Because nothing is too on the nose for the current Conservative Party, the intro to Chris Pincher’s latest drinking column featured Uncle Monty from Withnail and I. “That crushing lunatic,” Pincher called Monty in a Critic magazine article filed in some time before he appeared to admit to drunkenly groping two younger men on Wednesday night. I wonder what Uncle Chris was saying as he chased them around the Carlton Club? “I want to have you, even if it’s a burglary!”
In reality, the dialogue was probably less iconic than any of the quoted quotes from this movie. The last time Pincher resigned over an alleged sex offense – of course there was a last time – he was accused of luring a former Olympic rower back to his home before reappearing in a bathrobe, massaging his victim’s neck and unbuttoning his shirt to him as he whispered: “You’ll go far in the Conservative Party.” Just call him Harvey Weintime.
Speaking of reaching far in the Conservative Party though, AFTER that incident Pincher was elevated to the position of Deputy Chief Whip, the whips office being naturally the place to go with your concerns about sexual misconduct by MPs and so on. All this rather begs the question: who cracks the whips? Unclear. Some sadist in Battersea, you can imagine. But if he or she is away for a week, I don’t think it would be too hard to find vacation coverage. Just walk down any British high street and ask who wants to vent some of their frustration at the way they are run.
Still, it’s great to see the government becoming the Netflix of sex scandals. Forgive me for falling back on his most nonsensical of favorite metaphors, but you have to admit that the Johnson administration is a bloated monster, deeply overvalued and built on a huge public debt that will eventually have to be collected.
For now, let’s look at the resignation letter sent to the Prime Minister by Pincher, who inevitably – but still somehow incredibly – has apparently long been nicknamed Ass Pincher. This letter to the Prime Minister is some state-of-the-art minimization. “I embarrassed myself and other people” is surely the most duplicitous way possible to say, “I am alleged to have sexually assaulted two people.” This is life, laugh, love of predatory behavior.
As is the way with these things, it wasn’t long before Pincher’s allies began tipping off that the Tamworth MP was “vulnerable”. That line was also reportedly heard at a Downing Street meeting this morning, with staff telling communications director Guto Hari to “think about how he feels today”. Right. Perhaps the boys he allegedly sexually assaulted that night were also vulnerable? Maybe they are now? Why weren’t Downing Street officials encouraged to think about how they felt first?
Probably because Pincher was a key part of Operation Save Big Dog, instrumental in the shadow crackdown that brought Tory MPs back to Johnson’s side as the Partygate revelations piled up. The Prime Minister was made aware of Pincher’s “problems” back in February when he tried to promote him as a reward for all this. Still, Johnson pressed on. Politico broke claims this morning that Pincher had been assigned a “bodyguard” to ensure he left events “without drinking too much and getting into trouble.” Where was the security guard on Wednesday night? Or maybe he groped the guard? I mean, anything seems possible.
What we can say for sure is that Pincher and those who appointed him are not the only ones in positions of power who are trying very hard to dismiss all this. As soon as the letter of resignation was released, the Prime Minister’s winged lackeys began to explain why it was good that Pincher was not whipped. I highly doubt that impunity will last longer than the time it takes me to write this paragraph, let alone all the way through lunch. But it is nonetheless crucial to understanding the situation. Always listen to this reflexive first reaction, because it tells you exactly what they’re really thinking, and by extension, why situations like this keep happening. As a Tory source explained in the immediate aftermath of Pincher’s revelations last night: “The Prime Minister feels he has done the right thing by resigning. No need for an investigation and no need to stop the whip.
Oh, I see – Boris Johnson thinks he’s done the right thing. Well, that’s really the fucking hallmark. How do other people, convicted of breaking their own laws, stand on this moral issue? How about other people trying to wrest £150,000 treehouses for toddlers from their donors? Other people who were reportedly caught in a “compromising situation” in their office with a junior colleague? Let me know what THEY think because I just need to know! I don’t think I’ll be able to fully plot this on the decency graph until I hear from every other damn sexually promiscuous person who only recognizes the word victim as a term that applies to them.
While you wait for that, listen to Welsh Secretary Simon Hart, the government’s new top lineman who has been sent in seemingly once a week to do the clean-up job after the latest scandal. Simon was on the morning show today where he explained about the Pincher horror show: “It’s not the first time and I’m afraid it won’t be the last. This happens in workplaces from time to time…”
To which the only reasonable response is: AAAAAAAAA?!?! Can you imagine if – in the last three months alone – five senior BBC figures were charged with a serious sexual offence? Can you imagine what people like Simon would say about the BBC? Or think about your own workplace. Can you imagine if five high profile figures were involved in major sex scandals since April? We’re only in July!
Hart’s line is reminiscent of that of the recent Tory candidate for Wakefield (a seat vacated when the last MP was convicted of child sexual abuse). This man went on to appear in the news with the most tear-jerking version of “one bad apple” you’re likely to hear, explaining that the public should still trust Tory MPs because Harold Shipman hasn’t made them stop they trust general practitioners.
Sorry to bring up this mind-boggling statistic again, but 56 current MPs are reportedly facing allegations of sexual misconduct. Assuming that the majority of them will be men, that’s about one in eight male MPs. Labor MPs and others will be among them, of that you can be sure – although for sheer repulsive form, no one can touch the Conservatives at the moment. And yet everything goes. Westminster is a rotten and backward place to work and nothing seriously meaningful is being done about it because the people in power actively don’t want to do anything about it and in several cases are involved in abuse themselves. What are they so fond of saying? Ah yes: “We work for you.” In that case, please consider stopping before more people get hurt.
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