If this hysterical Westminster witch hunt is what a world run by women looks like, count me out
HALLOWeeN may be over, but the Westminster witch hunt is only just getting under way. On Monday, Andrea Leadsom, Leader of the House of Commons, told MPs she would be ‘setting the bar significantly below criminal activity’ when it came to eradicating ‘inappropriate behaviour’ by members.
She was speaking in response to allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct made against a number of unnamed MPs by a group of about half a dozen present and former parliamentary researchers in a so-called ‘dirty dossier’.
Allegations are rather vague and vary wildly, from being ‘handsy’ at parties to ‘impregnating’ a woman. Leadsom, by contrast, was unequivocal.
‘If people are made to feel uncomfortable, then that is not correct,’ she told the House. ‘In terms of the consequences for the perpetrators, I think I have also been perfectly clear: in the case of staff, they could forfeit their jobs; in the case of Members of Parliament, they could have the whip withdrawn and they could be fired from ministerial office.’
Watching her grim expression and hearing her speak, I was reminded of that line in Arthur Miller’s 1953 play The Crucible: ‘We are what we always were in Salem, but now the little crazy children are jangling the keys of the kingdom, and common vengeance writes the law!’
Miller’s play was about the 17thcentury witch trials in Massachusetts; but it was also, of course, about the antiCommunist hysteria that took place in America in the late Forties and early Fifties under U. S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, in which hundreds of people were falsely accused of unpatriotic behaviour.
In many cases the accusations turned out to be trivial or unsubstantiated — or simply made up by people bearing a grudge. The climate of fear it created resonates to this day, and the name of McCarthy will forever be associated with blind persecution of individuals in pursuit of political gain.
Ms Leadsom should be careful, then. She doesn’t want to end up being the McCarthy de nos jours. Because make no mistake: this so-called sex scandal has all the hallmarks of a moral panic.
‘The little crazy children’ are indeed jangling the keys to the kingdom — and how.
What started as a WhatsApp group of parliamentary employees swapping notes on their bosses has turned into a mob of aggrieved ‘victims’ claiming a million sexual micro- aggressions against a number of unnamed individuals who, it seems, are not even allowed to know where they are supposed to have overstepped the mark.
Words like ‘handsy’ and ‘inappropriate’ seem to make up the bulk of the accusations — terms that can mean almost anything but, in reality, prove nothing.
If someone is upset and an MP puts a reassuring arm around her shoulder, is that inappropriate? If they make a clumsy joke, is that an ‘unwanted advance’? Knowing MPs as I do, many of them are so socially inept, they make asking for a cup of coffee sound deeply suspicious. But just because someone is a bit odd, does that make them a pervert? No.
Or perhaps that depends on your point of view. Because there is a strong cultural and generational element to this, too. Most of the accused are over 40; most of the accusers are in their 20s.
In other words, it’s the revenge of the millennials, many of whom will have had their senses of humour surgically removed at university. Theirs is a generation that seems permanently aggrieved, in a perpetual state of disgust at anyone over the age of 30.
They can’t take a joke, let alone dictation — so is it any wonder they can’t handle the pace at Westminster or the rough and tumble of parliamentary banter. Anne Robinson put her finger on the button when she pointed out that in the Seventies, pioneering young feminists such as herself had a more robust attitude to men behaving badly than the ‘fragile’ women of today.
She faced a blizzard of angry snowflakes on Twitter, of course, deriding her for being a dinosaur; but she’s completely right.
The sensible and sane way to deal with unwanted sexual advances is to adopt the Julia Hartley-Brewer model in respect of having her knee importuned by then MP, now defence secretary, Michael Fallon: firmly decline — and threaten to punch his lights out if he does it again.
By the way, this incident took place 15 years ago — 15! — and Julia, now a radio broadcaster, has said until she’s blue in the face that she wasn’t ‘ remotely distressed or upset’.
But the problem with the current generation of young women is that they have somehow got it into their heads that they don’t have to stick up for themselves, or take responsibility for their own safety. Feminism has taught them that they are entitled to equality and respect, even if they have done nothing to earn it.
Common sense and the intelligent rules of human behaviour have been replaced by a childish desire to push boundaries and a touchy, uppity tendency to take offence at the slightest thing. Thus you have women waving their breasts around in public in
Touching a colleague’s knee after a boozy dinner is not the same as rape
so-called ‘free the nipple’ protests — and then complaining when men are caught ogling them.
