Does it matter if our next PM is a ‘sex maniac’?

Some Brexit supporters – chiefly, for obvious reasons, backers of Dominic Raab – are expressing concern about the final stage of the Conservative leadership contest, when it is put to the vote of the members. What would happen, they ask, if the two candidates are Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, and Boris “implodes”? Under the rules, there would then be only one contestant and so the Remainer, Mr Hunt, would become prime minister. They want to make sure that two Brexiteers fight it out with one another.

How could Boris implode? The worried Raabists do not say, but it seems reasonable to guess they are thinking of some new sexual revelation so terrible that Mr Johnson would have to stand down. Given everything that has already been revealed over the years, this seems unlikely, but it is worth asking whether it matters that someone thought by many to be what people used to call a “sex maniac” might soon be prime minister.

It may seem obvious that it would matter. Most voters understandably prefer their leaders to have temperate personal morals, rather behaving like what the Book of Common Prayer, advocating

marriage as a restraint, calls “brute beasts that hath no understanding”.

I am not sure that is right, though. First of all, the study of history suggests no clear correlation between sexual continence and good leadership or between promiscuity and bad leadership. David Lloyd George was our last notably sex-mad PM, and although he was known as a trickster, he led the country to victory in the First World War. Yes, say some, but in those days such things were kept private; nowadays they are all over the media. True, but the curious effect of so much exposure is to neutralise the problem (including the risk of blackmail).

Secondly, if there is one thing worse than immoral politicians, it is politicians lecturing us on morality. In an age when most of them do so (in the name of diversity, saving the planet, “calling out” sexism, etc), it would be a relief to be led by someone who does not pretend to be super-virtuous. So long as Boris continues to look shifty about his misdemeanours, rather than trying to justify them, he will probably retain the tolerance of the majority.

Readers may think that I am arguing cynically that morality and politics do not go together. Actually, no. It is rather that the morality of leadership is not exactly the same as morality in private life. The successful leader keeps faith with his (or her) moral duty to have a clear overall direction, to be both prudent and brave, and to be decisive and eloquent. It is surprisingly irrelevant for this task whether he is a bad husband, or a bad father.

Although we always attack politicians for not taking a long-term view, they can be a great menace when they do. Nowadays, all prime ministers are encouraged to think about their “legacy”. This leads them to acts of folly that they would be less likely to commit if they knew they would be around to live with the consequences.

One of the few good things about Theresa May’s time in office after the 2017 general election was that she was in too weak a parliamentary position to pass many new laws at all. Parliament was in a state of turmoil, but the country, for the most part, got on with life perfectly well. Now, as she leaves, Mrs May is trying to spoil all that by forcing through an education “legacy” of £27 billion in her last weeks in office. This huge sum is as nothing beside her other departing desire – to commit us by law to “net-zero carbon emissions” by 2050.

Perhaps she imagines that she will inspire gratitude for offering a golden handshake to the British people, but it is not much fun to be told by our departing, failed leader that she will ensure the extra spending of enormous amounts of our money for years to come.

Given the nature of the British constitution, it verges on the unconstitutional for the outgoing prime minister to try to impose duties upon the next. Besides, I have some suspicions about Mrs May’s motives. Ever since she made Boris Johnson foreign secretary and then prevented him from doing his job, dislike of Boris has been one of the few emotions she has ever revealed in public. This may be understandable but, as a legacy, it is not edifying.

Quite rightly, Jo Brand is not being prosecuted for her “joke” that people should throw not milkshakes but battery acid at pro-brexit politicians. Jokes are such an endangered species these days that even very tasteless examples of the breed must be protected from the smothering attentions of the law.

As a footnote, however, it is worth remembering how Ms Brand herself tried, quite successfully, to bring down the media career of Carol Thatcher. Some years ago, Ms Thatcher, while sitting in the BBC’S One Show studio off-air with Ms Brand, allegedly referred to a half-congolese, halffrench tennis player as “that froggy golliwog guy”. Jo Brand unkindly revealed the incident to the public, making no allowance for the fact that Carol’s reference was a) friendly in tone and b) private. Carol Thatcher had to leave the programme.

Ms Brand’s unwitty sally about battery acid was a) extremely unfriendly in tone and b) public.

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