why did anyone vote for Crispin Blunt

Good question

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67233090

There are this many at large in society unfortunately. I'm not sure what number you're referring to as 'so many' within politicians, but I've seen multiple pieces of research which put the estimated % of men who are rapists at ~6%.

Given there are 630 (?) MPs, and let's say 75% are male which makes approx 470. 6% of this figure would be 24.

My figures are approximate as I'm sat in a cafe typing on my phone and if I switch to calculator I'll lose my post, but I think they're right.

So if politicians were like the rest of the general public, we'd expect 24 to be rapists.

Given politics attracts people who want to weald power, it feels likely to me that the % is higher in this demographic.

And a reminder, the above is estimating rapists, not more minor sexual offenders.

There was a news story going round recently about 56(?) current MPs being accused of serial offences.

It is rife, in politics and in society at large. And anyone who thinks the men they know are all nice men is clearly wrong. 6% is 1 in 20, how likely is it that all the men you know happen to be outside of this group? It certainly isn't true for everyone, so I can only assume we all know and socialise with rapists. Sobering thought eh?

[Blunt’s] comments came as rumours circulated at Westminster about the identity of a Conservative MP who has been accused of sexual harassment, including by at least one other MP.

The Observer seems even more pointed than the MoS.

Unless of course I'm conflating two different rapist MPs.
The Conservative MP who was arrested on suspicion of a number of historic sexual offences has been asked to stay away from Parliament. The allegations that a Conservative MP has been drugging and harassing colleagues have not (so far as we know) led to an arrest.

The assumption therefore is that these are indeed two different MPs.

The Observer also (just like the Mail) juxtaposed discussion of Blunt's comments about Khan with reporting the allegations about the unnamed serial harasser of colleagues.
www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/22/crispin-blunt-again-defends-convicted-sexual-abuser-imran-ahmad-khan

Unless of course I'm conflating two different rapist MPs. Why are there so many wrong 'uns in parliament? Surely there aren't this many in society at large, are there?

Much as I'm inclined to believe it, I understand that the rapist MP stay broke on Tuesday, with the suspect told by the Chief Whip to stay away from Westminster. Blunt was voting in the house on Wednesday. So if the suspect is doing what they are told, then it isn't Blunt.

If that juxtaposition has got past their lawyers, on what basis?

I would imagine that the basis is that the article doesn't in any way imply CB is the rapist and it's not unreasonable to put together a story about a Tory sex offender with another Tory supporting sex offenders.

Looks like Crispin has nothing to lose now he’s standing down at the next election

It makes me wonder, because it is so blatant that it might give rise to a libel claim on grounds that the DM was in reality saying it was him.

I’m thinking about Julie Bindel’s case where a trans gossip blog wrote a lot of scurrilous lies about her and used as their defence that they didn’t actually name her.

Bindel’s lawyers pointed out that the dimwits behind the blog weren’t big or clever and it was completely obvious who they meant and the blog wound up settling and printing an apology.

I can’t imagine that a real press publication with lawyers on staff and everything would make a similar mistake.

@SpindleInTheWind It makes me wonder, because it is so blatant that it might give rise to a libel claim on grounds that the DM was in reality saying it was him. If that juxtaposition has got past their lawyers, on what basis?

Beyond the pale.

I used to live in Reigate. It's very pleasant. Sadly it doesn't surprise me that most of the population voted for him. It's full of people that are completely blinkered about sex and sexual abuse. People in their seventies and eighties who have led privileged, charmed lives where they never come up against the great unwashed and whose famillies have always voted Tory and always will, despite these kind of stories, which they will never acknowledge or even contemplate.

The only chance of it ever changing is more educated and aware younger people gradually replacing them over generations. I like to think that has begun happening but will take time, but I'm probably kidding myself. This applies to most of Surrey.

Ewew that one about smell was very Nd the pale. That's a proper, proper wrong un. Imagine posting that on your public twitter account?!

And also a complete moron - doesn't take a genius to work out that young people will likely smell different to older people because they have less access to cash to buy expensive scents and skincare products and aren't in charge of their own laundry routines yet, one their parents have down. The young people in my house generally smell of lynx and Fairy for that reason.

I saw that on twitter earlier. Knocked me a bit sick.

Tories eh ? www.thelondoneconomic.com/must-reads/weird-news/tory-council-candidate-tweet-16-year-old-girls-smell-scent-bizarre-323578

Huff Post has quite a good summary of today's events starring Crispin

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/crispin-blunt-doubles-down-defence-imran-khan-tory-mp-wakefield-sexual-assault_uk_628a0a04e4b0edd2d0170210

Agreed, hideous term. Most are underage boys who've suffered abuse and trauma. Same as calling prostitutes escorts.

I remember there was a Daily Mail article at the time he left his wife, Pennox, in 2010, which talked of this.

It's been 'disappeared' now, and only a shadow of a hint of what was in it on Google search: '27 Aug 2010 — Crispin Blunt, the Tory MP and prisons minister, said there was nobody ... who hired the services of a rent boy - with his wife Belinda, ...'

Poor Belinda. She was devastated.

(God I loathe that term 'rent boy'. These were abused male children ffs. It's like calling the girls in Rotherham etc 'prostitutes' and 'madams'.)

He well known locally to use rent boys so I wouldn't rule it out. He's actually talked about this himself both when he left his wife of 20 plus years to 'discover his true nature as a gay man' and when campaigning against banning poppers which he said he enjoyed using as a gay man.

I mean do what you love consensually and its sad to see there are still men about from that public school/military background who felt they had to repress their sexuality, but why are they always trying to inflict their trauma on women and girls, not least his poor wife.

It's too blatant, isn't it? It actually can't be him.

But his reputation's certainly in the gutter.

Due to the risks of jigsaw identification that is an interesting juxtaposition.

I am intrigued as to the juxtapositioning of two seeingly unreated stories in this Mail on Sunday piece I've just noticed.

1. Crispin Blunt and the 'my mate didn't get a fair trial' story, following his interview on Politics South-East
2. The allegations that a serving Conservative MP has been accused of administering 'date rape' drugs and indecently/sexually assaulting four men, two of whom were MPs (one Labour)

The actual headline is: Tories urged to act as MP Crispin Blunt AGAIN supports his disgraced sex attacker friend Imran Ahmad Khan, saying he not get a fair trial - as fresh allegations emerge of a top Conservative plying four men with date-rape drugs

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10841997/MP-Crispin-Blunt-insists-ex-Tory-Imran-Ahmad-Khan-INNOCENT-sex-attack-teenage-boy.html

You have to wonder why he's so committed to trying to shut up women who don't believe in self ID and don't believe that old men can become young girls don't you ..... Skin in the game methinks.

I'm in Surrey and voted for you Lisa, keep going!

"Quite apart from Hunt's other awful behaviour, no MP should undermine a trial in this way."

If you mean Crispin, he's Blunt, not Hunt.
Hunt has his own reputation to salvage, without taking on someone else's misdemeanours

Quite apart from Hunt's other awful behaviour, no MP should undermine a trial in this way.

If he thinks there is a problem with the justice system he is perfectly placed to address it through legislation.

In countries with a healthy democracy the legislature don't attack individual members of the judiciary.

Under any other major party leader in history he'd have lost the whip by now.

Those were my thoughts too. It's so strange how the men most invested in destroying safeguarding for women and kids are so often either sex offenders/closely allied with sex offenders! I just can't figure out why this correlation!