Sex, lies and videotape – it’s all in a day’s work at Pestminster
Porn in the Commons. Sexual misconduct. Angela Rayner's 'Basic Instinct ploy'. The message is clear – the UK parliament has become a treehouse with a 'No girls allowed' sign nailed to the door...
Hello, happy Sunday, and welcome to this, the first weekly newsletter from The Flock with Jennifer Crichton. Just a reminder that you can support the work that goes into this newsletter, and access all manner of extra columns, interviews, audio content and conversation, by becoming a paid subscriber.
My husband works for a graphic design company, in a team that takes dull, dry financial documents and makes them look less like dull, dry financial documents.
One day, a junior member of staff on image-searching duties caused huge hilarity by suddenly finding her screen full of topless men. She’d been looking for construction images. She got an unintentional Diet Coke break.
She was mortified, the story goes, beaming with embarrassment at her accidental and very mild foray into NSFW territory in front of all her colleagues. Today, the team still collapses at the mere mention of a hard hat…
I was thinking about that innocent wee bit of office banter this week when the MP caught watching porn on his phone in the House of Commons chamber claimed he stumbled upon it while looking at tractors. Twice. I was thinking about that young woman’s horror and what it tells us about her workplace. I was thinking about what the MP in question’s absolute audacity tells us about his.
“You are going to get people that step over the line,” Neil Parish said earlier this week, downplaying the furore on live TV as though he had no idea who the culprit was. Two days later, that same Neil Parish, MP for Tiverton and Honiton, chair of the Commons DEFRA committee and grandfather of two, turned himself in to the Commons Standards Committee only after two female witnesses lodged formal complaints about his viewing party. His wife found out when she was doorstepped by reporters. He hung on another day before eventually resigning.
This would all be horrifying enough were it an isolated incident, a “very small minority” of men who behave “like animals” as Attorney General Suella Braverman suggested this week. But it really isn’t.
Every few years, Westminster insists something must be done about misogyny and sexual misconduct in its hallowed halls. We’ve written and re-written this script many times already. In 2017, we made it an epic, with 36 MPs accused of misconduct. MP Damian Green was sacked as a minister for lying about porn found on his Commons computer. Most of those shamed remain MPs, of course. Still right honourable gentleman.
Following that particular tranche of Pestminster headlines, an independent grievance process was established. Everyone went back to their desks. We were supposed to think the matter had been dealt with – culture change, tick! But over the last week, under the scaffolding of a Westminster already under renovation, the misogyny-meter once again blew a gasket.
Look, there’s the shadow cabinet minister accused of making sexually inappropriate remarks about a female Welsh MP! See that guy carrying a box of desk supplies? That’s the MP forced to quit following conviction for a sexual offence against a minor! Look all around – there are 56 other MPs, including three cabinet members, under investigation for sexual harassment here. How many can you spot?
Predictably, as happens every time, a series of government spokespeople have been rolled out to blame the “intense” working environment – “Long hours, hard-working, late bars” as Defence Secretary Ben Wallace put it – as though that’s some sort of excuse. Frankly, with all this porn-watching and harassing to do, it’s a wonder these MPs have the time to do any hard work or late night drinking at all. And I thought men were meant to be shit at multi-tasking…
Amid stiff competition (sorry), perhaps the most eye-catching of the week’s scandals was this yarn about Labour Deputy Leader Angela Rayner. A masterclass in Daily Mail misogyny and snobbery, the story featured accusations from an anonymous MP that Rayner used a very particular tactic to throw prime minister Boris Johnson “off his stride” at PMQs – namely, crossing and uncrossing her legs in a game of distraction dubbed the ‘Basic Instinct ploy’.
Now I know what you’re thinking – but no, at this point there’s no evidence the MP in question was sitting behind Neil Parish and merely got confused. No, this bravely unnamed representative of the people insists it was definitely Ms Rayner he saw being suggestively in possession of legs.
“She knows she can’t compete with Boris’s Oxford Union debating training, but she has other skills which he lacks,” he told the paper ‘mischievously’.
The sordid story goes on to explain how “comprehensive-educated Rayner, 41, a socialist grandmother who left school at 16 while pregnant and with no qualifications before becoming a care worker, has frequently landed blows on the prime minister during sparky – some say flirty – exchanges.”
With all this porn-watching and harassing to do, it’s a wonder these MPs have the time to do any hard work or late night drinking at all…
There’s a lot to unpack in there, but it takes a particular sort of person – I’m looking at you, political editor Glen Owen – to run with a veiled slight against care workers in the same week as the government was found to have acted unlawfully by discharging Covid-positive patients into their care at the start of the pandemic. That’s right, the same pandemic the government partied through. But let’s not digress…
Teenage pregnancy. Comprehensive school. Socialist. Flirty. It’s all in there, isn’t is? It might as well say ‘Look at the mouthy woman who got above her station by distracting the boys. Shouldn’t she be at home on the council estate, eating Pot Noodles bought with her benefits cheque?’
One might suggest Rayner could just wear trousers and nip the problem in the bud. But on the evidence of last week – yes, there’s more – she’d only be dragged over hot coals for that too. Just look at the roasting MP Stella Creasey got for having the audacity to dress casually in the chamber. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t ladies.
Ironically, what all of this tells us is that if we want culture change in Westminster, we need to change the people who are part of the culture. We need more women. We need more people from marginalised backgrounds. We need more care workers, more mothers, more grandmothers – more people, frankly, who would not tell bold-faced lies on live television after somehow managing to get a naked woman muddled up with a piece of farming equipment.
But who’d want to be a female MP right now? It’s almost as if, by making the Commons too unbearable to enter, these inadequate, entitled men know they’ll get to keep it to themselves. The UK’s seat of power has become a treehouse with a ‘No girls allowed’ sign nailed to the door.
Still, at least we don’t have to attend their parties, right?
Would you be willing to stand for election? What do you think should be done to tackle Westminster’s culture issues? I’d love to hear your thoughts…
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry reading this article. I thought you captured perfectly what the Daily Mail journalist probably wanted to write about Angela Rayner: "Look at the mouthy woman who got above her station by distracting the boys. Shouldn’t she be at home on the council estate, eating Pot Noodles bought with her benefits cheque?"
Answering your question, I would seriously consider running for office and I'm not put off by the misogyny. It's prevalent across society. What I do find offputting is the prospect of dealing with all those Old Etonian/ Oxford boorish types. I'm getting flashbacks of scenes from "Anatomy of a Scandal" just thinking about this. Gruesome. But I won't let this put me off and may yet run for office.