From today’s paper comes one of the more unusual stories about a councillor misbehaving:
A former lord mayor has been suspended from serving as a [Conservative] city councillor for three months after repeatedly asking a female guest at an official ball if he could have sex with her.
Married Andy Matchet, 57, also questioned the middle-aged chief executive about her orgasms and told her about losing his virginity as they spoke at the Lord Mayor’s Ball in Coventry.
As the city’s lord mayor at the time, father-of-two Mr Matchet was wearing his ceremonial gold chain and was accompanied by his wife Caron, 47.
From the full report it sounds as if Andy Matchet’s behaviour was both sustained and extremely offensive. But did you spot the dropped in reference to “wearing his ceremonial gold chain” as if being on the receiving end of such behaviour is somehow all the worse if somebody is wearing Lord Mayor’s chain? (Though in the slightly weird world of local council standards boards, I guess wearing a chain is an extra mark against you because it means you were being a councillor at the time rather than a private individual.)
Pop fact of the day: there are only twenty three places in England with a Lord Mayor.
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4 Comments
I suppose it is an unusual story. Not so unusual behaviour. There’s a lot of idiots like this guy.
Interesting that you picked up on how they’ve stuck the “wearing his ceremonial gold chain” bit in there, but not how they dropped “Married” in. Is this more acceptable if he’s single? Or doesn’t have kids?
I suppose the point of mentioning that he’s married (and indeed, accompanied by his wife at the time) is that he’s insulting two women at once, which arguably does make it worse.
And this is worth mentioning on here bec ause?
Hehehe. From the article:
“Unfortunately for Mr Matchet, sitting at the same table was the council’s equality and diversity officer, Laura Slegg, 27.”
Unlucky!