James Cleverly said he regrets making a joke about spiking his wife’s drink with a date rape drug and should never have said it.
The home secretarymade the joke last month just hours after announcing plans to crack down on the issue.
Mr Cleverly talked about putting “a little bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night,” adding that it was “not really illegal if it’s only a little bit”. His comments, made during what he thought was a private conversation in Downing Street, sparked a furious backlash, with calls for him to resign or be sacked.
Pressed on the comment, Mr Cleverly said: “It was a joke that I made and of course you know I regret it and I apologised immediately, and that apology is heartfelt.”
Home Secretary James Cleverly is under fire for joking about spiking his wife’s drink
He quickly 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 in 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 home secretary went on to say he hopes to be judged on his actions rather than his words following his “awful joke” about spiking.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, James Cleverly said: “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 came after women’s rights group the Fawcett Society said the comments were “sickening” and called for Mr Cleverly to resign.
Chief executive Jemima Olchawski said: “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 usually understood to be “off the record” but the Sunday Mirror decided to break that convention because of Mr Cleverly’s position and the subject matter.
It is just the latest controversy surrounding the home secretary since he replaced Suella Braverman last month.
He has repeatedly refused to deny calling Rishi Sunak’s flagship Rwanda deportation policy “bats***”, a claim made by Ms Cooper.
And he denied claims that he called a Labour MP’s northeast constituency a “s***hole”. He admitted using the expletive in the House of Commons, but said instead he had described Alex Cunningham as a “s*** MP”, not his constituency as a “s***hole”.
Questioned about the series of controversial remarks by the Today programme, Mr Cleverly lashed out at presenter Mishal Husain. Ms Husain aked the home 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 back at her questions, saying “you need to do better research”. And amid a grilling over whether he had called Stockton North a “s***hole” or Mr Cunningham a “s*** MP”, Mr Cleverly said “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”.
