London: It went unnoticed amid the never-ending stream of ministerial resignations, hurtling at the British prime minister like tennis balls fired from a slinger machine.

“There is a problem with alcohol, and I’ve always resisted this conclusion in the past, but it sort of feels to me that some people simply can’t take their drink, and we need to think about how we work that in parliament,” Boris Johnson told a committee of MPs grilling him on the eve of his resignation.

Party’s over: The centre of British power, the Houses of Parliament, is surrounded by a problematic culture.Credit:Bloomberg

“There are issues about standards of behaviour and I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion,” he said.

The reaction was swift. “You’re the last person in the room to accept there’s a problem,” said the Conservative MP Bernard Jenkin.

Jenkin’s colleague Caroline Nokes was incensed, accusing Johnson of raising the issue of alcohol to distract from a long-standing cultural problem at Westminster.

“Sexual harassment is about a culture of power, have you just sat there and told us that alcohol is an excuse?”

Johnson insisted he had not. Whether his road to Damascus moment was real or not is now moot, given he’s been forced out of No.10.

But his successor would be wise to heed the exchange because the straw that broke the back of Johnson’s reign was one in a litany of sex scandals that have earned parliament’s precincts the nickname “Pestminster”.

Last month, his Tories lost two byelections sparked after one MP was convicted of sexually molesting a 15-year-old boy and another was caught watching porn on his phone while sitting in the House of Commons, claiming to have stumbled on the content while searching for tractors.

These were not isolated incidents, nor were they Johnson’s personal fault. But the ongoing failure to address Westminster’s culture will only see more leaders brought down by the unscrupulous who get drunk, literally and figuratively, with power.

Johnson, despite the rot setting in around his leadership over the numerous parties held at No.10 Downing Street against lockdown rules, has never been a partier himself.

But his well-documented affairs – he is thrice-married – meant he could never require a standard of personal behaviour like the “bonk ban” Malcolm Turnbull imposed on his cabinet after Barnaby Joyce’s affair with then staffer Vikki Campion.

Indeed, in 2004 then opposition leader Michael Howard sacked Johnson from his frontbench for lying about his affair with writer Petronella Wyatt, and Johnson’s third and current wife Carrie was working for the party as its director of communications when they began their affair.

This, combined with his innate libertarianism, perhaps explains why Johnson was quick to dismiss concerns about Chris Pincher’s personal behaviour when he made him deputy whip in February.

“Pincher by name, Pincher by nature,” was how Johnson had famously referred to him, according to Johnson’s former chief adviser Dominic Cummings. Johnson has not denied using this expression.

Imagine being a rookie fresh from school and needing to raise a complaint about your boss’s unwanted advance when the office manager is their spouse, relative or friend.

It all came undone last week, spectacularly, when Pincher was accused by two men of groping them after a drinking session at the members-only Carlton Club.

Johnson’s office initially said he was not aware of any previous allegations of misconduct when he gave Pincher the key government post, but his office later acknowledged Johnson knew about an investigation that upheld similar complaints in 2019.

It was one lie and one concealment too many for his key ministers.

Johnson is right to point to alcohol as a factor, but it is not the whole story. One only needs to glance through the 37-page report into the Downing Street parties compiled by civil servant Sue Gray to see how ingrained the problem is. It documented the “excessive alcohol consumption” and “drunkenness culture” that ended in red wine spilled on the wall, fights and vomiting after pizza and karaoke sessions.

Chris Pincher, whose appointment as deputy chief whip in the Johnson government brought his prime minister undone.Credit:AP

That this was done during lockdown was politically criminal. That it happens in a workplace at any time says much about what passes as acceptable in the British halls of power.

Boozing and schmoozing have always been seen as somewhat necessary in relationship-based fields like politics, but in Westminster if you want to get on the drinking train until 3am on any given night you can, and too many do.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson announces his resignation.Credit:Getty

But staffers who have worked in both Canberra and Westminster say other factors contribute.

They point to Britain’s particularly low rates of pay for parliamentary researchers, poor resourcing of MPs’ offices and a culture of nepotism in political offices.

The pay, as low as £21,000 ($36,800), means only the young or very ambitious are attracted. This makes them vulnerable to an MP who tells them that loyalty, shutting up and putting your head down are the way to get ahead.

They also complain about a general lack of professionalism in the way Commons staffing is run, with no centralised Department of Finance, as in Australia, and ad hoc administration.

Imagine being a rookie fresh from school and needing to raise a complaint about your boss’s unwanted advance when the office manager is their spouse, relative or friend.

None of this serves as an excuse for those who still, in 2022, cannot understand that groping, asking and pressuring for sex are not on. Drinking alcohol does not alone make a sex pest. But it does go towards creating an environment ripe for power imbalance and exploitation.

More often than not, it is young staffers who are most at risk in this environment. (This is separate to special advisers, mostly male, who are paid very well and work for cabinet ministers rather than backbenchers.)

The MeToo movement often focuses on younger women at the mercy of sleazy male MPs, but Salma Shah, a former special adviser, says young gay men are also vulnerable. She says this is partly because of the complexities of airing complaints concerning those who are not yet out, as well as perceptions of gay culture.

“I think it is different for gay men,” she said. “There is a different culture. I think that can be more difficult, especially in circumstances where people aren’t open about their sexuality.”

Another former staffer who worked at the highest levels in the British government said the late nights, MPs and staffers working away from home, the attraction to power and the risk-taking politicians often indulge in were also factors.

But the nub of it all is that the reluctance to actively address the culture means victims are not empowered to speak out.

Which is why Johnson identifying alcohol as a problem is only part of the journey required for genuine enlightenment.

Sexual harassment scandals contributed to Boris Johnson’s demise, but the structural problems long pre-date him.

The risk for those who’ve torn down their Brexit buccaneer is that they mistake his complacency for the cause of the problem.

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