Why can’t sex-text MP just say sorry?

To HIs former Harvard contemporaries and fellow Conservative MPs, brooks Newmark seemed to have it all. A happily married fatherof-four, the self-made millionaire had just been made Minister for Civil society.

then his world collapsed overnight after the 56- year- old was caught sending explicit pictures of himself in a sting by a red top newspaper.

He thought he had been sex-texting a young female tory activist; in fact it was a male undercover reporter.

It subsequently transpired he’d also been conducting a two-year affair with a young woman, also bombarding her with naked pictures.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of the entrapment he was clearly a licentious idiot — and the last person who should have been lecturing britain about a civil society.

Yet fast forward seven weeks and guess what? Newmark claims that he is the real victim of the whole sordid affair. In an interview for his local paper he says he feels ‘mentally raped’ and ‘violated’ by the trauma of his public humiliation.

What an outrageous and offensive thing to say — not least to the genuine victims of sexual assault.

despi t e his education and privilege, Newmark was little more than a pathetic middle-aged man who was solely responsible for his own downfall.

the only real victims are his wife and children, whose l i ves have been turned upside down by his AFTER the Philae robot landed on a comet 300 million miles away, the project was said to be ‘one giant leap’ for European co-operation. A fitting metaphor for the EU indeed — it took ten years to get there, cost £1.1 billion, no one’s quite sure what it’s for . . . and it fell over on landing. reckless stupidity. And they could surely have done without him airing his delusional grievances so publicly. Newmark went on to blame his behaviour on depression, which he suggested was linked to a relapse of the anorexia he suffered in his teens.

WHILE I have every sympathy for those battling ment a l illness, is there nothing he will not dredge up to try to excuse his deplorable behaviour? It’s the same with every politician and celebrity who’s caught lying or cheating: they seem incapable of accepting responsibility for their actions and saying sorry.

Instead of this sob story, Newmark should have just apologised unreservedly and left it at that. If he’d had the courage to admit he had behaved like an utter fool and hurt and humiliated his family then he might just earn their forgiveness.

Instead we have the self-pity of a foolish man who believes he’s the victim. It’s as unedifying as Newmark’s original naked selfies.