LIFE LESSONS

KATY HARRINGTON Weinstein, Westminster and witch-hunts

IALMOST spat out my tea last week when I heard John Humphrys’s interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme with William Hague. Hague was on the show to discuss the ivory trade (can’t accuse the Tories of being out of touch!) but was asked repeatedly if the recent flood of reports of sexual misconduct among senior MPs was “going too far”. Humphrys seemed to me to be concerned by the saga, not on behalf of the victims, but that it might have a negative impact on some poor old sod’s chance of scoring his secretary. I’d laugh, but I’m short on lolz when a respected BBC journalist doesn’t understand the difference between asking someone on a date and sexual harassment. Then there was Michael Gove’s Harvey Weinstein ‘joke’ in which he implied that it’s the women who report sexual assault who lose their dignity, not the fat oaf begging for massages. So, while it might seem that this is a great revelatory moment to expose wrongdoing, the curious reactions of both men and women makes me wonder. Jo Brand had to shut down an all-male panel on Have I Got News For You who joked that some of the behaviour detailed in the Tory MPs spreadsheet of shame hardly counted as serious crime (neither is having your phone stolen but you don’t like it when it happens to you, do you?). The problem with the sex spreadsheet (the only time you’ll ever see those words together) is that again it put harassment alongside consensual romances and the private sexual proclivities of others. I couldn’t give a hoot if you want three people to pee on you mate, just don’t use taxpayers’ money to pay for the dry cleaning bill, but what we have to remember is this story is not about MPs or directors with wandering hands, it’s about abuse of power, and everyone should be in favour of exposing that.