Sexual harrassment is wrong whoever does it.
All allegations of sexual harrassment should be carefully investigated. Some - of the allegations currently doing the rounds which appear to involve MPs and party officials of most if not all major parties are extremely serious and should be matters for the police.
If there is a culture at Westminster in which MPs, peers, or any other senior officials think the rules do not apply to them, that needs to stop, and it must be made quite clear that the rules - both the criminal law, parliamentary and employers' codes of conduct, and the normal standards of decency - apply to everyone.
Sexual harrasment is wrong whoever does it, whichever party they are in, and I don't think any party is in a good position to score political points on this issue.
But it should surely be possible to stamp out genuine abuses - and it does appear that there is enough evidence of genuine abuses to warrant a proper and open-minded inquiry - without going on a fishing expedition into people's private lives on matters which are not sexual harrassment or anyone else's business, and without forgetting the rule that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty. Or the principle of double jeopardy.
At least one of the supposed "victims" named in the infamous spreadsheet has vehemently denied in the strongest terms that her employer ever treated her other than completely professionally and written that she was never subjected to sexual harrassment or assault of any kind.
Another pair of names on the spreadsheet are two MPs who have been in a consensual relationship, neither of whom is married to or cheating on anyone else. This kind of relationship is, quite frankly, nobody else's business and has no place in any story about sexual harrassment or abuse.
Another entry appears to be a rehash of an allegation for which a tabloid newspaper was successfully sued six years ago and had to pay out a five figure sum in libel damages.
In taking action against the guilty we must be careful not to smear the names of the innocent.
If there is a culture at Westminster in which MPs, peers, or any other senior officials think the rules do not apply to them, that needs to stop, and it must be made quite clear that the rules - both the criminal law, parliamentary and employers' codes of conduct, and the normal standards of decency - apply to everyone.
Sexual harrasment is wrong whoever does it, whichever party they are in, and I don't think any party is in a good position to score political points on this issue.
But it should surely be possible to stamp out genuine abuses - and it does appear that there is enough evidence of genuine abuses to warrant a proper and open-minded inquiry - without going on a fishing expedition into people's private lives on matters which are not sexual harrassment or anyone else's business, and without forgetting the rule that an accused person is innocent until proven guilty. Or the principle of double jeopardy.
At least one of the supposed "victims" named in the infamous spreadsheet has vehemently denied in the strongest terms that her employer ever treated her other than completely professionally and written that she was never subjected to sexual harrassment or assault of any kind.
Another pair of names on the spreadsheet are two MPs who have been in a consensual relationship, neither of whom is married to or cheating on anyone else. This kind of relationship is, quite frankly, nobody else's business and has no place in any story about sexual harrassment or abuse.
Another entry appears to be a rehash of an allegation for which a tabloid newspaper was successfully sued six years ago and had to pay out a five figure sum in libel damages.
In taking action against the guilty we must be careful not to smear the names of the innocent.
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