‘Slut-walks’, in which girls dress as provocatively as they can before parading in public, are espoused as expressions of female empowerment, when actually they’re just banal and offensive.
Like that stupid ‘Metoo’ hashtag that started trending after the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke, these are not real expressions of emancipation; they are empty, attention-seeking gestures.
The real test of feminism is whether, like Hartley-Brewer or Robinson, you can cut the mustard on a par with the men, and give as good — if not better — than you get. Those two women have proved that they can. They should be held up as role models, not pilloried on social media.
But therein lies the real problem: social media. A place where those who can’t find success in the real world find safety in anonymity, and where mediocrity feeds the hunger of the mob to tear down those who dare to rise above the norm as a way of assuaging their own inadequacies.
George Orwell was almost right. It is not Big Brother who threatens our freedoms in the 21st century, but his nastier internetage sibling, Little Brother: hundreds, thousands, millions of shrill individuals, one toxic groupthink, whipping each other into a self-righteous frenzy of hate before descending like locusts, stripping their victims to the bone and leaving destruction in their wake.
It is that collective hysteria, so common in closed, backward communities, has begun to infect our society. Already it stifles free speech and debate in schools and universities, in print and in the arts, on the BBC and beyond, forcing us all to conform to a narrow bandwidth of accepted thought.
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it seeks to do the same to an even more fundamental aspect of our human experience: the relationship between the sexes.
Predatory or perverse sexual behaviour is, sadly, all too common in society. There are indeed monsters out there, of all ages, genders and sexual orientations and in all walks of life — and there is no question that they can and do destroy the lives of innocent people.
That is why it is vital we remain open to the voices of victims. Sadly, in the past, this has not always been the case. We see this not only in high-profile instances such as Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris, but also in more complex investigations such as the Rotherham grooming gangs.
But it is also important to retain a sense of proportion. Touching a colleague’s knee in a taxi after a boozy dinner is not the same as drugging and raping a 14-year-old girl. Fancying a work colleague is not a crime (for many of us, it’s the start of a happy marriage). Nor is having an affair, or else half the population would be in jail.
Even having ‘odd’ sexual prefer- ences is not illegal, so long as all parties are consensual. If the puritans at parliament have their way, and are given powers to sack MPs or demote ministers purely on the basis of allegations and without any actual evidence of assault, then we might as well be living in Communist China or North Korea, where you never know when that knock on the door is going to come.
No one person or political party should ever have that kind of power; that is why the position of the judiciary is so vital in our democracy.
If it is the case that a criminal act has taken place, then it should be reported — promptly — to the authorities and dealt with accordingly. No one, however grand, should be above the law.
The idea that anyone at Westminster should feel unable to report a serious sexual assault for fear of it damaging their career is completely unacceptable.
It is vital that all employees, male and female, have full confidence in the police and in Parliament’s ability to punish wrongdoers.
The fact that Labour activist Bex Bailey was told to refrain from reporting her assault at the hands of a ‘senior official’ shows there is much work to be done in reassuring women that they will be taken seriously.
That said, there is such a thing as innocent until proven guilty, and that principle must remain in place regardless of the severity of the alleged crime. Indeed, the more serious the accusations, the more vital this notion is.
If there are employees at Westminster who have been criminally assaulted, let them report their experiences to the police. The CPS will then decide if there is a case to answer, and all parties will be judged in a court of law.
If, on the other hand, it is simply the case that someone has overstepped the mark, or been a little too fruity over the punch, then just grow up and deal with it.
Be fierce: tell them where to get off, put bromide in their tea, laugh at them, embarrass them in public, remind them that they have a wife and children — whatever it takes to get the message across. If that doesn’t work, file a complaint and get their wrists slapped.
These are not just rules that apply in the workplace; they apply in all areas of life. It’s just part and parcel of belonging to the human race, knowing how to handle yourself with amorous oafs.
Anne Robinson is right to say that there is no point in women having PhDs if they don’t also have common sense. And she is doubly right to add that it helps to develop a ‘ don’t- mess- withme attitude’.
Equality is not about exacting some sort of weird revenge on the opposite sex. All that amounts to is reversing the cycle of repression. Women should be better than that — we are better than that. If men and women are to survive and thrive alongside one another, we must lead by example. And that means not taking advantage of our hard-won positions of power.
Because if a world run by women is a world where every man must fear for his reputation, then I for one don’t want any part of it.