The recklessness of William Wragg

Everyone makes mistakes, but they are seldom as monumental as William Wragg’s. The Tory MP has admitted handing over the phone numbers of colleagues to a man he met on Grindr, a gay dating app. The vice-chairman of the 1922 Committee said he offered up the details after sending intimate pictures of himself. Wragg deserves some credit for coming clean. ‘I was scared. I’m mortified,’ he has said. But there’s something troubling about the speed with which Wragg’s colleagues are defending him – and the insistence that he shouldn’t lose the Tory party whip.

Anyone who has worked in Westminster will feel a shard of sympathy for Wragg. This scandal is the stuff of both personal and political nightmares, and it is easy to imagine how one could stupidly respond inappropriately to a message or approach of less-than-ironclad provenance. There is sometimes too little appreciation for the frailty of human nature among our politicians, especially when we retreat behind the rampart of social media and say things we would not dream of articulating to someone’s face.