A tip of the hat to Melissa Kite, a journalist, for her honest account of interactions between politicians and female journalists when she worked in Westminster. An extract:
Look, it was a long time ago and I’m practically an old lady now, in media years. I’ve no need to keep up the pretence that I was a blameless naïf in my 20s and 30s when I was an ambitious young lobby hack. I want to make my confession. I want to explain why I did it.
I took advantage of men to get ahead, and because I enjoyed it. And yes, Michael Fallon was one of them.
He and I used to book our party conference dinners months in advance. I looked forward to them as a highlight because I knew the gossip would be flowing as freely as the wine. I would book the best place in town, turn up in a smart outfit and grab hold of Mr Fallon on arrival, covering him in mwah mwahs…
Look, what I’m saying is, women are not always passive victims. I certainly wasn’t. I enjoyed the charged atmosphere of politics. I thrived on it as well as the men did; more than some of them maybe.
