I'm sure most people are aware by now of the tragic death of Elliott Johnson earlier this year. I myself had met Elliott only a handful of times but his death struck a cord with me because of the allegations around senior party members and bullying. While my time with the Conservative Party has been welcoming and accepting it was obvious that in Elliott's experience that had not been the case and as someone who suffered through bullying at various times in my life I was deeply hurt to discover that.
Since Elliott's death a number of stories have been in the media and a number of senior party members have been accused of either knowing about the bullying or in one particular case taking part in it. For legal reasons I will state now that all parties are innocent until proven guilty and that my words here should not be taken as an indictment against the character or story of anybody named here or anybody involved in the situation. I am not privy to investigative details and will not be discussing in detail any events or making any accusations. I will be linking to official news stories around events and will be using the name of a single person alleged to be involved however if they ask to be removed from this piece I will honour any such requests.
With that out of the way, a lot of the media attention on this story has focused on a former Conservative Parliamentary Candidate, Mark Clarke, and his campaigning organisation Roadtrip which aimed to bus Conservative activists into target seats for a day of campaigning and was largely successful in that aim.
I did go on a roadtrip event during the election, though most of my time was taken up as a Council Candidate, General Election Campaign Manager and full time employee so I wasn't as involved as perhaps I would have liked. I really did enjoy being in the company of my fellow Conservatives and it will be sad if the concept is not continued because it helped me feel like I was taking part in a much wider campaign. Obviously though new safeguards do need to be put in place to ensure that no participants are made to feel harassed or bullied - safeguards like these should always be included in any organisation - so that the experience is enjoyable for everybody.
The investigation into Elliott's death has thrown up a lot of curve balls. We've seen Mark Clarke suspended for life from the Conservative Party, we're had the entire Conservative Future National Executive suspended from the party, allegations of affairs* and god only knows what else will come out of the woodwork.
The whole situation reminds me of the ill-fated Back to Basics campaign ran by then Prime Minister John Major. The trouble is that in this the era of twitter and facebook, the scandal can so much worse. We all know how one thoughtless tweet can hurt a reputation, or how quickly an old photo we hoped no one would see can go around the internet. It means our mistakes become public very quickly and can haunt us forever.
But on the other hand it may just be a good thing.
Politics has been marred in corruption for decades. Cash for Questions? Cash for Honours? MPs expenses? All of these were major examples of scandals. Yes things have improved since then but we still see... bad eggs cropping up from time to time largely due to the effects of social and digital media where nothing is really private anymore.
Maybe this influx of information will lead to an overall reduction in the number of scandals in future generations of politicians and leaders. After all if you know that your dick pic will end up all over facebook (no matter how careful you are) then a politician might think twice about taking it. Same with doing drugs, accepting rotten donations and bullying people.
Information is power and with your whole life available at the push of a button maybe people will learn to do better and our leaders of tomorrow may just end up being the cleaner then cleaner generation we've been looking for.
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*As a side note I feel it is worth pointing out that in this day and age sex scandals are a bit silly. They merely serve to reinforce negative victorian gender stereotypes that consenting men and women engaging in sex or sexual activity are somehow doing something wrong or disgusting. Yes I understand that in the case of an affair it isn't exactly nice but it is hardly a crime and certainly not worth reporting on when we are facing bigger issues
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