http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,171-1410999,00.html
Straight talking on Westminster village
By Matthew Parris
A personal view of the upside-down world inhabited by politicians and
journalists
WOULD I (a colleague at The Times has just telephoned to suggest) care to
write something about sex, The Spectator, and the strangely interlocking
worlds of the media, politics and public life?
My instant response was to recoil. The recoil makes the point (on
reflection) more eloquently than words and analysis alone can do. I
doubted I should venture onto this tricky ground. Too many of my own
friendships, personal and professional, are involved.
ÂI know David Blunkett a little, I thought. ÂHe wrote me a nice letter
wishing me well when I quit The TimesÂs parliamentary sketch; and I wrote
back wishing him well in Cabinet, and got a friend to write the letter for
me in Braille.
ÂAnd then too, (I thought), ÂIÂm on the friendliest of terms with Boris
Johnson, both as the Editor of the magazine for which I write, and as a
Tory MP Â as I used to be. His former lover, Petronella Wyatt, and I hold
each other in mutual affection. At least I hope so: IÂve always liked her.
She once wrote a column in which she asked, no doubt teasingly, why I
would not sleep with her.
ÂAs for Kimberly, weÂve always got on like a house on fire. I love her
mischievousness and find her completely beguiling; no one can make me
laugh as Kimberly does. We had a marvellous lunch together at The Ivy
before she remarried  and only a few weeks ago (it seems) I was sitting
beside her and her new husband, Stephen Quinn, at the Spectator
Parliamentarian of the Year Awards dinner at Claridges: a monster
gathering of MPs and journalists where Michael Howard made that cheeky
speech about Boris Johnson. Kimberly had us all in stitches with her
account of her attempt to use a vacuum cleaner (ÂI called my mother in
America. She said Âcheck if the bagÂs fullÂ. I checked. ÂNo, no problem,
mother, I said: itÂs completely fullÂ. I thought it was like a carÂs gas
tank. I didnÂt realise it had to be empty.Â)
ÂAnd of all these people, I mused, ÂI think I count Simon Hoggart as the
best of friends. A nicer, more generous and less devious man you couldnÂt
hope to know. As soon as I heard the news about him and Kimberly I sent
him a text message reminding him how soon all this would pass, and he
could return to the job at which heÂs the best living practitioner in
British journalism: the job of cheering us all up.
Only last summer I called in on Simon and his wife and family holidaying
in France, then drove on to visit Lance Price (Alastair CampbellÂs former
deputy at No 10) at whose holiday house I discovered Tony Wright, the
excellent Labour MP, in the swimming pool with his wife. TonyÂs wife, that
is, thank God.Â
ÂOh  and then there was that paeon of praise I heaped on the absent Boris
at a Tory luncheon in Wantage, a constituency close to BorisÂs, where I
spoke last month in the cause of their prospective Conservative
parliamentary candidate, Ed Vaisey. Ed (who works for Michael Howard)
persuaded me to do this when we met at a wedding in Moscow in October. The
groom at the wedding was Ben Wegg-Prosser, formerly Peter MandelsonÂs
assistant, who is now at The Guardian . Peter turned up at the wedding, in
stylish brown corduroy. The best man was Tristram Hunt. Half The Guardian
were there, and so was Anji Hunter, formerly Tony BlairÂs gatekeeper, now
head of communications at BP Â oh, and Anji was with her partner, Sky
NewsÂs anchorman, Adam Boulton. In Moscow I made the acquaintance of the
excellent Rachel Whetstone, who helps Ed look after Michael Howard, and .
. .Â
But I think IÂve made the point. Two worlds so close, so interlocking, so
shaded  one into the other  that I sometimes think they are not two
worlds, but one, and weÂre all on the same side. So it isnÂt really
sleeping with the enemy at all.
But it has to be asked: should heterosexuals be permitted to occupy
important or sensitive posts in our country? IÂm as tolerant of diversity
as the next man and would never condone the persecution of anyone solely
on account of his or her sexuality, so this is not a moral judgment but a
practical one.
Simple observation suggests  and the last couple of months of newspaper
headlines demonstrate  that heterosexuals in public life do seem to find
difficulty in maintaining lasting relationships with a single partner.
This is a matter for sympathy rather than censure, but can instability at
the very core of their lives, in their relationships, be without effect on
the stability of their professional judgments?
It may be something about the heterosexual culture rather than inherent in
their condition, but promiscuity among them appears to be the norm. This
being so, there is obviously a danger of blackmail. For their own sakes as
well as the sake of national security and the integrity of our
institutions, this is a risk we should surely not want them to run.
Nor can it be conducive to the calm exercise of judgment at work if these
people have to lead (as they so often do) a double life: constant anxiety
is a potentially destabilising state of mind, and one must ask whether
heterosexuals are able to place honesty at the centre of their
professional lives when deception rules in the private sphere. Prominent
people in the media, as well as senior politicians, are especially
vulnerable because they face disgrace and ruin if exposed.
I would not go so far as to suggest that no heterosexual should ever serve
in the higher reaches of government, politics or the media. There are a
handful of examples of heterosexuals who have made a huge contribution to
human history  Henry VIII or the Duke of Wellington, for example,
although in both cases their private passions did sometimes get in the
way. And even in the Armed Forces there have always been heterosexuals who
have shown as much valour and patriotism as their brother officers. I
count many heterosexuals among my friends.
But exceptions should not make the rule. On the whole, and until society
changes its attitude to the colourful tastes and exotic practices of so
many of todayÂs heterosexuals, then, adore them though we do, it might be
better if they were restricted to careers in the arts, hairdressing and
airline cabin crew, where their Âbutterfly lifestyle is less likely to
interfere with the exercise of their duties.
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