I’ve been away for a couple of days and from the internet so couldn’t post this before but it’s too apposite to miss.

The Minister and the Prostitute.

Sounds like a short story title, doesn’t it? (Maybe a fairy tale title if the last word in it had been something else.)

Yet aside from the natural amusement over the fact that yet another Tory has been swept up in a furore over his sex life the first thing the revelation that UK Culture Secretary John Whittingdale has had a relationship with a prostitute brought to my mind was Dorothy Parker‘s wonderful pun when asked to give a sentence with the word horticulture in it. “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.”

Not that I like the derogatory connotations of the first syllable of the word in question as Parker used it but: did he lead her to culture, do you think?

PS. I also noted the use of the verb to withdraw by those who called for him to resile from his role in regulation of the press. Very Westminster, that.