COMMONS SEX FURORE: THE FIRST SCALP
Defence Secretary quits ++ Fallon warns PM of revelations to come ++ Deputy PM fights back against ‘false’ claims he targeted young activist
THERESA May pulled the plug on Sir Michael Fallon last night after he warned there could be further revelations about his conduct with women.
In a resignation statement, the Defence Secretary, 65, said his past behaviour had ‘fallen below the high standards we require of the Armed Forces’.
The move came just 36 hours after it emerged he had repeatedly put his hand on the knee of journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer at a lunch 15 years ago.
Chief Whip Gavin Williamson is said to have warned the Prime Minister there could be further allegations about Sir Michael, who has been the subject of Westminster gossip for years.
one source claimed Mr Williamson had advised Mrs May to fire the veteran minister, although others insisted Sir Michael had resigned of his own accord following a face-to-face showdown in No 10.
But friends of the MP acknowledged he had been braced for the possibility of more claims about his behaviour.
Three years ago he was accused of calling journalist Bryony Gordon a ‘slut’ at a party.
one friend said: ‘Has there been flirtation that has been inappropriate? Yes, he will concede that.’ A source said Sir Michael
had been forced to admit to the Prime Minister that ‘ there could be more’ – but insisted that no fresh revelations were imminent.
The departure will force Mrs May to conduct an emergency reshuffle today. Immigration minister Brandon Lewis and security minister Ben Wallace were tipped as possible replacements, though some Conservatives were urging Mrs May to appoint the first female defence secretary.
Government sources last night said the reshuffle was likely to be ‘limited’.
The Prime Minister is furious about the sex scandal threatening to engulf her government and refused to give Sir Michael her full public backing following revelations about his conduct this week.
She is understood to have made no effort to persuade him to stay when he informed her of his decision to quit yesterday morning.
Sir Michael last night said it was ‘right’ for him to resign.
He added: ‘ The culture has changed over the years, what might have been acceptable 15, ten years ago is clearly not acceptable now.
‘Parliament now has to look at itself and the Prime Minister has made very clear that conduct needs to be improved and we need to protect the staff of Westminster against any particular allegations of harassment.’
He added: ‘I have behaved in the past, clearly, in a way that has occasionally been below the standards we require of the Armed Forces, and I don’t think it’s right for me to go on as Defence Secretary … and fail to meet them myself.’
Asked if he should apologise, he said: ‘I think we have got to look back now at the past, and there are always things you regret, you would have done differently.’ The resignation came as: A string of senior Conservatives denied lurid claims made in a dos- sier that has been circulating in Westminster since the weekend;
MPs were considering legal action against social media firms which refused to remove the dossier despite its ‘libellous’ content;
Mrs May’s deputy Damian Green vowed to release text messages that friends said would disprove claims made by activist Kate Maltby, which prompted Mrs May to order a Cabinet Office inquiry;
The Prime Minister announced she would host cross-party talks next week aimed at creating a new mechanism for victims of sexual harassment at Westminster to seek justice;
Former Parliamentary researchers continued to make claims of misconduct, with one man saying he was groped by an MP while looking at a painting in a Commons corridor;
Downing Street denied claims by a Labour MP that Mrs May had ignored calls to clamp down on sexual harassment in the past.
Sir Michael’s departure will spark fresh speculation about the future of other ministers facing allegations of misconduct.
Mr Green is facing an inquiry by the Cabinet Office following claims he made inappropriate advances towards a Tory activist 30 years his junior. He strenuously denies the claims.
Trade minister Mark Garnier is being investigated by the Cabinet Office for a potential breach of the ministerial code after admitting referring to a female assistant as ‘sugar t*ts’ and asking her to buy sex toys for him.
Commons leader Andrea Leadsom told MPs this week that ministers could face the sack if they were found guilty of behaviour that had made junior staff or women ‘feel uncomfortable’. In a letter to Sir Michael last night, the Prime Minister thanked him for his service.
She wrote: ‘ I appreciate the characteristically serious manner in which you have considered your position, and the particular example you wish to set to servicemen and women and others.’
The resignation comes at a critical time for the Ministry of Defence, which is engaged in a battle with the Treasury over spending.
General Sir Mike Jackson, former head of the Army, told BBC News: ‘I think the Armed Forces will be sad to see Sir Michael Fallon go.
‘He’s been Defence Secretary now for three years but it is clearly a personal decision he has come to and so be it.’
His departure deprives the Government of one of its most confident media performers, who was frequently sent out on to the airwaves to defuse crises in other areas of government. It also means only two members of the post-2015 election Cabinet – Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Scottish Secretary David Mundell – remain in their original posts.
Mrs May is desperate to avoid a major reshuffle ahead of this month’s Budget, fearing it could destabilise her government.
But Tory sources admit they cannot be sure other ministers will not be forced out if revelations emerge about their past behaviour.
Some MPs fear the impact of the sexual harassment furore could eventually rival that of the 2009 expenses scandal, from which Parliament is still recovering.
Senior Tories admit they have no way of knowing if people will come forward with allegations about the conduct of ministers.
Others fear they will all be tarred with the same brush.
MORE than half a century ago, Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones burst upon a still rather drab and regimented post-war world. They were the epitome of the Swinging Sixties and, like many other rock groups of the time, high priests of sexual permissiveness and drug use.
Much of the nation was shocked. A significant minority — perhaps over represented by men — was elated. What could be better than a sexual free- for- all and the widespread availability of marijuana and LSD?
