Very dishonourable members: Profumo, politics and six decades of sexual sleaze

For some men – and it is always men – political power comes hand in hand with sexual entitlement. These are the men who will trot out that line about power being an aphrodisiac, and yet are unaware that it more often applies to their own libidos than to those they pursue. The place to find these men is, of course, in Westminster, and there does not seem to be a building (or even a room) there in which some form of sexual contact – often non-consensual – has not occurred.

The latest reported episode in what is a depressingly long history is that which is alleged to have happened in 10 Downing Street itself a decade ago between the television producer Daisy Goodwin, and current London mayoral hopeful Daniel Korski. Ms Goodwin says that Mr Korski put a hand on her breast at the end of a meeting – an act that would constitute sexual assault. Mr Korski utterly denies this, to which Ms Goodwin responded on the Today programme on Wednesday morning with the words: “Well, I could say, he would say that, wouldn’t he?”

Ms Goodwin was of course channelling the famous courtroom utterance of Mandy Rice-Davies, the model and showgirl whose name – along with that of her friend Christine Keeler – will be forever associated with the daddy of all cases of Westminster sexual sleaze, the Profumo Affair of the early 1960s.

One might have thought that over the past 60 years, politicians would have learned from the lesson of Profumo, involving as it did the secretary of state for war having extramarital sex with a woman who was also sleeping with the Soviet naval attaché. That case ended up with the same minister losing his seat and reputation for lying to the House and, bolted on for good measure, the trial and suicide of a society osteopath who was accused of living off the earnings of the prostitution of Keeler and Rice-Davies. The whole sordid affair is widely thought to have deeply contributed to the defeat of the Conservative government in the 1964 general election.

And yet despite the cataclysmic fallout, the spectre of Profumo has been ignored for decades by so very many politicians, as well as those who work with them. How else can one explain the fact that as of April last year, 56 MPs had been reported to parliament’s Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme for alleged sexual misconduct?

The pattern of most of these cases is wearily familiar. Typically a member of parliament, perhaps well-oiled, decides that it is a good idea to make a pass at a woman – or man – half his age, and who probably works for him. The approach is usually crass at best, and at worst, involves some unsolicited sexual contact. It matters little if the advance is rebuffed, because our mighty politician, so sure is he of the aphrodisiacal nature of his position, believes that the object of his attentions will succumb. Perhaps she or he will, but if they do, the whole episode will still feel like some form of abuse.

If a complaint is made – and thankfully it is now much easier for victims of politicians’ sexual misconduct to bring them – the MP will typically deny everything, until the moment when he is ordered by his chief whip to pose in front of his gate with his wife and children, who are standing by him despite everything.

And even if the sex has been consensual, the fallout from an affair often both damages the politician and his party. Who can forget the derision heaped upon the likes of Paddy “Pants Down” Ashdown, David “Chelsea football shirt” Mellor, Matt “CCTV bottom fondle” Hancock, or Ron “In the bushes with the badgers” Davies?

Never mind that some of the lurid details of these affairs may have largely been the products of tabloid editors – being a parliamentary sleaze bag is not a great look no matter the specifics.

The sense of sexual entitlement felt by male politicians may also stem from the fact that their antecedents often got away with it.

In times of less press scrutiny, the likes of David Lloyd George – nicknamed “the Goat” – were able to conduct numerous liaisons, some of which were apparently consummated in the cabinet room. Lord Palmerston was said to have enjoyed the company of a housemaid on a billiard table, while there have always been eyebrows raised at Gladstone’s work with “fallen women”.

The Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe may well have got away with hiding his homosexuality had the notorious story of an incompetent canine-slaying Welsh hitman not emerged. And how today would the public react to someone like Sir Eyre Coote, the MP for Barnstaple, who in 1815 was found to have paid the schoolboys of Christ’s Hospital to flagellate him, and yet was not expelled from parliament?

It would be cheering to hope that parliament is cleaning up its act, and that finally MPs will be mindful of the ghost of Profumo. But such optimism seems misplaced. By their very nature, politicians are risk takers and egotists, and such personality types often crave not just being in office, but also in hotel rooms on quiet Thursday afternoons.