The Westminster sleaze row shows no signs of dying down with today’s papers filled with more tales of MPs behaving badly. The Telegraph warns that the Parliament sex scandal ‘could be worse than expenses’ – reporting that two female staff stopped working for a minister over claims of inappropriate behaviour. Meanwhile the Sun leads on Michael Fallon’s admission that he once touched a female journalist’s leg.
That journalist – Julia Hartley-Brewer – has since come forward to say that she does not count the incident as harassment. At the time, she told the Defence Secretary she would punch him if he touched her leg again, and he duly refrained from doing so again:
‘I have had no issues since with the man in question and do not regard the incident as anything but mildly amusing.
I believe it is absurd and wrong to treat workplace banter and flirting – and even misjudged sexual overtures – between consenting adults as being morally equivalent to serious sexual harassment or assault.’
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