The Nigel Evans Arrest.

On Friday (3/5/13) the Deputy Speaker of the UK House of Commons Nigel Evans was arrested over allegations of rape and sexual assault. Details of this arrest were made public on Saturday (4/5/13) afternoon once Mr Evans had been released on police bail after some 15 hours of police questioning. As Mr Evans has been openly gay for a number of years the fact that he is accused of raping/sexually assaulting two adult men should come as no surprise. After all under UK law "rape" is defined as; "the insertion of a finger or penis into the vagina, mouth or anus of another person without their consent. Sexual assault is more generally defined as "unwanted sexual touching" such as kissing or groping. The gender of the victim is not an issue.

Although technically an independent Member of Parliament (MP) since becoming Deputy Speaker Mr Evans was first elected to Parliament as a member of the Conservative Party and has always made up part of their libertarian wing. I think his political career can best be defined by the time he found himself chairing a Commons debate on slavery to mark World Anti-Slavery Day. This debate was attended by around 14 of the UK's 625 MP's. So looking out across the vast empty chamber Mr Evans stood up and said something along the lines of; "I apologise for those of you who cannot find somewhere to sit. The exceptionally high turn-out underlines just how importantly this issue is viewed within the UK." in a speech that even I found to be a little bit too sarcastic.

The biggest libertarian versus totalitarian issue currently facing UK politics is that of press freedom - specifically the proposed Royal Charter that was introduced despite the findings of the Leveson Inquiry. Fortunately all UK newspaper publishers have refused to sign up to this charter. However the assorted perverts, weirdos and Communist that make up the "Hacked Off" campaign still show no sign of dropping the issue. One of the most pernicious elements of the Royal Charter are proposals that would make it illegal for the press to confirm that an individual has been arrested.

The recent flurry of arrests relating to the Jimmy Savile child sex abuse investigation has - according to some opinion polls - increased public support for this proposal. The argument being that if someone is wrongly accused of a sexual offence the press reporting of their arrest will damage their reputation long before the matter is ever heard in a Court of Law. Therefore we should stop the press reporting any arrests in order to protect the reputations of the accused. By having Mr Evans arrested on what seem to me to be completely false accusations the UK Crown is hoping to strengthen that public support for that argument.

Of course the alternative would be to create a more educated population that understands the fact that someone has been arrested most certainly does not mean they are guilty. Under the law this is known as the presumption of innocence and having been arrested on many occasions but convicted only twice I can assure you it is a very important thing. Obviously though the Crown is very opposed to this alternative solution. After all a more educated population would be much less likely to swear allegiance to an elaborate form of golden headwear.

Needless to say having also recently experienced the death of his mother and the death of his brother Mr Evans has decided to take a week off work meaning he will miss Wednesday's (8/5/13) Queen's speech officially opening the Parliamentary session. As always any Labour Party MP's attending deserve to be shot.

18:30 on 5/5/13.