On Sunday, Diane Abbott made the startling claim on a BBC radio programme that Boris Johnson liked ‘assaulting women’. It would be absurd, of course, to argue that Mr Johnson is a faultless animal of unimpeachable probity. We have seldom in the past century had a Prime Minister whose faults have been so numerous and glaring.
But if other politicians were alive today, how would the whole camorra of professional liberals and puritans treat them? Take George Washington. He was the richest man in the United States, a land grabber and an exploiter. He knew more profanity than scripture, despised the common people and took no interest in morality. Lord Melbourne said ‘damn politics’ and enjoyed spanking women. Pitt the Younger had questionable sexual tastes and was a drunken spendthrift.
Inhabiting the world today, none of these men would be eligible for political office.
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