Home secretary James Cleverly has been condemned for making a “vile” joke in Downing Street about giving his wife a date-rape drug.
According to The Mirror he told a No.10 reception “a little bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night” was ”not really illegal if it’s only a little bit”.
Cleverly was also said to have joked the secret to a good marriage was “someone who is always mildly sedated so she can never realise there are better men out there”.
His comments were on the same day as the Home Office announced new plans to crack down on drink spiking.
A spokesperson for the home secretary said: “In what was always understood as a private conversation, James, the home secretary, tackling spiking made what was clearly meant to be an ironic joke – for which he apologises.”
Yvette Cooper, Labour’s shadow home secretary, said: “Spiking is a serious & devastating crime.
’Truly unbelievable that the home secretary in charge of tackling violence against women and girls could think it ok to make jokes like this. How can victims trust him to take this vile crime seriously?”
Alex Davies-Jones, the shadow domestic violence minister, said that claiming it was a “joke” was “the most tired excuse in the book and no one is buying it”.
“If the home secretary is serious about tackling spiking, and violence against women and girls then that requires a full cultural change. The ‘banter’ needs to stop and it has to start at the top,” she said.
Labour MP Jess Phillips, who worked for a domestic abuse charity before entering parliament, added: “It will be painted as if we can’t take a joke. We can. We even make them.
’The thing that men making these jokes don’t understand is that it leaves a trail of breadcrumbs for women to follow to know they won’t be believed. That there experiences are just bantz.”
Cleverly was appointed home secretary in November after Rishi Sunak sacked Suella Braverman.
He has not denied calling the prime minster’s Rwanda deportation scheme “batshit” but did reject accusations he called Stockton-on-Tees a “shithole” during PMQs.