ccording to Conservative MP Crispin Blunt, 

the conviction of fellow MP Imran Ahmad

Khan for child sexual assault was just based on “lazy tropes about LGBT+ people”.
Amazing, really, that it was the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on
LGBT+ issues who was the only person seemingly making a link between gay men and
paedophilia in the wake of Khan being found guilty of assaulting a 15-year-old boy, after
plying him with alcohol. I want to say “you had ONE job, Crispin”, but I see that among
other things, the Reigate MP is a paid board member of a hotel group. So … you had
SOME jobs, Crispin. But let’s be crystal clear here: none of them was you, a former
minister of justice, claiming that child sexual assault was “an event that was minor on
any scale”. In reality, the only minor involved was the victim.
Crispin Blunt quits as LGBTQ+ group chair after Imran Ahmad Khan comments
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If you missed it, this is the story of the Wakefield MP, Imran Ahmad Khan, who has now
been expelled from the Tory party after yesterday’s conviction at Southwark crown
court. He will naturally be appealing and remaining as an MP while he does that – and
we’ll come to the section on the expanding number of Commons crims in a bit. Anyway,
once the guilty verdict came in, Crispin Blunt – that mangled instance of nominative
determinism – opted not to shut up/pipe down/fail to chime in. Instead, Blunt decided
that the case was “a dreadful miscarriage of justice”, and promptly posted a lengthy and
clearly considered statement calling it “nothing short of an international scandal”. Even
more boggling was the bit where Blunt described the entire business for Khan as “this
nightmare start to his parliamentary career”. Start to it? A way of putting it that reminds
us that once we’ve put this silly business of child sexual assault behind us, Imran should
be expected to ascend swiftly toward at least the cabinet without further trifling
impediment.

Anyway. As of Tuesday morning, Blunt has quit his chairmanship of the APPG, after a
spate of resignations looked like reducing its next meeting to a room empty but for the
presence of Blunt and his self-regard. Admittedly, you would still need a room slightly
larger than the vehicle assembly room at the Kennedy Space Centre, sometimes cited as
the largest single chamber on Earth. But it also tells you something about the size of the
shit sandwich that he has served himself that the eternally shameless Blunt has actually
cottoned on that he has to quit and apologise for his comments. Unless there is
something wildly askew with parliamentary ethics, he will be now be relieved of the Tory
whip, ideally before I begin typing the next paragraph.

And yet, I hate to break out the spoilers this soon, but I’m afraid there IS something
wildly askew with parliamentary ethics. And, indeed, Westminster ethics beyond the
chamber. Starting with those first, the victim explained that he contacted the
Conservative press office before Khan was elected in Wakefield in 2019, and informed
them that he had been sexually assaulted by him as a child, and that there was a police
report of the matter. Nothing whatsoever seems to have been done. “I wasn’t taken very
seriously,” he said. “She said, ‘Well … ’ and that’s it. I said, ‘I’m going to the police’ and
she said, ‘Well, you do that.’”

Blunt was not the only one to defend Khan. A character statement was provided to his
defence by Adam Holloway, who you may recall also provided a character statement for
former Tory MP Charlie Elphicke, who was convicted of sex offences against two
women. Holloway was subsequently forced to apologise for his attempt to stop that
statement being made public. Still, he is in … well, you wouldn’t call it good company,
would you, but there is certainly a real little community of grotesques in the House of
Commons. The Sunday Times wrote of the “protection racket” of MPs who propped up
Elphicke before he was found guilty and imprisoned, including Holloway, Theresa
Villiers, Bob Stewart and Roger Gale. Elphicke’s wife, Natalie, remains an MP in his
former seat, despite having only recently signed a witness statement in which she
accused one of the victims of his crimes of lying.

Still want more? Tory MP David Warburton has just had the whip removed over
multiple sexual assault allegations. In December, his ex-colleague and former minister
Andrew Griffiths was found by a high court judge to have repeatedly raped and
abused his wife. Former Labour member Claudia Webbe remains an MP, despite having
been handed a two-year suspended prison sentence for a campaign of
harassment against a woman, with the trial hearing this had included the threat of an
acid attack. Webbe’s appealing that, so she remains in the Commons. Any others? Hang
on – Rob Roberts sits as an independent, despite having been found to have sexually
harassed two members of his staff by an independent panel and the Tory
party respectively, but was bafflingly given his Conservative membership back. Without
wishing to go out on a limb here, this feels like … quite a lot? There are only 650 MPs. Is
this a normal distribution of such abysmal and repulsive behaviour?

Alas, here we are at the last paragraph, and I note Crispin Blunt still hasn’t been relieved
of the whip. But the Metropolitan police has just confirmed it has now made more than
50 – FIFTY! – referrals for fixed-term penalty notices for lawbreaking Downing Street
parties during lockdown. And No 10 confirms that two of those are for the actual prime
minister and the actual chancellor. Just so endlessly, endlessly impressive. Then again,
“most homes” and “most businesses” broke the law in the pandemic. We know this,
because it was recently stated as fact by a hugely versatile authority figure. His name?
Crispin Blunt. What a dazzling run of public service it continues to be.