There was a very good reason why Huw Edwards didn’t deliver his own statement yesterday: he was in hospital with mental health issues.
So it fell to his wife, Vicky Flind, to do it instead on his behalf.
It was once the custom when a Conservative MP was found to have engaged in sexual misdemeanours — and formerly these things happened with astonishing frequency — for his wife to appear with him before the press, standing by as he expressed his remorse.
This time it’s the wife who’s issuing the statement in her own right, as you might expect from a distinguished TV producer.
But the principle is the same. We all feel instinctively that if anyone has the right to give Huw Edwards a hard time, it’s his wife. If she, knowing him as she does, can stand by him, who are we to torment him? Sympathy for her, the mother of his five children, tempers the lynching instinct.
It’s a humiliating position for any wife, but Flind says: “I am doing this primarily out of concern for his mental well-being and to protect our children.”
That commands respect.
Moreover, she has identified the critical issue: Huw Edwards isn’t a well man. As she observed: “Huw is suffering from serious mental health issues. As is well documented, he has been treated for severe depression in recent years.”
That changes things. It puts his alleged conduct into the context of mental illness, and nowadays we’re far more sensitive to the implications than we once were.
She’s a brave woman, Vicky Flind. But she’s also adopted the one strategy in this ghastly situation that elicits public sympathy rather than more outrage.
