Secretary of State for Offence

The resignation of Defence Secretary Michael Fallon for alleged sexual misconduct has left me lamenting the decline of British sex offending.  I mean, this misconduct apparently amounts to having once touched a female journalist's knee.  Really!  While across the Atlantic Harvey Weinstein has allegedly been groping breasts left, right and centre and raping his way through central casting, the best we can muster is a bit of knee fondling?  How standards have declined since the days of Jimmy Savile.  A celebrity who not only match Weinstein for alleged sexual depravities, but got way with it all during his lifetime.  Plus, he was even more physically repulsive, to boot.  But since Savile's demise, it seems that we've ceded our excellence in sex offending to the US.  Damn it, not only was Weinstein apparently emboldened enough to do some of his alleged sex offending on this side of the Atlantic, but we even had to start importing alleged celebrity sex offenders in the shape of Kevin Spacey.  What a sad state of affairs - what's the government going to do about it, I'd like to know.

What they won't do is put a three line whip on their male MPs, requiring them to commit more sex offences.  If we're to believe the rumours circulating in the press and online, the Tory benches are full of rampant sex maniacs who can't keep their hands, let alone their privates, to themselves, all of which information the whips office has supposedly been using to blackmail them into toeing the party line.  Yet, despite the parliamentary Conservative Party supposedly being a hot bed of sexual depravity, the only confirmed offence we have is some knee touching committed fifteen years ago.  Sure, there are plenty of rumours and allegations of everything up to, and including, rape, but so far nothing has broken.  Let's not forget that not so long ago there were all sorts of wild conspiracy theories involving MP peadophile rings and child murders flying around.  But now the parliamentary sex scandal has been reduced to the preposterous and pompous Fallon grabbing a reporter's knee.  On the one hand, one is left suspecting that there really is nothing to these rumours, on the other suspecting that there's a huge cover up going on, with Fallon as the sacrificial lamb, his resignation intended to assuage press and public.

Fallon's resignation does intrigue me.  Just why did he think it necessary to fall on his sword over such a relatively minor  infringement (compared to the stuff that the likes of Weinstein have been accused of)?  The obvious answer is because there is something far more serious and recent he fears will come out.  Or is it simply that he is a pompous fool who likes to think of himself as some kind of officer in fifties war movie who feels it necessary to do the 'honourable thing' after committing 'conduct unbecoming'?  Certainly, his resignation letter hints at this, with the allusion to having fallen short of the standards of behaviors expected by the military.  Although, I have to say, having , previously worked in the Ministry of Defence for many years, with much exposure to military officers and their conduct, that his knee fondling wouldn't even register in terms of what many of them would consider to be acceptable behaviour with regard to the opposite sex.  Still, whatever the reason, at least the bastard has finally gone from front line politics, which is cause for celebration.