Last week, Conservative MP Peter Bone* was suspended from Parliament for six weeks, as punishment for bullying and sexual misconduct. He lost the Tory Whip (oh no, it’s going to be one of those pieces, isn’t it?), even though he’s been a long-standing Conservative member (told you) since 2005.
Also last week, the Tory MP for Reigate, Crispin Blunt, was arrested on suspicion of rape and possession of controlled substances. If a week is a long time in politics, to paraphrase Lady Bracknell (an obvious Tory if ever I saw one):
‘To lose one Tory MP, Mr Sunak, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness’.
Should you not be up to date with British politics, this is obviously an unusual occurrence; most weeks there are far more sexual miscreants than just two.
Take the Conservatives for example (please take them, I don’t bloody want them):-
Boris Johnson*; Chris Pincher*; Damian Green; Charlie Elphicke; Neil Parish (who was looking at tractors on his phone when the page oh so accidentally downloaded porn. Twice); Andrew Griffiths; Rob Roberts; Tory advisor Daniel Korski;
and Labour MPs Geraint Davies and Mike Hill.
And that’s only during this Parliament.
That list doesn’t include the Tory MP/s arrested on suspicion of rape, by-the-way, subsequently also suspended from the Commons, but whose name/s have been kept from the public domain.
As Abraham Lincoln probably didn’t say (mis-attributed quotes abound in this area, such as “I’ve got Parliamentary privilege, so get your knickers off.” Allegedly. *coughs*):
“You can feel all the people some of the time and some of the people all the time, but you cannot feel all the people all the time.”
(Or should that be ‘fool all the people’? Hard to tell with a Conservative administration).
Anyway, let’s get down to basics (as the Minister said to the highly attractive, 36DD SPAD**): the entire Westminster environment is conducive to un-Parliamentary activity, with everyday jargon encompassing the terms ‘oral questions’, ‘pairing’, the ‘naming of a member’, ‘all-party groups’, ‘maiden speeches’ (usually “put those trousers back on NOW!”), and ‘mass debates’. And that’s not even taking into consideration the House of Lords, where daily bishop-bashing is de rigeur.
For those tractor aficionados, like the disHonourable Member, Neil Parish, there is little hope, since the machines are graded on their horizontal clearance, speed, ease of handling, and quality of seed drill. [Look, I’m only the messenger here. Kindly direct your complaints to the management.]
As for Sex in the City’s Carrie, Westminster has its very own variety; married to a former PM, obsessed with fashion, gold wallpaper, (other people’s) money no object in the pursuit of getting what she wants. She, too, ended up with her own Mr Big – albeit ‘Big’ in this case referring to his ego and/or belly. (So refreshing to have the choice).
Well, I’ve just checked today’s news, and currently – it’s quarter to three on Monday afternoon – no MPs of any variety have been suspended from Parliament.
Though on the other hand, there don’t appear to be many MPs left to suspend.
*Great example of Nominative Determinism
** SPAD = Special Advisor / 36DD = enormous knockers (And every MP has their knockers, some of them sitting on top of tractors. Apparently).
*
Read my piece on the recent by-election losses for the hapless Tories in Central Bylines!
Notes From Cuckoo Island 
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