Tuesday 19 April 2016

Back to basics

So John Whittingdale dated a dominatrix and a porn star and organised some parliamentary "research" trips to lap dancing clubs? As scandals go, it's not exactly the Panama Papers - what the guy got up to between the sheets is surely more of a "private matter" than a Prime Minister, whose family stuck its wealth in an tax-avoiding offshore trust, lobbying to block regulation of tax-avoiding offshore trusts.

But although it's not important, the Whittingdale Affair is at least entertaining. Anyone with a long enough memory to remember how John Major's "back to basics" campaign was brought down by the sexual antics of his ministers, has just got to love the fact that John Whittingdale is a member of the Cornerstone Group, a collection of Conservative MPs who have chosen to dedicate themselves to "traditional values."

The Cornerstone Group has chosen itself a motto - "faith, flag and family" - which sounds horribly like something out of Franco-era Spain, so I reckon that if we're looking at a return to the Nineties with a spot of Back-To-Basics hanky-panky and tabloid mockery, it really couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of people:

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