Writer Sonia Purnell was sitting in a television studio just about to go on the air when the conservative politician next to her leaned over.
And then, she says, he whispered in her ear a shocking insult to her sex life. She believes that this was intended to embarrass and confuse her just as the cameras were turning; as the author of an extremely critical biography of Boris Johnson, she is not popular with his supporters. “I wasn’t confident enough to just say ‘this guy just said THIS in my ear!’ And yes, of course, I was a little worried after that,” she recalls.
What Purnell describes is an aggressively sexualized form of undermining that many women in politics have experienced over the years. For some men, lawmakers uttered obscene language throughout the hall as they rose to speak – Labor, newly elected along with Tony Blair in 1997, was greeted by Tory MPs shouting “melons!” And gesturing to juggle breasts as they Labor Lisa Nandi recalled an MP shouting “panties!” when she went to sit with her skirt on – and others were followed by blatant slander about their sex lives. For some, it was groping or grasping.
For Angela Raynor, the Labor’s deputy leader, anonymous Tory MPs told the Mail on Sunday last week that she liked to distract Boris Johnson by shining his legs. But they are all forms of sexual shame, which clearly shows that no woman is so powerful that she cannot be immediately reduced to meat. And it is the long restrained fury created by such an attitude that finally erupted at Tuesday night’s meeting between Chief Whipper Chris Heaton-Harris and 2022, a new group of Tories set up by former Women’s Minister Maria Miller.
Tory MP Neil Parish, who resigned after being seen watching porn on his phone. Photo: John Keeble / Getty Images
Designed to discuss the detention of women in politics, it became much more cathartic after an MP accused a colleague of watching porn on his phone in the hall. The man was later publicly identified as Neil Parish, who resigned on Saturday after what he described as his “moment of madness”.
“The MP who complained, who is not purple, has not reported so far – I think she was worried about the rejection of colleagues,” said one of those present. “But that’s why disappointment passes so quickly in these meetings, because people haven’t expressed these things.”
A second woman immediately said that she also saw the MP watching porn at work. Heaton-Harris, the source said, was “absolutely stunned. We all were. I mean, I’ve heard a lot, but I couldn’t believe it. And then the locks opened.
After the story became public, International Trade Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan revealed that another former MP had nailed her to the wall and insisted she should want it because he said, “I am a powerful man.” A Labor MP has revealed that an unnamed shadow minister once told her that women want to be her friends and “men want to sleep with you”, albeit in harsher terms.
Caroline Knox, chair of the Women’s Choice and Equality Committee, said she had experienced “touching, watching, harassing” and was cool about speaking. Secrets hidden even during the Westminster outpouring after #MeToo about allegations of sexual harassment five years ago are falling apart amid fears that reforms introduced after those scandals have not kept their promises.
Although at least 56 MEPs have been notified of the new Independent Complaints and Complaints Scheme (ICGS), consumers say it is slow and bureaucratic. Although the conservative whip was removed by MP Rob Roberts for repeated and unwanted sexual assaults on a male employee and by David Warburton on charges of sexual harassment (which Warburton denies), both are still in parliament. There is irritation at what some see as a “shaky” culture in government that removes women, and deeper inter-party frustration that seems to have changed little despite years of painful revelations. Labor veteran Margaret Hodge wrote on Twitter that after 50 years of campaigning for equality in public life, “demoralized doesn’t even start to reflect how I feel.”
Labor MP Margaret Hodge has been campaigning for 50 years for equality in public life. Photo: Justin Talis / AFP / Getty Images
Parliament is not the club of violent boys it was when I started as a lobbying reporter in 1997. Female political journalists were still new to this male-dominated world, routinely accused of flirting to get stories. (One afternoon, as I was hanging out in the members’ lobby, where reporters lingered to talk to MPs in private, someone asked me if I enjoyed running the Reeperbahn, which is Hamburg’s red light district). The irony is that it is women MPs and advisers, often patronized and instructed by their own country, who have regularly proven the best sources; at least they took us seriously and didn’t stroke our knees under the table. I still remember a farcical lunch with a senior Labor member, where I kept stirring my chair out of range while he shuffled his to me. At one point, he smiled, “What are you doing dangerous?” I regretted not saying, “Have lunch with men like you.” Journalist Charlotte Edwards accused Boris Johnson himself of squeezing her thigh at lunch when he was editor of Spectator in the 1990s, something Downing Street has denied.
