Sarah Vine’s Lamest Excuse

One step forward and two steps back this morning, as the BBC’s stand-in host for their weekend politics show Sunday Morning was the agreeable Clive Myrie, but the paper review panel just had to include someone out there on the right, with Sarah “Vain” Vine being allowed room on the official Corporation-issue sofa. She did not take long not only to disappoint, but to excuse alleged sexual misconduct in an especially lame manner.

The lameness was all too predictable, after Ms Vine’s last Daily Mail column which bore the headline “The rape victims of Ukraine know what a woman is, Sir Keir... and the boundaries to protect women-only spaces are being eroded by idiotic politicians”. She went on to talk about World War 2 atrocities, with the clear inference that the Labour Party was somehow involved. But it was, in effect, just another swipe at trans people.

So when the paper review panellists were being selected, the Beeb knew what they were doing in inviting Ms Vine. And her grasp of the issues du jour - or lack of it - was not long in showing itself, as new nuclear power stations were discussed. These would, she assured the viewers, be OK because “We’re only going to get little tiny baby ones”. But this snippet of wisdom was a mere Hors d’Oeuvres for a much more substantial Entrée.

MP David Warburton, who represents Somerton and Frome, had been suspended from the Tory Party after allegations of sexual harassment and cocaine use emerged. It was front page news in the Mail’s Sunday stablemate. So what say Ms Vine? “I think it’s … it’s very difficult. People have crises in their lives. He lost eight stone”. You WHAT?

There was more. “I can’t help feeling that this is a bit of, a sort of, maybe [Get on with it - Ed] a mid-life crisis, or not crisis, losing eight stone is a good thing [Get to the point - Ed], but maybe he’s had, it’s just a juncture in his life. The trouble with being an MP is that you are in public office and therefore if you do things like this, it has to be scrutinised. I mean, I feel sorry for him, it must be awful [You’re fired - Ed]”.

The £100,000 from a Russian source failed to get a mention from Ms Vine. It did from former prosecutor Nazir Afzal, who, on the subject of feeling sorry for Warburton, mused “I don’t, do you?” Cat Headley added that “Helen Lewis’ reaction on the sofa speaks for me”. Another Tweeter asked “Sarah Vine says that Warburton might have been experiencing a midlife crisis. Would she say the same about a black kid in a council estate?”

Anna Turley was another passing severely adverse comment. “Put my TV on only to see Sarah Vine dismissing an MP accused of multiple sexual assault as having a mid life crisis and that she felt sorry for him. I despair”. Another Tweeter added “I’m 58. I’ve had a lot of midlife crises. None of them involved (allegedly) sexually harassing women, snorting cocaine or accepting dodgy money. Sarah Vine is talking out of her arse”.

Another noted the hypocrisy. “Sarah Vine has spent years relentlessly attacking trans people for existing … yet when it’s a white cis powerful man abusing his position and actually sexually assaulting someone? She’s all sympathy. Because it’s about transphobic hate, not protecting women”. Which rather describes the Daily Mail’s agenda.

Sarah Vine may not be totally divorced from the real world. But you can see it from there.

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