The rage thing has been going on for a while, but the news these days is relentlessly downbeat well depressing really, I mean Trump North Korea Rubbish Conservative Govt Dead Lib Dems Quirky Unelectable Opposition it is just all we are getting and it's a long way from the London Olympics etc however the phony war about the economy is now over and the real war about the debt is just starting.
Outing myself as a bloke for the purpose of this thread, the whole sexual harrassment thing has me in two minds in one respect only. a) I'm glad this is all coming out and am one the one hand astonished it has taken so long, and also not surprised. We are, after all, in anti-whistleblowing terrritory here, where you do the right thing and get subject to alternative fictional narrative of smears. This is now as English as Chaucer and Cheddar Cheese, you saw it with South Yorkshire police and Hillsborough, with Rotherham/Rochdale local council and Sara Rowbottom and Jayne Senior who both got trashed, you even saw it with the RSPCA and the family of some cat they unfairly had bumped off! It is a well-worn, quasi legitimate strategy. So you can see how any woman would a) See no other women being able to raise concerns about this and b) Get warned off by an authority figure quite easily, making insinuations about their career prospects.
But my second concern is odd. Because, ironically, the way whistleblowers then get defamed is curiously similar to the allegations made in secret on a speadsheet currently doing the rounds. Some of those may be true, others may not be, but it is striking that often MPs won't even know what someone has on them and of course can't deny it if they don't know, so they are allowed to stand. It is really quite pernicious, and you can see how some career opportunists could make merry with this.
Not connecting that of course with former chief whip Mr Williamson's Francis Urquart-type ascent to power in the last few days.