There is a lot of big important stuff going on in the world demanding the Labour Party’s attention. John Whittingdale’s dates are not part of it. Getting involved in this is a big own goal for Labour. The argument put forward by Maria Eagle is that what amounts to a perfectly legitimate relationship forged by Mr Whittingdale, before he was a minister, through a dating website and afterwards ended when he found the lady’s day job was a bit specialized and in the sex industry, is that the episode for this divorced and single man somehow debars him from his statutory role of supervising the newspaper industry, now all but dead on its feet. Apparently somebody tried to sell the tabloids the story but they rejected it due to the fact there was no story.
There is a bit more to the rigmarole, but we need not bother. Ms Eagle thinks he should ‘recuse’ himself, a word not in the Oxford dictionary but perhaps an American term meaning standing to one side because of conflict of interest in some legal process. It is not the plain English to which politicians, Labour ones especially, should always stick if they want to get their message across. The conflict of interest offered in this case thus far is so obscure that it is almost as bad as saying the Secretary of State for Industry should stand aside in the Tata negotiations due to the fact that he drives a car which is made of steel.
Ms Eagle is one of those (too many) New Labour stalwarts Corbyn has to suffer in his shadow cabinet. This is a pity, as nowadays they have a tendency to do more harm than good.