The Conversation (0)
TV
Sinead Butler
May 02, 2022
Richard Madeley and Kate Garraway express sympathy for Neil Parish scandal
ITV/Good Morning Britain
Richard Madeley has expressed sympathy for Neil Parish after the Tory MP got into a spot of bother for watching porn in the House of Commons.
The 65-year-old MP for Tiverton and Honiton resigned after he was identified and later admitted to being the previously unnamed MP who two female MPs alleged they had caught watching porn in the Commons.
Despite coming clean, Parish has said he stumbled upon the adult content accidentally while searching online for tractors for his family's farm.
"The situation was that – funnily enough it was tractors I was looking at. I did get into another website that had a very similar name and I watched it for a bit which I shouldn’t have done," Parish told theBBC.
"But my crime – biggest crime – is that on another occasion I went in a second time," he added.
On Monday's edition of Good Morning Britain, Madeley discussed the situation with co-host Kate Garraway where he shared his sympathies with the disgraced MP.
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"I don’t know about you but I was sort of inclined to take that at face value because there is no suggestion that he had a track record for doing this. It’s not like he was always looking furtively at his phone in the Commons," Madeley said.
"It seems to have been his first and second offence. I think for a politician, if you saw the whole interview, it was quite a mea culpa."
Safe to say viewers were not happy with Madeley's comments regarding the MP's porn-gate situation and made their feelings clear on Twitter.
#GMB Richard Madeley making a good start to the week\n\nNeil Parish \u2018no suggestion he had a track record\u2019 of looking at porn \n\nBecause Parish always tells Madeley and @GMB when he is about to log on to a porn site— ProudGranny24 (@ProudGranny24) 1651468138
#GMB Madeley kicks off the week with "do you feel sorry for him?" (the pervert)pic.twitter.com/7pcDOV4CR9— Stephen Miller (@Stephen Miller) 1651469975
Lol \n@richardm56 on @GMB actually thinks that the 2 times Neil Parish was caught watching porn in HOC were his \u201c1st and 2nd offences\u201d\nNaive? Gullible? Stupid? \nYou choose.\nMy money is on all three— Sir Tom Joad. \ud83d\udc89\ud83d\udc89\ud83d\udc89 (@Sir Tom Joad. \ud83d\udc89\ud83d\udc89\ud83d\udc89) 1651473040
Garraway also appeared to appreciate Parish's apology and similarly expressed "huge sympathy."
"Yeah I must admit, but when anybody apologises, I have huge sympathy for them," Garraway said.
"I suppose those who don’t accept it would say, didn’t own up straight away obviously shouldn’t have been doing it at all and the fact that he was means that there has to be a big investigation.
"But you’re right, there was a certain sense of humanness about the apology, wasn’t there. What it has done is it has thrown up all sorts of things and a general uncomfortableness from people about behaviour in the Commons and that’s where the debate goes, I guess," she added.
With Parish's 22-year career as an MP now over, he also told the BBC: "I will have to live with this for the rest of my life. I made a huge terrible mistake and I'm here to tell the world."
As a result of the scandal and Parish's resignation, the internet has been flooded with memes and jokes about the matter from the likes of comedian David Baddiel and actor Stephen Fry.
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