Charles Moore & Editorial Comment:
No, the “sex-pest” scandal is not much more serious than the expenses scandal. The expenses scandal was more potent, for several reasons. The first was that it was written down in black and white: this newspaper revealed to the public exactly what every MP had claimed. The facts were incontrovertible, though some had innocent interpretations. The second was that about 400 of the 650 MPS had a case to answer. It infected the whole body politic. The third was that it revealed a systemic corruption by MPS of a set-up they had themselves devised.
None of the above applies to “Pestminster”. The facts are highly disputable; the bad boys seem to be a small minority; the abuses are individual, not systemic. This helps explain why the current problem is so insoluble. It is hard to pin down, hard to make effective rules against, hard to establish the truth in particular cases and to deal with nuances of behaviour which ranges from the mildly insensitive to the criminal.
I believe this is why so many people I know – particularly those who play no part in the media-political dance of death at Westminster – are angrier about the prominence given to this scandal than about the misbehaviour revealed. Again and again, people say to me: “Why is there such a fuss? Shouldn’t these people be running the country?” This too is different from the expenses scandal, in which 98 per cent of public wrath was directed at the cheats themselves.
The latest attempt to get rid of Theresa May’s right-hand man, Damian Green, is by digging up an old story. Pornography was allegedly found in a police raid on Mr Green’s computer in his parliamentary office in 2008. This confirms my suspicion that the current witch-hunt is an attempt to break the independence of Parliament.
In raiding Mr Green’s offices, the police were deliberately defying a principle for which our people literally died – that Parliament should not be under the control of the Crown (which means, in modern terms, of the agents of the state). In 1642, Charles I himself entered the chamber of the House of Commons to arrest the Five Members (“I see the birds have flown”), who had attacked him for his abuses of power. It took years of civil war to secure the principle that such a thing should never happen again: Parliament was answerable only to its electors. This is why it has “parliamentary privilege”.
In 2008, exploiting their supposed “anti-terrorist” needs, the police entered Mr Green’s office during the recess. When this showboating failed, the unproved pornography allegation was leaked to make the embarrassed police look good. Now the allegation is being revived to hit Mr Green when he is down.
Why is this an attack on Parliament rather than a perfectly sensible attempt to stop MPS looking at porn on computers paid for by taxpayers? Partly because the pornography allegation is unproved, but for a far more important reason too. All powerful bodies would like to bring Parliament to heel. If MPS can be discredited, this is more likely to happen.
It will also happen if bodies of unelected persons are set up to control the behaviour of MPS – deciding, for example, whom they may employ and how to speak to them. Our whole system of representative democracy depends on the direct relationship between MPS and us, the voters. Without it, our rule has been usurped.
What did Margaret Thatcher do about “inappropriate” male remarks and actions? After all, she was the most prominent woman politician of her era and was widely considered attractive. As she climbed up the political ladder there were plenty of men trying, as it were, to look up her skirts. (Indeed, almost the only times Mrs Thatcher wore trousers were when she knew she would have to go up a ship’s ladder.)
In fairness to the past, which is now misrepresented as a groper’s paradise, it needs to be said that Mrs Thatcher very rarely suffered any terrible affront. Only one man, the late Sir Iain Moncreiffe of that Ilk, is known to have made a directly indecent suggestion to her while she was prime minister. Alan Clark, the famous diarist, told me that he wanted no more from her than “a massive snog”, and I am sure he never dared ask.
But a great many men made up to Mrs Thatcher with varying degrees of boorishness, condescension, or charm. This pleased her more often than it annoyed her, because she enjoyed outwitting the oafish or patronising, and she fell for the charm. She behaved with complete, old-fashioned sexual propriety throughout, but could be seduced by male flattery. That is why she preferred Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev to Helmut Kohl and Geoffrey Howe. Sir Hector Laing, of United Biscuits, thought she was so marvellous that he asked her secretaries to put notes from him under her pillow. But no embarrassment was caused and his funds kept flowing into Tory coffers.
Even as the young Margaret Roberts, the future prime minister knew how to deal with importunate men. A Scottish farmer called Willie Cullen took her out for dinner and became, in her words, “quite ardent” in the car afterwards. She was very fond of him, but did not want to marry him. Ever efficient, she passed him over to her sister Muriel, who soon became Mrs Cullen and lived happily ever after.