A PERFECT emerald is as rare as a truly attractive man. The man who attempted to kiss me was not a diamond. On a pimple-infested scalp, his hair formed a slimy cap.
His hyena breath smelled like cheap champagne, and his eyes were pallid and protruding like a fish’s belly.
In Buenos Aires, he had me pinned against a lift door. I recall thinking, with revulsion, that his tie was made of polyester as he pressed up against me. I was 23 and he was a married Tory MP in his 50s.
I kicked him in the groyne (he cried like a hog) and fled to the sanctuary of my room, searching for and discovering a surprise bugle of courage in my blood.
His attempts to entice me continued despite the lack of a laser light of sensitivity. He started ringing my phone nonstop at nearly midnight, threatening to break down the door if I didn’t let him in.
He kept his word, or at least attempted to. He must have slammed into something.
This unsavoury episode occurred while I was a young journalist in the early 1990s. The past is meant to be a different country. There, things are done differently. Yet it feels more like Groundhog Day to me.
A Tory MP was arrested on suspicion of rape this week, and Labour MPs have been accused of wrongdoing in the past year, though it appears to be a Tory province. (Charlie Elphicke, a former Conservative MP, was released in September after completing half of a two-year term for sexual assault.)
Sexual misconduct allegations have been levelled against 53 MPs and three Cabinet ministers.
The Conservative who assaulted me wasn’t acting alone.
I would have looked like a porcupine if I had as many pricks sticking out of me as the people who were proposing to me.
My father, former MP Woodrow Wyatt, had lately been promoted to the House of Lords. I was constantly in contact with politicians back then.
While their behaviour was usually restrained, it was occasionally out of the ordinary. I was frequently approached by married men my father’s age.
One Conservative politician offered a threesome in Paris. The Ritz was mentioned, but even The Ritz couldn’t make the concept more enticing.
Then there was the Tory peer who called my father after meeting me at my parents’ house, where I was living at the time. My father pointed out that the peer was married, an image of mildness and tolerance.
I should add that the 1990s were characterised by a frenzied sexual avarice that made London look like a sparkling bordello at times.
Girls would come and go. No one asked many questions, and there was an unwritten rule about making a complaint or seeking restitution. Over protests or scenes, good-natured tolerance was preferred.
Young women were divided into two groups: those who excelled at sports and those who refused to participate. Blacklists were created for the latter.
Despite being a “good egg,” I couldn’t get the memories of my time in Argentina out of my head, and weeping insomnia became my bedfellow.
When I returned to London, I sought the protection and sympathy of the trip’s organiser.
He listened to my narrative with bushy eyebrows rising and falling like eagle wings, a decent man with a joyful smile.
Despite listening, he was unable to realise my distress. It seemed as if I was conversing with him in a long-forgotten and archaic language.
I remember feeling sorry for the old man as he rejected everything as “high jinks.” “I had a little too much champagne.” “A miscommunication.”
I refrained from pointing out that there is little space for misinterpretation when a man has a girl pinned against a wall and she is kicking him between his legs.
I conceded defeat and let it go. Doors were opened as a result. It was a little like Hollywood, only no one resembled Cary Grant. Nonetheless, the see-saw had tipped and power had been transferred.
My vision was blurred and gilded in other places.
I was advised that if I had political ambitions and wanted to become a Conservative MP, the process would be easier because I was “a good sport.”
Women like myself were desperately needed by the Conservative Party. After months of deliberation, I concluded that I did not require the Conservative Party.
However, it would be inaccurate to characterise these men as moral degenerates. It was a different period. This was the era when a man had the right to try, even if it meant breaking down your door.
I’m sure there were other young women like mine who shied away from penetrating this hideous ruse.
Running the gauntlet of grabbing, sweaty hands was the norm at Tory party conferences. There was a sense of humour about it all at times. Conservative wives are nothing like Sienna Miller in Netflix’s Anatomy Of A Scandal, which is about a rape-accused MP.
They have a strong resemblance to Lotte Lenya.
Women who work are generally worse. They have the appearance of Soviet tank corps commanders.
Westminster, in reality, is devoid of beauty. When a passably pretty young lady enters its circle, MPs act as if she is a combination of Ava Gardner, Cleopatra, and Mata Hari. However, the underlying issue is one of culture.
Many MPs are oblivious to the fact that what was once acceptable is now unacceptable in the twenty-first century.
Harvey Weinstein, #MeToo, and the re-calibration of adult sexual relationships appear to have slipped past them, while the idea that the public and the media hold MPs to greater standards of behaviour leaves many as deaf as a concertgoer.
There is only one honest urge at the heart of these movements, and that is to penalise those who have a higher capacity for happiness and drag them down a notch or two, preferably in public.
There are, however, certain drawbacks. When I hear about young women and men working as MPs researchers being harassed — sexual or otherwise — I can’t help but laugh.
As I reflect on my own youth, I consider myself fortunate. My father was well-known and well-connected, a fortunate turn of events that rescued me from worse humiliations than the ones I’ve recounted, as well as situations that may have led to the horror of actual rape.
He began looking for a female companion elsewhere after that. But this begs the question of what would have happened if I had no connections and was of even less consequence.
Consider the typical young lady who works as a researcher for an MP. Their ages range from 21 to 27 and they are green from university.
Individual MPs choose them rather than the House of Commons, who also set their meagre wages and have the only right to fire them.
An uneven and unethical environment is immediately created. One 23-year-old female researcher recently told me that her married boss was “always asking me out, and I’m afraid to decline in case he doesn’t give me a raise or fires me.”
MPs govern individuals who work for them in a way that mediaeval nobles controlled their indentured servants.
Westminster, unwittingly, maintains a casting couch mindset. It also doesn’t help that MPs frequent the Commons’ numerous pubs, sometimes in the company of persons they are supposed to safeguard.
I experience guilt on sometimes. In the wee hours of the morning, I’ve feared that my quiet has made me complicit; that women like me, who had the power, have become complicit.
Maybe I’m being too harsh on myself. It is no longer to be borne, as Scarlett O’Hara exclaims in Gone With The Wind. Caliban must confront himself in the mirror, and Westminster must clean up its act.
The Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Lindsay Hoyle, recognises this with foresight and is exploring protections to protect the young people who work there. According to the proverb, opportunity makes the thief.
For far too long, many members of Parliament have thought of themselves as god-like, superior beings. Gentlemen, it’s time to summon Gotterdammerung.
The gods’ twilight has arrived.
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