Big Dog BJ, the Arse Pincher and the opera

Nope, it’s not the world’s worst fairytale. It’s just another week in the Westminster hellscape

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The term parliamentary whip has always struck me as a bit… iffy.

Remember that picture of Gavin Williamson posing with a leather bullwhip on his desk around the same time as he cocked up all our kids’ exam results? Grim. Still, fnarr fnarrs aside, getting whipped has always meant a very different thing in Westminster. Until now, at least.

After the last couple of weeks, few of us would be surprised to find that Williamson’s whip was less metaphorical, more a much-used prop in the Downing Street basement. I’d ask where the current Tory front bench finds time to lead between all the sex scandals – but let’s be honest. They don’t.

Before I go on, a word of warning. If you’re eating your porridge, stop reading here. Please. Take a moment. Digest. Maybe swallow a Rennie before you return. You’re going to need it. For this was the week in which two of Westminster’s biggest recent mysteries were solved, courtesy of one truly nauseating sidebar in the ever-brilliant Private Eye.

Were you still wondering why that Times yarn about Boris Johnson trying to secure a six-figure job for his then mistress, now wife, Carrie Symonds disappeared without a trace? Wonder no more. The story was removed from the paper, Private Eye alleges, after Downing Street officials suffered “a Friday night attack of the ab-dabs”, not over the suggestion of nepotism, you understand, but over the ‘baseless fear’ it would reveal how the couple’s extramarital affair was discovered – namely, by one Gavin Williamson MP allegedly walking in on Carrie performing oral sex on Johnson, then foreign secretary, as he reclined on his office sofa. BJ by name, etc. At least now we can stop pondering why the utterly inept Williamson was given a knighthood…

What’s particularly bewildering about this whole sordid tale is the absolute lack of attention it has drawn. Not one headline. Not one front page story. Some pointed giggles on Twitter, sure, but no pearl clutching in the rags whatsoever. It didn’t even make the sidebar of shame, which recently dedicated acres of column inches to tutting at Angela Rayner’s ‘suggestive’ leg crossing. Matt Hancock’s extramarital snog in the stationary cupboard released merry hell after it was caught on CCTV (let’s all pray there was no camera in Boris’ office), eventually prompting his resignation. Hell, this is a country that dragged Diane Abbott MP over hot coals for enjoying a canned mojito on a train. But BJ’s BJ? Not a whisper.

Perhaps the story would have gained more traction had it not been for the latest whip to misunderstand his job title, one Chris Pincher. The deputy chief whip moved the scandal spotlight on quickly when he resigned this week after admitting he drunkenly “embarrassed himself and other people” – a funny way to admit to groping the men you work with, which is what he’s accused of having done at a Conservatve members club in London on Wednesday.

The last time Pincher resigned for alleged sexual misconduct – yes, you read that right – it was for allegedly coming onto a bewildered former Olympic rower, massaging his neck while whispering “You’ll go far in the Conservative party.” Excuse me a second, I just need to be sick in my wastepaper bin.

Boris was, apparently, warned about the conduct of the man nicknamed Arse Pincher before he appointed him to the office in charge of controlling MPs behaviour. Yet it’s claimed he went ahead anyway because Pincher had played such a key role in Operation Big Dog. That’s right, the whipping operation created to save Johnson’s skin 99 sackable offences ago during Partygate.

Meanwhile, in this week’s latest operation to save Big Dog’s reputation, the man himself was jetting around Europe following a quick jaunt to the government’s new gaffe in Rwanda, undoing his shirt buttons and having plane-measuring contests (again, no really) with fellow G7 and NATO leaders. The timing was incredibly convenient.

His absence left Dominic Raab, a man of no discernible talent but very high self-esteem, to wink his way through Prime Minister’s questions with a jolly combo of misogyny and classicism. What a pair! Raab didn’t waste any time dwelling on the antics of the sexually incontinent cabinet – he was far too busy berating Labour’s Angela Rayner for getting above her station and attending an OPERA! At GLYNDBORNE! Where she drank non-socialist CHAMPAGNE! I mean, how very dare she.

Later, on the Tory backbenches, we had evangelistic underachiever Danny Kruger revealing that he would “probably disagree” with members concerned about the US Supreme Court decision to remove women’s constitutional right to abortion. “They think that women have an absolute right to bodily autonomy in this matter, whereas I think in the case of abortion that right is qualified by the fact that another body is involved,” he mused, under a barrage of heckling. Kudos to the Labour MPs who shouted him down without finding themselves on the wrong side of Westminster’s rules. Watching on from home, the only words I could find were four-letter ones...

In the meantime, in case it wasn’t all feeling hopeless enough, parliament’s procedural committee was busy ruling that babies be forbidden from the Commons chamber, overturning previous custom and flying in the face of many more progressive parliaments globally. It’s hard to say what that ruling means for many of Johnson’s illustrious front-benchers - insert your big baby jokes here - but for an enraged Stella Creasy, whose attendance in parliament with her own newborn in a carrier sparked the whole sorry debate, it was yet another example of how inhospitable parliament is to women.

“This decision will not affect me,” she sighed. “Both my children are now too old to sit quietly so I can speak, but it speaks volumes about how determined some are to send the message that mothers are not welcome unless they pretend their children don’t exist.”

Her conclusion? The ruling “reinforces the impression Westminster isn’t a 21st-century workplace, but a rarefied debating club for the elite.”

The elite, meanwhile? Well, it’s worth remembering that 56 of them are still reportedly under investigation for sexual misconduct, even after Pincher’s resignation. He’s the fifth Tory to go for sexual misconduct in recent months, with last week’s two by-elections prompted by one MP’s in parliament porn viewing and another’s actual sexual assault on a minor and subsequent jailing. I guess the elite is going to keep eliting.

But someone really needs to run a refresher course on what those whips are actually for, before more people get hurt…

Are you still shocked by the antics emerging from Westminster? I’d love to hear your thoughts…