Earlier this year, Nigel Evans discussed in The Spectator how there’s no way to live down a rape allegation, true or not. Yesterday Ben Sullivan, the President of the Oxford Union, had the rape charges against him dropped.
As I came into Parliament last Thursday, I swung by the newspaper stand to take a brief look at the headlines. ‘Oxford Union president, 21, arrested on suspicion of rape and attempted rape,’ said one. My heart sank. A photo of the beaming Oxford Union president, Ben Sullivan, dominated the front page in his swanky dinner jacket. He looked as if he had the world before him — until, that is, the police knocked on his door, warrant in hand. ‘Are you Ben Sullivan?’ they would have asked. The long, lonely journey to the police station would have followed, leading him in the opposite direction to his ambitions.
