William Wragg: Why is Downing Street supporting this horny idiot?

Two weeks ago, Michelle Mone sent me a DM on TikTok.

She asked if I was the Andrew who worked at the BBC.

No, I replied.

I mentioned an Andrew who does work for the corporation. She said yes, that was the one. She said she pushed him some time in 2022 and now felt “really bad”.

She wanted to get in touch, “just to say sorry from the bottom of my heart”.

At that point, I should have clocked that something wasn’t right.

When I mentioned it to my namesake at the BBC, he told me he had no idea what I was talking about. He asked some of the other Andrews who work for the broadcaster. There's quite a few. 

None of them had been shoved by the Tory peer in 2022.

I then emailed Baroness Mone’s office and asked if this was her TikTok account. It was not.

So I do have some sympathy for William Wragg.

I mean I didn’t send the pretend peer a picture of my willy, no, but I was caught out by a really stupid, obvious fake. It can happen to us all.

My sympathy for Wragg is limited though.

I don’t agree with Jeremy Hunt that the Tory MP’s confession means he’s “courageous.”

Nor with treasury minister Gareth Davies who claimed many people could understand why Wragg “acted in a way that he thought appropriate.”

Wragg met the man on the Grindr dating app. He then sent intimate pictures of himself and was then blackmailed into sending over the contact details of colleagues.

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Those colleagues – understood to include MPs, aides and journalists – were then sent flirty messages from people identifying themselves as either “Charlie” or “Abi”.

The sender would explain that they had met previously, usually in one of the parliamentary bars or at party conference.

Soon, those targeted were sent an explicit picture and asked to respond in kind.

Many did not. Some blocked Charlie or Abi. Some reported it to police. The Times reports that at least two MPs reciprocated.

What's utterly damning for Wragg, is that according to Politico, one person targeted by the operation said the scammer told them that they previously worked for the MP.

Despite that being a lie, Wragg said that this was the case.

He only backtracked last week, when details of the scandal first started emerging in the press.

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It’s hard to understand Downing Street’s reluctance to take action against the MP. Do they just not want another by-election? We're having our 23rd of this parliament next month. 

Wragg shared the private details of MPs and people working in parliament to an unknown entity. He could have put them in danger. 

He is a victim, no doubt about that. But the way he’s acted and responded to being blackmailed goes beyond naive. It is reckless. 

Over the weekend, Dame Andrea Jenkyns accused her Tory colleague of “unforgivable” behaviour.

She was one of the backbenchers who received a dodgy WhatsApp after Wragg handed over her contact details.

“Unlike some MPs I am not happy with Wragg, as a mother with a young child who only recently had threats. It’s unforgivable of him to compromise the security of fellow MPs. Action is needed,” she wrote on Twitter.

Backbencher Tory MP Dame Andrea Jenkyns felt that her colleague William Wragg's behaviour was 'unforgivable' (Image: Newsquest)
“How is it brave?” she added later. “The brave thing to do would have been to ignore the blackmail. I really hope to God they can trace who’s behind the messages – it’s nauseating.”

According to reports, there are now 17 Westminster figures who have been taken in by the scam.

Senior political figures including Alicia Kearns, the chair of the foreign affairs committee, have suggested that a foreign state may be responsible.

Though one Scottish MP I spoke to suggested that this was a more “local” thing, with many of the victims coming from a group of friends, possibly even some aggrieved ex-staffer causing havoc.

Or could it be some sort of troll farm?

The number used wasn’t too difficult to track down. According to the Who Called Me website, the first time the number was searched for was three years ago. The first report of a catfish scam was 11 months ago. It has been searched 185 times since.

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But not it seems by some MPs who were only too eager and happy to send scuddy pics.

The Met are investigating now, but the chances of finding a culprit are slim.

What’s the moral of the story? Maybe it’s don’t give William Wragg your phone number. Or maybe it’s do your due diligence before sending intimate images over WhatsApp. Or perhaps it's if you want to blackmail someone, bored MPs with nothing better to do on those late Westminster nights are an easy target.