Mick Jagger’s behaviour was emulated by thousands and tens of thousands and then millions. He went on to have numerous partners, got married and divorced, and then had lots more affairs. In the process, he has fathered eight children by five women. He has five grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.
Affair
As time passed, fewer people were shocked. The revolutionary sexual mores that Jagger and others had exemplified became the norm for millions of people, while those who tried to cleave to the old paths of marriage and family felt it wasn’t for them to cast aspersions.
And so, when at the start of this week the story broke that the 74-year- old Mick Jagger was on a date with a young woman called Noor Alfallah, who is 52 years younger than him, few eyebrows were raised — at least in the media. If anything, reports in newspapers were approving.
Please note that, according to Jagger’s spokesperson, he is still with his girlfriend, Melanie Hamrick, who is the mother of his ten-month-old son Deveraux. So this is only a brief excursion, then. I wonder what Melanie thinks.
Maybe a few lips were pursed down at the Dog and Duck, though I suspect the general feeling was ‘Good on yer, Mick’ if when you are old and wrinkly and possibly losing your marbles you can persuade a beautiful young woman to share your bed.
No one has dared to wonder publicly whether it was seemly or decent (very old-fashioned words, I know) for a man who has already exceeded his biblical span of three score years and ten to be having a fling with a woman young enough to be his grandchild.
It is, to be sure, a wholly consensual relationship, even if Noor Alfallah may well have been awed by Jagger’s fame, power and enormous riches. (She certainly can’t have been moved by his looks, and he is unlikely to be a repository of wisdom.)
Of one thing we may be fairly sure — that Noor will soon be succeeded by another young woman and then another until the old goat is eventually wheeled off the stage in a bath-chair.
But there is an irony in all this: whereas the antics of the septuagenarian rocker are widely indulged, many of the same people are in a state of apoplexy at the latest scandals seeping out of Westminster.
Needless to say, I am not referring to shocking allegations of rape and sexual assault which must be investigated by the police and, if proven, dealt with by the full force of the law.
No, I am thinking of suggestions that hands of older men may have been put on knees of younger women, who would have much preferred they had not been.
Yesterday, the normally sensible Times newspaper carried a piece by 31-year- old Kate Maltby, a critic and academic, who alleges that Damian Green, the First Secretary of State and effective deputy Prime Minister, put a ‘fleeting’ hand on her knee when they had a drink together in 2015.
Mr Green, who was not a minister at the time, and is a family friend of Miss Maltby’s, vehemently denies the charge. That hasn’t prevented the Tory MP Anna Soubry from demanding that he should stand down while the allegation is looked into.
There is no dispute that Sir Michael Fallon, the Defence Secretary, repeatedly put his hand on the knee of the journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer during a dinner party 15 years ago, as we learnt earlier this week. Julia, who knows how to look after herself, threatened to punch Fallon, who wisely desisted. Sir Michael’s resignation last night may well have been triggered by other, more serious, causes.
Obviously, men shouldn’t go around placing unwanted hands, fleeting or otherwise, on the knees of young women. The ‘victims’ may be cowed or impressionable, and lack the nous to threaten these pests in the robust manner of Julia Hartley-Brewer.
But is it a hanging offence? Should Mr Green be forced to resign if this one allegation against him is substantiated? Do such relatively minor incidents — and I categorically am not talking about serious allegations of assault — really warrant all the media hysteria and sepulchral faces observed over the past few days?
Libidinous
My answer to all these questions is: I don’t believe so. And I can’t help contrasting the fondness which is applied to the antics of the libidinous Mick Jagger with the grave indictments of Sir Michael Fallon, Mr Green and similar miscreants.
Is it possible that we are a little confused about sex? A tireless and promiscuous fornicator is honoured and celebrated, while a man (I am speaking of Mr Green now) who may, or may not, have placed a fleeting hand on a woman’s knee, is threatened with political ruin.
This apparent contradiction is part of a wider incongruity — which is that we live in a world of sexual permissiveness (of which Mick Jagger and his mates were, and remain, enthusiastic ambassadors) while at the same time we witness growing sexual puritanism.
So it is that the people who ventilate wildly about allegedly straying hands are usually completely unconcerned about the harmful effects of hardcore pornography, or family breakdown brought about by sexual licence.
Nor does it ever occur to such people that the sexual revolution, by removing longstanding inhibitions and boundaries, may have contributed to an increase in the number of serious sexual assaults.
Bizarre
In short, the hysterical critics of politicians allegedly guilty of ‘inappropriate behaviour’ are missing the point — which is that the sexual revolution has legitimised conduct which can be immeasurably more damaging than the occasional wandering hand.
But all this does not explain why such lunacy should have erupted during the past few days, as journalists, politicians and feminists have whipped up a bizarre witch-hunt that sometimes makes one fear for Britain’s collective sanity.
Surely, some sort of gigantic displacement is taking place. The Government faces the biggest peacetime challenge in living memory — namely how to leave the EU on the most advantageous terms possible without the country being torn apart.
Instead of confronting this monumental task, our political and media classes are channelling their energies into obsessing about the essentially trivial and unimportant issue of whether Damian Green’s hand briefly touched a young woman’s knee.
I don’t know what future historians will make of all this. But I do know that these past few days have constituted a kind of national mental breakdown as we have finally taken leave of our senses.
As for Mick Jagger — Sir Mick Jagger, I should say, knighted by (who else?) Tony Blair — I grant that he sang a few good songs, long ago. But isn’t it time this lascivious old rascal was taken down from his pedestal?