James Cleverly apologises for joking about spiking his wife with date rape drug

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James Cleverly stated he regrets making a joke about spiking his wife’s drink with a date rape drug and may by no means have stated it.

The house secretarymade the joke final month simply hours after asserting plans to crack down on the difficulty.

Mr Cleverly talked about placing “a little bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night,” including that it was “not really illegal if it’s only a little bit”. His feedback, made throughout what he thought was a personal dialog in Downing Street, sparked a livid backlash, with calls for him to resign or be sacked.

Pressed on the remark, Mr Cleverly stated: “It was a joke that I made and of course you know I regret it and I apologised immediately, and that apology is heartfelt.”

He rapidly went on to defend himself and the Home Office’s work on spiking: “But the point that I’ve made is that as home secretary I was the first home secretary to put forward legislation to toughen our ability to deal with spiking.

“My first visit as home secretary was to an investigation team investigating violence against women and girls, when I was foreign secretary I set a target that 80 per cent of our aid has got to demonstrably have a positive effect for women and girls. I shouldn’t have said it and I apologised immediately.”

He added within the Sky News interview: “I’m sorry because it clearly caused hurt, it’s potentially distracted from the work we were doing to tackle spiking to help predominantly women who are the victims of spiking and I regret that. But I’m absolutely determined to continue the work that I’ve been doing for years.”

The house secretary went on to say he hopes to be judged on his actions moderately than his phrases following his “awful joke” about spiking.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, James Cleverly stated: “I made a joke, it was an awful joke and I apologised immediately, but I’m absolutely committed and have been throughout my political career to the protection of women and girls.

“I’m absolutely undeterred from that focus and you know the people that work with me know my focus on this and I hope to be judged on my actions rather than my words, but I remain absolutely committed to the protection of women and girls.”

The apology got here after ladies’s rights group the Fawcett Society stated the feedback have been “sickening” and known as for Mr Cleverly to resign.

Chief govt Jemima Olchawski stated: “It’s sickening that the senior minister in charge of keeping women safe thinks that something as terrifying as drugging women is a laughing matter.

“No wonder women don’t feel safe. We know that ‘banter’ is the excuse under which misogyny is allowed to thrive.

“How can we trust him to seriously address violence against women and girls? We deserve better than this from our lawmakers and Cleverly should resign.”

Conversations at Downing Street receptions are often understood to be “off the record” however the Sunday Mirror determined to interrupt that conference due to Mr Cleverly’s place and the subject material.

It is simply the newest controversy surrounding the house secretary since he changed Suella Braverman final month.

He has repeatedly refused to disclaim calling Rishi Sunak’s flagship Rwanda deportation coverage “bats***”, a declare made by Ms Cooper.

And he denied claims that he known as a Labour MP’s northeast constituency a “s***hole”. He admitted utilizing the expletive within the House of Commons, however stated as an alternative he had described Alex Cunningham as a “s*** MP”, not his constituency as a “s***hole”.

Questioned about the sequence of controversial remarks by the Today programme, Mr Cleverly lashed out at presenter Mishal Husain. Ms Husain aked the house secretary “what’s going on” and why “so often in a short space of time” he had made embarassing gaffes.

But a testy Mr Cleverly hit again at her questions, saying “you need to do better research”. And amid a grilling over whether or not he had known as Stockton North a “s***hole” or Mr Cunningham a “s*** MP”, Mr Cleverly stated “I know what I said… other people couldn’t have [heard something else] because I only said one thing… that’s not how science works”.