Jeremy Clarke Jeremy Clarke

Lord Rennard’s hand-brushing is nothing. I’ll tell you what true violation is

'I will demonstrate to you, Jeremy, that there is infinitely greater pleasure in making love with a man than with a woman.'

[Getty Images] 
issue 22 February 2014

‘In my opinion,’ says Alistair Webster QC, author of the Liberal Democrats’ internal report into Lord Rennard’s droit de seigneur-style pulling technique, ‘the evidence of behaviour which violated the personal space and autonomy of the complainants was broadly credible.’ I’ll tell you what behaviour that violates personal space is.

I was on a Nile cruise press trip: Aswan to Luxor. We were three hacks and a woman from the PR company. We’d done Edfu, Kom Ombo, Karnak, Thebes, the Valley of the Kings. In bed at night, if I shut my eyes tightly, I could see hieroglyphics emblazoned on the insides of my eyelids.

Our last night was spent at one of Cairo’s better hotels. The other two hacks were abstemious. The PR woman was permanently on duty. Every night had been an early night. I was ready for a good drink and this looked like a good place to have one.

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