Sir Michael has told me I’m not to blame
There is nothing quite so disconcerting as waking up to find that your knee is lead news.
I had no idea that an extremity on my lower limbs had the power to threaten the stability of government and bring about the end of Sir Michael Fallon’s career – all completely by accident.
I had told what I thought was an amusing story about threatening to punch an MP for repeatedly putting his hand on my knee 15 years ago.
A story told without malice aforethought, and without naming the culprit, set off a chain reaction that now sees us returning to a puritanical age where every interaction between a male politician and Any Woman He Has Ever Met is now the subject of righteous investigation.
So what has Kneegate, as it has been dubbed, actually achieved?
Apart from ensuring that my right knee will forever have its own footnote in political history books, and will feature in every “How Well Do You Remember 2017?” quiz, not a lot.
While the fall of Fallon will be seen by some as a great victory for womankind, I fear it might be just the opposite.
Clearly, men shouldn’t go around making unsolicited passes at women. But, judging by media coverage this week, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the corridors inside Westminster are full of sweaty, middle-aged men chasing after young females to the Benny Hill Show theme tune.
The truth is very different. Sure, there are sexual liaisons between MPS and staff, drunken nights in subsidised bars and at party conferences, but none of it is any different from other offices outside SW1. Since his resignation, I have exchanged messages with Sir Michael in which he made it abundantly clear that he does not blame me for his resignation, and it appears that subsequent claims made by others, including Andrea Leadsom, might have been the final nail in his coffin.
While I understand we might like to expect our political representatives to be role models rather than reprobates, that doesn’t mean we should expect them to be perfect all the time.
What is going on at Westminster right now, with the “sex pest dossier” and the rumour mill working overtime, is nothing more than a media witch hunt. Judging by some of the comments made this week, you’d think we’d barely moved forward since the Seventies. But is it really true that women routinely fear walking into their offices in case they are groped by every passing male colleague? That’s certainly not the experience of any woman I know.
Indeed, judging from the hundreds of comments I’ve received from people in every walk of life, the British public has a lot more sense than the Westminster political and media bubble. It’s perfectly clear that 99 per cent of people know the difference between appropriate and inappropriate behaviour. Caroline Lucas, Green Party co-leader, told me this week that every MP should be required to attend “consent classes” to teach them how to behave towards staff. This is just one step on from the compulsory classes for freshers to remind them not to rape their fellow students.
What an outrage. Is every office perfect? No, of course not. But we don’t do women any favours telling them they are all victims all the time. And we do men an even greater disservice by painting them all as potential sexual harassers or rapists.
I’ve been told that, by my insisting that I am not a victim, and by saying women should “man up” and handle a sexual harasser with robust confidence, I have blamed the victim rather than held the man responsible.
After all, many victims of unwanted groping or harassment are young women dealing with much older men in positions of power over them. This is true. But just because a man has a better job title, that ignores how much the power pendulum has swung in recent years.
When everyone from party leaders to the Director of Public Prosecutions says we must believe the accuser, we are giving the green light for any woman to point the finger, without a shred of evidence, and ruin his career, even his life. If she is telling the truth, it follows that the accused must be guilty. No judge, no jury. Go directly to jail, do not pass go.
That isn’t feminism, that’s a lynchmob.
If we want a sterile world, where men and women never speak or touch in the workplace or require every interaction to be authorised in advance in triplicate, then fine.
That’s not the world most of us want to live in. But, if we’re not careful, that’s precisely where this Westminster witch hunt will end.