It is not unreasonable to have woken up this morning and considered the Daniel Korski saga closed. Another depressing episode in our recent political history is satisfactorily concluded, and we can get on with our lives.
We can believe, also, that power has shifted. Women at work are empowered to call out harassment, and sexist or misogynistic behaviour, and men are much better behaved as a result. In fact, the pendulum has shifted so much the other way that men can’t even compliment a female colleague on their new hairdo.
But is this all really true? Have things moved on that much?
Take the Korski case. A man, employed at the seat of government no less, is accused of fondling the breast of a woman who had come to Downing Street for a meeting with him. It was 10 years ago, but the TV producer Daisy Goodwin detailed the incident. He vehemently proclaims his innocence. And she got questioned on national radio about whether she’d made the whole thing up. Nevertheless, he removed himself from the contest to be Mayor of London. No one seems to care too much about whether this is a tacit admission of guilt. It might not be. But it’s time to move on.
Consider an alternative universe, one in which allegations such as this have a lasting effect on office gender politics. A man is accused by a female co-worker of acting inappropriately towards her. Instead of feigning ignorance or maintaining that he doesn’t have a case to answer, he immediately accepts blame (assuming that he is guilty of course), apologises to the aggrieved party, and admits that what happened was unconscionable. He acknowledges that he has no excuse and no mitigation but cautions that this should be an admonitory tale for all men in the workplace who may think their position enables them to operate outside normal codes of civilised behaviour.
It is only when there is an unflinching honesty about the circumstances in which women feel uncomfortable, threatened, disadvantaged, or distressed in a work environment that the situation will improve in a meaningful way.
I am not suggesting that workplaces are, and have been, a cesspit of moral turpitude in which dominant men ceaselessly prey on the less powerful. But there can be little question that, down the years, what Daisy Goodwin says happened to her in the Thatcher Room at No 10 will have struck a chord with many, many women who may now feel guilty that they haven’t stepped up to blow the whistle on some alleged past impropriety.
You don’t need to be a woke crusader to covet an equitable working environment in which everyone feels safe. And we won’t achieve that until there is a fair, truthful and just settlement of historic misdemeanours.
Simon Kelner was editor-in-chief of The Independent and Independent on Sunday newspapers from May 1998 to 2008. He now writes a column several times a week for i
