Of course Crispin Blunt defended fellow Tory MP Imran Ahmad Khan. Criminality is the norm in the Commons these days
According 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.
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.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