There were also darker moments. A woman I knew had to fight physically with a Labor MP who shared his cab at home one night. A Tory wife explained in essence how she learned which of the lowest members of her husband’s electoral association should avoid being trapped. More disturbing was drinking after working with a Whitehall source, which made me uncomfortable for reasons I couldn’t express. I shortened the evening. He was later arrested on suspicion of rape.
Then, as now, young trainees and researchers – women and young men subjected to unwanted advances by MPs – suffered the most, powerless to challenge the men on whom their future in politics depends. But for many of us, complaining seemed awkward, career-destroying, and almost as pointless as complaining about time, as it was everywhere. What I saw in Parliament looked a little different from what was happening in the newspapers, or to friends in the City, or even at the university in the 1990s, where drunken rugby boys would brandish their belongings in college bar at night. That was almost what we were expected to expect.
MP David Warburton, who removed the Tories’ whip following allegations of sexual harassment and cocaine use, which he denies. Photo: Sunday Times
Fortunately, those expectations changed until 2017, when the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment reached Westminster. Theresa May, then Prime Minister, was publicly committed to attracting women to public life and took a firm stand. Defense Secretary Michael Fallon was forced to leave after journalist Jane Merrick said he tried to kiss her. Damien Green, one of May’s oldest friends in the cabinet, resigned after an investigation by Tory activist Kate Maltby, who accused him of inappropriate advances, found that he had misled the newspapers on a previous case when his office computer porn found. A spreadsheet of supposedly “comfortable” politicians, made up of junior women from Westminster, and seniors – including then-mayor Andrea Leedsum, Labor Jess Phillips and Maria Miller – struggled to support the victims and determine what would happen to the ICGS.
But even then, not all complaints were taken seriously. A Tory MP went straight to the whips after being told that one of her male employees had sexually harassed other women and allegedly “rubbed his genitals on my phone when I was not in the office.” Although she fired him, she says now, the evidence she passed on was ignored. “He was reassigned by another Conservative MP up in the hallway, literally 50 yards from my office.”
If Westminster has a problem with women, he is hardly alone. A new scandal erupted in the music industry last week, with former Radio 1 DJ Tim Westwood facing seven separate allegations (which he denies) of sexual misconduct. Two months ago, a report found that police officers at the Charing Cross Police Station in London were joking about the rape and beating of their wives. More than a quarter of Britons had been sexually harassed at work in the previous year, according to a 2020 study by the Government’s Equality Bureau. his lack of a human resources department, perhaps just as striking are the ways in which he is similar.
The #MeToo movement against sexual harassment reached Westminster in 2017, but many are disappointed with the pace of change. Photo: Maureen McLean / REX / Shutterstock
Even watching porn in public is already surprisingly widespread: the Commission for the Choice of Women and Municipal Equality warned in 2018 that this was a “real problem” for public transport, recommending a ban. Asking around on Twitter, I heard grim stories of men openly using porn on rush hour trains (sometimes with sound) and buses, in cafes and restaurants, in classrooms at school, and even on public computers in libraries. Lord Bethel, a former Conservative science minister, told me that he had caused an intruder during his morning trip and “received a ‘whaaaaaaat’ answer” as if he had been unreasonable. But most women did not dare to object. It is unclear whether public slapping on porn is a pure normalization in the lives of some men or a more frightening form of digital flashing, deliberately designed to make women uncomfortable. But the chilling message he sends is that men can do whatever they want, wherever they want; …
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