Michael Fallon resigns amid talk of new sleaze claims

Michael Fallon has resigned as Defence Secretary, saying his past behaviour towards women had “fallen short” of the expected standards of the UK military.

“A number of allegations have surfaced about MPs in recent days, including some about my previous conduct,” he wrote in his resignation letter to Theresa May. “Many of these have been false but I accept that in the past I have fallen below the high standard we require of the Armed Forces that I have the honour to represent.”

Earlier this week Fallon publicly apologised after the journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer revealed on Twitter he had touched her on the knee in 2002.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

“If he has gone because he touched my knee 15 years ago, that is genuinely the most absurd reason for anyone to have lost their job in the history of the universe, so I hope it is not because of that,” she said last night.

But “allies of the former defence secretary said that he had resigned because he was unable to guarantee that there would not be more stories about inappropriate behaviour with other journalists”, The Times reports.

One friend told The Guardian: “He would absolutely concede that some of the flirtation has been inappropriate.”

Fallon himself spoke of “occasionally” falling short of expected standards, suggesting there had been more than one incident.

“I think we've all got to look back now at the past, there are always things you regret, you would have done differently,” he told the BBC.