Another week, another arrest on suspicion of sexual assault for a member of parliament – Britain’s grimmest workplace. Even the nightclub bouncer community has been arrested fewer times this year. This week it’s Reigate MP Crispin Blunt, who resembles an off-brand Terence Stamp, and was interviewed by Surrey police for the second time this month over allegations of rape and possession of controlled substances. He denies the allegations.
With the supremely practised efficiency of an F1 pit crew, the Conservative party is once again rolling out the suspected-scumbag protocol. Blunt has had the whip withdrawn – a piece of arcane styling that always makes it sound like the person in question has merely breached some in-group etiquette – and been told to stay away from the parliamentary estate, which is physically crumbling but otherwise increasingly feels like a fine example of a bail hostel in the gothic style.
Last week, of course, it was Wellingborough MP Peter Bone losing the whip, after parliament’s independent expert panel upheld bullying accusations that had somehow taken the Conservative party years to investigate. You get the feeling its internal affairs department sees its peer group as the Mexico City police department. Motto: protect and serve yourself.
Also last week, there was a byelection in Tamworth, a seat that had been finally vacated by Tory Chris Pincher after specific groping allegations made in July 2022. Non-specific groping allegations predated those, and Boris Johnson has declined to deny he remarked “Pincher by name, pincher by nature” around the time he cheerily promoted Chris to deputy chief whip.
Maybe Johnson was right. Chris Pincher, Peter Bone … there does seem to be an element of nominative misfortune at work here. You wouldn’t be feeling too confident if you were Gavin Rapist MP. Then again, would you? He’s probably on a collision course with a mild parliamentary dressing-down sometime around the 2037 mark.
I often wonder if part of the problem is the way the political media puts these things, which often seems to be exclusively in terms of how one powerful man has caused a “headache” for an even more powerful man. Google the phrase “byelection headache” and you will see how prime ministers are forever being given this twee, low-level ailment by rascals who have simply groped some office fodder a couple of decades their junior, or got themselves imprisoned for sex offences.
It was paracetamol time again this week for Rishi Sunak. “Peter Bone gives Rishi another byelection headache,” honked the Spectator, which probably just got lost on the way to typing: “Peter Bone gives his aide PTSD, several whacks and unwanted sight of his penis.” (Peter Bone denies he gave his aide these things.)
In the past couple of years alone, “byelection headaches” have been brought on by the likes of David Warburton (sexual harassment allegations, denied, and cocaine use), Imran Ahmad Khan (convicted of sexual offences against a child) and Neil Parish (tractor porn). Sometimes headaches threaten but don’t end up coming on. In July, it was reported that another Conservative MP had not attended parliament for more than a year after being arrested for sexual offences, misconduct in a public office and more. His police bail had been extended five times but he had not been charged, and denies any wrongdoing.
Even so, given that some form of alleged sexual misconduct has been the most popular cause for forcing byelections of late, perhaps it’s time to retire the “headache” cliche. The very idea that those accused of sexual misconduct are “giving” the prime minister anything suggests it’s just a cleverly calculated means to an end. Maybe police are working on a theory that an unspecified number of men are allegedly committing sexual offences as part of an elaborate plot to erode Rishi Sunak’s parliamentary majority. Maybe they’re Manchurian creeps – groomed (politically speaking) by Boris Johnson back when he was PM, with the sole aim of being activated to destroy his successor/trap Sunak’s party in a byelection loop/give Rishi a light migraine.
Or maybe – maybe – time would be better spent establishing why this stuff keeps happening in our seat of democratic government. At this rate the UK parliament feels so degenerate, and in such a darkly farcical way, that it could easily be the subject of a South Park episode. The percentage of 650 MPs accused of deeply unpleasant things is surely miles out of whack with almost any other (legal) workplace in the country. Is it that the place and its illusions of power sexually corrupts some people, or is it that sexually corrupt people are drawn to it? Or both? Pretty horrifyingly, finding out becomes more urgent with every passing week.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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