The Daily Telegraph. FFS....
Caroline Nokes didn’t ‘play the game’ by accusing my father of groping her, says Rachel Johnson
Daughter of Stanley Johnson questions Tory MP's ‘historic allegations’ of inappropriate touching at a party conference
ByMaighna Nanu22 November 2021 • 6:27pm
Rachel Johnson, left, has spoken about the accusations made by Caroline Nokes, right, against her father CREDIT: HGL/GC Images/Richard Townshend
Rachel Johnson has said the female Tory MP who
accused her father of touching her inappropriately "didn't really play up and play the game".
The Prime Minister's sister questioned the value of
Caroline Nokes MP, who chairs the women and equalities select committee, bringing up "historic allegations" about Stanley Johnson 20 years after the events occurred.
"Play up and play the game" is a well-known phrase, often used to mean not playing by the rules, from the poem Vitai Lampada.
Speaking on her podcast Difficult Women, Ms Johnson said her father had been in "a spot of bother" after Ms Nokes "revealed he'd smacked her bottom".
‘I do think it rebounds against women in the end’
The LBC presenter was discussing her father with Anne Robinson, host of the television programme Countdown, when she referred to the accusations.
Ms Johnson said to Ms Robinson: "He's been in a spot of bother because a female Tory MP didn't really play up and play the game because she revealed he'd smacked her bottom about 20 years ago."
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She then asked: "What do you think about women who bring up these things - these historic allegations?"
The former presenter of the Weakest Link said: "I never campaigned for women to start whinging 20 years later and suddenly have a memory of something that hadn't upset them at the time."
Ms Johnson replied: "What worries me about it, what does it achieve?"
Last week, Ms Nokes made headlines after publicly accusing Mr Johnson of having “smacked” her forcefully “on the behind” before making a vulgar comment at a party conference in 2003, when he was a party candidate.
The Prime Minister’s father has said he has “no recollection” of her and has “no idea what she was talking about”.
In the
wake of Ms Nokes’s allegation, Ailbhe Rea, a journalist at the New Statesman, also came forward and accused the former MEP of having “groped” her at a party conference in 2019.
Mr Johnson said his response to her claims was “exactly the same" as to those made by Ms Nokes.
Stanley Johnson said he had no recollection of either of the alleged incidents CREDIT: Reuters/Toby Melville
The LBC presenter questioned the value of Ms Nokes revealing the allegations, adding: "My fear is, it does encourager les autres [encourage other] women to come out and say things that have happened to them, but also I've heard men saying: ‘Bloody women, you can't trust them and we don't know how to behave anymore.’"
She stressed she was not defending "any sort of male aggressive sexual behaviour", but added: "I do think it rebounds against women in the end."
Ms Johnson interviewed Ms Nokes on her Difficult Women podcast two weeks ago.