Westminster sex scandal can take down May government

On the evening of the 2001 general election, my parents made the 32 km journey from Ayrshire to Glasgow in order to witness at first hand their son being elected as a member of Parliament. They sat patiently for hours, denying themselves their precious cigarettes — that’s how much they wanted to be there. When I made my acceptance speech, I had never in my life seen such pride on their faces. Eight years later, my dad, now a widower, fell into a conversation with a stranger on a train, who asked him what his son did. “I didn’t want to tell him you were an MP,” he told me.

And as each day brings yet more revelations of inappropriate, lecherous behaviour by MPs and ministers, a new but familiar cloud has descended on the bars and tea rooms of Westminster. Many of those now serving as MPs were not around eight years ago and cannot imagine the deep and profound dread that prevailed at the time.

Political parties are now insisting that they take allegations of sexual impropriety seriously. They are lying. Because they are being spurred into action not because they have only just been made aware of ministers’ and MPs’ appalling behaviour but because it is being reported publicly and they wish to minimise political damage.

By 2009, we all knew how the allowance system could be exploited to maximum financial benefit; it is simply inconceivable that party whips had no knowledge of Sir Michael Fallon’s touchy-feely tendencies towards women until last week. We already know that when young Labour activist Bex Bailey made a complaint about the assault against her by a senior Labour figure, she was told by a party official to keep quiet about it.

Westminster has always been full of gossip and reports about this or that minister or MP known to be “handsy”. The bad news for Prime Minister Theresa May is that even though this current scandal affects all the main parties, the music has stopped while she, and no one else, is holding the parcel. In 2009 the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, already under intense criticism from his own side for his stewardship of the government, became the chief casualty of the expenses scandal. Yes, many of the more headline-grabbing claims had been made by Conservatives, but it was Labour that was in charge when everything kicked off.

Had the government been perceived as being master of its own destiny at the time, with a clear set of ambitions and achievements to its name, the corroding effects of the scandal would have been more equally spread among the parties. But when a ship is already seen as rudderless, its direction confused and uncertain, that’s when “events”, once they hove into view, start to resemble icebergs. For Brown, the scandal could not have come at a worse time; it reinforced the public’s view that here was a man with no agenda of his own, other than to be prime minister, a man who had been a part of the establishment — and therefore part of the problem — for more than a decade.

No one can seriously doubt that May is genuinely disappointed in her male colleagues’ behaviour, nor that she is willing to swing the axe if necessary to remove those who have been exposed as lacking the skills or ability for dealing courteously and professionally with the opposite sex. Yet, as with Brown eight years ago, these revelations have occurred at the worst possible time for the prime minister. With a united Cabinet and a minimum of infighting, with a clear vision of what Brexit will mean and what it will look like, the government might have weathered this storm with equanimity, offering confidence to observers that this challenge, like other serious ones, would be efficiently dealt with.

Instead, one mini reshuffle later, and with the prospect of plenty more revelations to come, May looks increasingly at the mercy of events, not the master of them. However unlikely it might seem, this scandal could sink the Government.

— The Telegraph Group Limited, London, 2017

Tom Harris is a columnist and former Scottish Labour Party leader.