Bye bye – Michael Fallon, We Won’t Miss You

Friday 3rd November

Of all the faces in the Tory Cabinet the one I would have liked to slap most was Michael Fallon.  I hesitate to call him ‘Sir’, I had enough of that nonsense at school.

He seems to have been around forever, and has ‘served’ (or been servile) to four Prime Ministers, which takes him back to 1990.  He was often the one wheeled out to confirm his absolute loyalty to whoever or whatever the policy now was.  He always looked like the worst kind of stuffed shirt, upper-class mean-spirited Tory. As you might imagine I never liked him.  For all I know he may have been a good Constituency M.P. and Minister – it was just that supercilious face I wanted to slap.

He may also have been a good husband – but one must now doubt that.  The new scandal engulfing Westminster caught him up in its net.  But actually; what he was accused of, seems quite mild compared to some others.  Apparently, he (repeatedly) fondled the knee of Julia Hartley-Brewer, a reporter.  She has made light of this and says she never felt threatened.  Maybe it is an occupational hazard for many female reporters, who often get their best stories when M.P.s have had one too many.

We are witnessing the ‘revenge of the women’ at the moment.  And certainly, it is about time.  We have all worked in companies where certain bosses have thought it their right to pester young (and sometimes not so young) women into sexual liaisons, often with an implied threat or promise.  Where you draw the line between ‘banter’ which is often mutual and sexual harassment is sometimes difficult.  Men of my generation have had to learn to behave in a different way over the years.  It all comes down, I think, to Power.  I was never in a position of power, so my silly jokey comments may have been treated just as that.  When a man can get you sacked, or promote you, then a whole different dynamic is involved.

I think that Mr. Fallon was probably a serial offender, and it is more recent offences which haven’t quite emerged which may be the real reason for his departure.  I don’t think he will be the last…