MPs and Film Directors are not above the law,but let's try to give justice for both sides

Niall Ferguson has a good piece in The Times this week,

"Stop harassment but don't slide into secular Sharia."

He starts by pointing out that a lot of those who experienced the what was regarded in the late 20th century as sexual liberation now understand what it must have felt like to be a regency rake who lived long enough to see the Victorian era, as

"We are living through a revolution in manners not unlike the one that occurred in the second and third quarters of the 19th century. In the space of a generation, libertines became pariahs."

Ferguson enjoys a certain amount of Schadenfreude at the expense of various left-wing American men who were quoted virtue-signalling by saying how dreadfully Donald J Trump treats women and are now themselves facing credible allegations of having behaved far worse towards women than anything which has yet been proved against the current US President.

Sadly throughout history there have been people in positions of power who think that the rules do not apply to them, whether it is the rules about money, power, sex, or treating those who work for you decently.

Ferguson goes on

"I’m against sexual harassment. I condemn anyone who abuses their power in the workplace for gratification. So I am on the side of this revolution in manners. My concern is only that such revolutions have a tendency to overshoot. I wonder: do we risk sliding into a kind of secular sharia, in which all men are presumed to be sexual predators and only severe punishments can prevent routine rape? Will one-to-one work meetings between a male and a female co-worker soon be a thing of the past? What next? A more general segregation of the sexes?"

Rape is wrong. Sexual harrassment is wrong. Allegations of either should be properly and fairly investigated and anyone guilty of either brought to justice.

Let's just make sure people are actually guilty before we use either the courts of the power of social condemnation to wreck their lives

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