London: Could Theresa May's government fall over the sex scandal now gripping Westminster, with the latest episode involving her own deputy Damian Green?
May, who governs with the support of 10 MPs from Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, is in no position to sack her ministers but yesterday she ordered the cabinet secretary Jeremy Heywood to investigate Green's behaviour with a young Tory freelance writer and activist.
Kate Maltby, 31, complained to The Times that Green, 61, a friend of her parents to whom she had turned for advice on how to advance her career, was with her in a pub in Waterloo in 2015 when she "felt a fleeting hand against my knee - so brief it was almost deniable".
She said she doubted Green appreciated how "awkward, embarrassed and professionally compromised" she was made to feel.
A year later, Green sent her a text message after her photograph in a corset appeared in The Times: "Long time no see. But having admired you in a corset in my favourite tabloid I felt impelled to ask if you are free for a drink anytime?"
Green, who holds the rank of "First Minister" - he was at an Indian function last week as chief guest extolling the achievements of the Asian community - said he had sent an innocent message and that "this untrue allegation has come as a complete shock and is deeply hurtful, especially from someone I considered a personal friend".
Green has apparently "instructed libel lawyers Kingsley Napley", according to the BBC.
One newspaper, the Daily Mail, today published the so-called "dirty dossier" featuring the names of 42 Tories, including six cabinet ministers, 12 lower ranking ministers and 10 former ministers, allegedly involved in various sexual incidents. Green's name heads the list.
For better or worse, it seems no one wants to have an affair with them. Some are of MPs who have had consensual affairs. The home secretary Amber Rudd is on the list. But some would say it shows her as an open-minded person. Several years after the end of her marriage to the late A A Gill, the Sunday Times food critic, it is understood she began a relationship in 2009 with Eton and Cambridge educated fellow Tory MP Kwasi Kwarteng, who is of Ghanaian origin.
