Political column - November 9

It may well go along the lines of: Stuff this for a game of soldiers.

It was not meant to be like this. In the wake of her pyrrhic general election victory, what she was looking for was a period of calm and for all her MPs to be on their best behaviour, leaving no chink in their collective armour for Labour to probe.

And what has she got? Priti Patel has been conducting a freelance foreign policy. Critics hang on every word that Boris Johnson says - and not for the right reasons.

One of her most trusted lieutenants, Sir Michael Fallon, has fallen. He was her safe pair of hands, a characterisation which now raises a snigger after the allegations that his manner in dealing with young women journalists involves placing a hand on their knee and lunging forward to try to kiss them.

Another trusted lieutenant, Damian Green, has had his integrity and morality called into question.

Political slogans can come back to haunt you.

Theresa May went to electorate with the promise of a strong and stable government. Events have conspired to mock that. What she actually needs to do is Take Back Control.

As she looks to the future, she is confronted by the prospect of the hard slog of the Brexit negotiations which will involving fighting for Britain's interests in Brussels, while simultaneously fighting on the home front, as Labour has made it clear that it will be playing the awkward card at every opportunity.

It is though not all bad for her.

Just as it was a cocktail of circumstances which propelled her into Number 10, a cocktail of circumstances has quietened those voices in her own party, which reached a crescendo only weeks ago, which questioned whether she could still lead.

The last thing the Tories need on top of all their other worries is a leadership contest. So Mrs May is now charged with trying to hold things together.

Her task has not been made easier by the allegations which have swept the Westminster workplace and have had implications for all parties, and society at large.

Is it a witch hunt? Well, let us consider some of the historical characteristics.

Fundamental is the belief that there are witches out there to be hunted, and characteristic is the zeal of those in the vanguard of the hunts. Anyone who questions whether it might all be a little over over the top and there needs to be an injection of proportionality, is shouted down (or thrown on the pyre) on the grounds that they are giving succour to witches, or are witchcraft deniers.

And amid the enthusiasm, the fear, and the hatred, the rights of the accused to something approaching fair treatment are eroded. Their fates are governed by the outraged.

In the wake of the death, through his own hand, of Labour's Carl Sargeant, a Welsh Assembly member who was sacked and humiliated, questions are being asked about process and justice.

He is understood not to have been told what was being alleged against him.

Labour MP Chris Bryant tweeted: "If this fortnight teaches anything it is there must be a fair proper process for those who feel they have been harassed or abused AND fair due process for those facing allegations."

After Harvey Weinstein was outed as a sleazeball, various people in the movie world said how "shocked" they were. Yet it is obvious that he had a certain reputation within the industry.

So, for those in Westminster who profess to being shocked, you wonder: where have you been? If you did not know, why not?

In the 1970s Margaret Thatcher was greeted in the Commons by cries of "ditch the bitch" from some Labour MPs, and there was a similarly-worded campaign against her by the Left in the early 1980s.

But fast forward to allegedly more enlightened times and we find a song mocking her death - "Ding dong the witch is dead" - going to No 2 in the charts, and today women MPs suffer hideous threats online.

Maybe the lesson from the events in Westminster is that it is dangerous to be seduced by the notion that today's generation is somehow inherently better and more enlightened than the overt sexism of past generations.

Going back to the sloganising, there was that one Things Can Only Get Better.

Not necessarily. Creating a working environment based on professionalism and respect, but with space for laughter, requires nurture and reinforcement.