, it would be interpreted as throwing the kid to the wolves to protect the parents. The press would hound the kid. He would be subject to interrogation bu who knows how many investigative bodies who could smell blood in the water and somehow wangle a subpena out of a judge.
I don’t even like kids, and I wouldn’t subject one to that if I could avoid it.
BTW, was there any testimony about this taken under oath in a court? While I wouldn’t perjure myself, I would lie to the press or pretty much anybody else about it.
The narrative would also become about what a “bad mother” Smith is, despite how ridiculous the assertion is (because, as has been rightly noted, pretty much all 15-year-old boys watch porn and lie about it to their parents).
Who would interrogate him? 
You guys must have a really different view on porn - I’m sure the press would be a bit interested, but not that much, because ‘teenage boy watches porn’ is not news.
There would be debate about that part in the Daily Mail, yeah. But then there was also debate about whether she was a capable wife.
It’s not about porn per se, though that might be the hook to draw in the scandal mongers Could it be about a government official committing fraud? Or doing something juicy or scandalous? I have no idea who would interrogate him – a committee of legislators, a prosecutor, any politician who could imagine juicy headlines and decide to get a piece of them.
I freely admit I could be wrong, and I don’t know the details underlying this incident. But when you put politicians, sex, porn and government money together in any way, you can bet pretty reliably that some attention whore will come along and ask all kinds of suggestive questions, even if they don’t lead to anything substantive.
Maybe British government doesn’t work that way. The American one does pretty damn frequently. And even if the government doesn’t involve itself, there’s the press, which would follow the kid around until the next big scandal popped up on the radar.
It was expenses fraud, yes - that’s been pointed out a few times in this thread. But legally speaking it made no difference at all who viewed the porn - it was that Jacqui Smith claimed for it among numerous other items. There would never have been any need for any official interrogation of the boy.
It was highlighted a bit because it was funny, what with her seeming a bit stuck up, but it didn’t get nearly as much press as the deputy prime minister’s toilet seats or that MP’s duck island (yes, really - he built an island for his ducks and asked the taxpayer to pay for it).
If it had been her son viewing the porn, it would have got even less press, because ‘teenage boy views porn’ isn’t funny.
You are not listening. Someone could concoct an excuse to interrogate the boy. Someone would suggest perjury by a parent if one of them blamed it on the child. Just the idea that a child would have access to porn and somehow get it charged to the government would be enough. Are the parents fit to be raising a child at all? How long is the child left alone?
So what if none of it has any real validity? It’s all about sensation and headlines, not about substance. This is not to say it would happen, but it could, and I wouldn’t my kid to the risk that it would.
Again, my perception might be colored by viewing how the American government sticks its nose into private family matters because sleazeballs want headlines. I am reminded of the Terri Schiavo case, where the husband wanted to cease treatment of his brain-dead wife, her religious family didn’t, and Congress got involved to the point of passing some bullshit legislation about it. The facts aren’t similar, but this is the kind of attention whoring I’m thinking of.
And you’re not listening (well, reading) either - that wouldn’t happen. I’m sceptical if it would even happen in the most conservative parts of the US either, but it definitely wouldn’t here.
Something similar to the Terry Schiavo case has happened here too, though religion wasn’t involved; that’s because choosing whether ot not to keep someone ‘alive’ is a genuinely huge moral issue, not because the govt likes to stick its nose in.
SciFiSam is right, the story was about the MPs’ expenses including the £157k Jacqui Smith claimed. The £10 for the to PPV “adult” films was just a minor opportunity to mock an annoyingly self-rightous politician. There was no individual or branch of the government with any interest in or right to interogating her children.
The idea that it was her son watching the films was suggested at the time but nobody bothered to follow it up. Incidently, from the sources on the internet, it is not clear exactly how old they were at the time: 13 & 10, 15 & 10, 15 & 8. Different papers give different ages. One point against it being the older son would be why on earth would he be ordering porn on TV when it will appear on the bill at the end of the month for his parents to see when access to porn on the internet is so easy. In fact, according to a piece on the BBCJacqui Smith claims her son actually pointed this out:
If you were a 15-year-old boy and it was in the news that you had downloaded pay-per-view porn films, then your politician mum accidentally submitted the expenses and had the taxpayer pay for the films, and was now in trouble partly because of it, you would never hear the end of that at school in the UK. That would be absolutely hilarious. It would define you for the rest of your school days. I don’t agree with the guy saying that the media would go after the kid or that he’d get ‘interrogated’ - I think even the British press would leave him alone. But if that was a guy at my school no one would ever have stopped bringing it up. Think how funny it would be. Any caring parent wouldn’t do that to their kid.
On the other hand I’m not sure why a kid would charge pay-per-view films knowing they’ll come up on the bill, or why they wouldn’t use the internet. It was just a thought that crossed my mind when I first read about it and I don’t remember anyone mentioning it at the time. 
I imagine those poor kids probably got a hell of a lot of banter as it was. “I swear there’s no good porn on the internet any more… Smith has your dad got any new material?” And on, and on…
A lot of times, teenagers don’t think of long term consequences–what they want is right in front of them so they’ll give in to temptation, assuming they’ve gotten away with something.
Jaqui did lose her job as Home Secretary as a result of claiming for non-existent housing costs. Bearing in mind that the Home Secretary is responsible for policing (in England and Wales only) and matters of national security, and that MI5, was directly accountable to her, it was pretty scandalous that she was defrauding the taxpayer.
She was also my local member of Parliament and, quite rightly, soundly defeated in the next election.
That’s assuming that the mother threw the blame onto her kid (or her husband) – which seems to be what Jacqui Smith did. [Reason enough not to support her, in my mind.]
My local Member of Congress had a similar ‘scandal’ in his first election campaign. His opponents dug up that there were unpaid parking tickets for a vehicle owned by him, and they attacked him for this in their campaign literature. His response was simply that it had been a mistake, and that the tickets had since been paid. And that there were more serious issues at stake in this election.
What he did NOT do was throw the blame on members of his family. Even though it belonged there. His teenage sons had received tickets while using the car, and discarded them. And being home earlier than either parent, they also got & discarded mailed notices about the overdue tickets. (Typical teenage disregard for long-term consequences.)
But their father never blamed them publicly – simply said “I am the Candidate, so I’m the one to take the heat”.
And it kind-of backfired on his opponents. Voters said: “that’s the biggest dirt they could dig up on him – unpaid tickets? Heck, I’ve had some of those at times. He must be pretty clean if that’s the worst they can find!” And he won the election.
Wait a minute. Anything that requires one be older than 18 to view it is porn?
Can zombies sign up for pay-for-view?
This thread has been revived from two years ago, when the actual event being discussed was already two years old.