How the left views Ken Clarke
A propos the Ken Clarke furore in which he appeared to denigrate the seriousness of rape, it is amusing to see the knots in which some of our more enlightened friends are tying themselves up. As illustrated by Andy McSmith of the Independent speaking on the Today programme this morning, certain progressive folk are horrified that one of their own -- for so they see Calamity Ken, whose Conservative affiliation can be forgiven because his pro-Europe, socially liberal views allow him to be accepted as a human being – has got himself into such a mess.
Thus McSmith defended Ken as an all-round good egg, while carefully saying that his remarks yesterday had been ‘pretty bad’ -- and had provided ammunition, moreover, for the ‘nasty party’ (horrors!) who were rejoicing in his difficulties (but who by definition were also critical of Ken's ‘pretty bad remarks’, just like McSmith. Got that?).
Memo to the enlightened ones: being soft on serious crime means being soft on rape too -- duh! Of course they can’t process this, because left-wing shibboleths are in direct collision here with feminist shibboleths: the unspeakable versus the uneatable.
McSmith should have read the piece in this morning’s Indie by his colleague, Christina Patterson, who (until her last paragraph) showed herself refreshingly free from feminist cant by stating what should be obvious:
But what he did think, which I'd have thought anyone except a madman, or a Miliband, would think, is that some sex crimes are more serious than others...But I'm pretty sure that sex with someone you had sex with earlier, and who was probably planning to have sex with you again, when you're on a date, and lying naked in bed next to them, without violence, is not as serious as forced sex with a stranger... To say that one is more serious than the other doesn't mean that the other isn't serious. It's quite hard to see how anyone, except a fundamentalist, could think it could.
Then in the last par she went and spoiled it:
The real scandal, when it comes to rape, is that only 6 per cent of rapes reported to the police end in a conviction. This is precisely the injustice that Ken Clarke was trying to address.
Ah – all men are guilty after all, if their accuser is a woman. Oh dear. What was that about fundamentalists?
Ken Clarke and I go to prison...
I am due to appear on BBC TV’s Question Time this evening, which is taking place in Wormwood Scrubs prison in London. Through amazingly prescient planning, my fellow panellists include the embattled Justice Secretary Ken Clarke, who will have another chance to enlighten us about his views on the seriousness of rape, as well as the Labour politician Jack Straw and Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty.
Wonder if Ken’s Downing Street leash will be showing...
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