Shit-of-the-year nominee:

This is, word-for-word, from Tory Diary on ConservativeHome:

The Daily Mail is reporting that Andrew Pelling was held by police yesterday on suspicion of "assaulting his wife". He's been released on bail.

Andrew was elected as the Conservative MP for Croydon Central in 2005 with a majority of just 75 votes, and retains his position as an active London Assembly Member and Councillor in the area.

If this is proven to be true and his wife presses charges, he will face a difficult parliamentary election.

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Pelling uses his own website to say of himself:

Andrew does not really see himself as a politician.... Even the Leader of the London Greens called him 'the acceptable face of Conservativism."
Andrew, who lives locally, also has an independent streak.

The Mail (for all its innumerable faults) does this kind of story quite poetically, with the right admixture of offended horror and salacious detail. So, here's how it goes:

His first wife, of 18 years, went back to Japan to care for her father. In those ten months, Pelling started an affair with Lucy Slaytor, half his age and a Tory campaign worker, even installing her in the house with his three teenage children:

... daughter Elizabeth said her father brought Miss Slaytor home while her mother was away.

Elizabeth said: "She spent a whole weekend here.

"She just thrust herself upon me and my sister and brother. They told us together over breakfast that they were in love and wanted to get married and have children. We all felt awful. We couldn't believe he was doing this to us."

Now, Malcolm finds this next bit sooo touching:

After his relationship with Lucy Slaytor was made public his first wife, Sanae, accused Mr Pelling of posting envelopes containing housekeeping money through the family home letter box so he could avoid her.

She said at the time: "Once my children ran out to catch him before he left, but he drove away. They were in tears. They couldn't understand how their father could choose a woman half his age over them."

Mr Pelling moved in with Miss Slaytor's parents and admitted putting cash through his wife's letter box, saying: "I am proud that I support my wife and our children financially."

It's that nice "I am proud..." that sets the whole thing off, don't you think?

The Mail's news item is rounded off by two other details:

Mr Pelling hit the headlines again in February this year when he advised two constituents to vote for the BNP...

In January he tabled a parliamentary Motion marking the death of chef Rick Stein's dog, Chalky.

ConservativeHome's treatment tells Malcolm all he needs to know about the Tory mind: that friendly use of the first-name, 'Andrew'; the bit about the 'difficult parliamentary election'; that ambiguous 'active' and the refusal to allow comments.

Meanwhile, let us not forget where the leader of the Conservative Party stands:

... stressing that families must remain the bedrock of society and should "matter more than anything else in our society", Mr Cameron insisted: "If we can get the family right, we can fix our broken society."

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