Predators, scavengers and parasites

So, naturalists observe, a flea
Has smaller fleas that on him prey;
And these have smaller still to bite 'em,
And so proceed ad infinitum.

Swift! thou shouldst be living at this hour.

The most interesting thing about the Spreadsheet of Shame isn't the identities of the various alleged gropers, harassers and adulterers (it's easy enough to find an unredacted copy if you really care). What's worth your attention is the wider ecology, the food chain which supports both the alleged sex pests and the people who compiled the spreadsheet. Like the mis-selling of payment protection insurance, the whole situation is best seen as a system for turning a bug (people being mis-sold a useless product) into a feature (the profits made by the "Have you been mis-sold PPI?" industry). In this case, the bug is sexual misbehaviour and the feature is the ability of a party machine to discipline and control party members.

Appropriately enough, people who use their power and influence to sexually coerce others get called "sexual predators", which is as good a label as any for their place in the food chain. You can pick your own label for the folk who use the predators' misbehaviour for their own advantage. Possibly "scavengers", although I think "parasites" works better, because parasites can weaken their hosts, control their behaviour, or  kill them (I don't think that party bosses literally kill politicians, but I'm sure they've occasionally killed political careers by leaking the damaging details they have on the personal lives of uncooperative MPs).

I do wonder whether there's much of a moral difference between the list-keeping parasites and the predators. For example, if we assume that terms like "inappropriate", or "handy" extend to include activities that the law would define as sexual assault, then who's worse, the assailant, or the person who knows all about the assault, but lets the assailant continue getting away with it, so long as they remain politically cooperative? Tough call.

Although I don't think this sort of thing technically counts as blackmail, it looks pretty damn close. As I understand it, to prove blackmail you need to establish four things. The blackmailer must:

1. demand something from the victim (in this case, political cooperation)
2. use menaces (legally, "menaces" can include physical threats, but could simply be threats to expose secrets)
3. make an unwarranted demand (coercing somebody into voting for something they don't believe to be right sounds unwarranted to me)
4. intend "to make a gain for himself or another or have intent to cause a loss to another."

When it comes to the last test of making a gain, or causing a loss, it's my understanding that the law only covers the gain and loss of money or other property,  not the gain of something more intangible like political control or power (source). So I don't think this is legally blackmail, but three out of four ain't bad and it's certainly morally dubious. If the suspected activities are abusive or coercive, the list-makers should be going to the police, in order to protect actual and potential victims. If the compromising activities were legal, consensual, but just very embarrassing, then applying pressure might not be illegal but it seems like a coercive abuse of power.

The sexual misbehaviour of MPs doesn't concern me much, unless it tips over into coercion and assault, (in which case, throw the book at 'em), but it's a bit of a joke to imagine that I live in a representative democracy when the misbehaviours and quirks of our elected representatives are weaponised to bully them out of voting according their conscience and judgement. Even the suspicion that this is going on degrades our politics - actual liars and crooks can feel at home and flourish in a low-trust environment where people suspect that any of their representatives might be acting under the influence of coercion (and also "not technically" bribery - don't forget those promises of future promotion and peerages for the more obedient boys and girls).

If only it was as quick and easy to pull the plug on this real house of cards as it was on its fictional counterpart.