A Minister’s Choice: Grovel or Go ‘Em?

At some point this afternoon — the exact time varies according to which media report you care to go by — a senior government minister will go before the cameras to deny he is a rapist. The question is just which one of two options the minister might pursue after taking up the microphone as a white-noise blizzard of  whirring shutters and camera lights capture what his detractors must be hoping is a bunny-in-the-headlights  moment.

On the one hand, there is the orthodox track taken so often and to their detriment by conservatives. It might go something like this:

‘Ladies and gentlemen of the press, let me begin by saying there is no crime so vile as rape, and that the victims of such predators deserve our support and warrant our belief. You will have seen the public service ads this government produces that illustrate why telling a young boy he ‘throws like a girl’ sows the seeds for rampant masculinism and domestic violence in later life. Likewise, the ad that equates maleness…