He reportedly joked that the secret to a long marriage was ensuring your spouse was "someone who is always mildly sedated so she can never realise there are better men out there"

"In what was always understood as a private conversation James, the Home Secretary tackling spiking, made what was clearly meant to be an ironic joke - for which he apologises," a spokesperson for Cleverly said in a statement.

So a self-deprecating, incredible obvious joke, told in private to friends, has people jumping to be offended!

People really need to save their outrage for serious stuff because being outraged over something like this minimizes actually serious situations. It's like the boy who cried wolf(read: outrage).

Edit: is also fairly obvious that most of you just read the headline and popped in to be outraged. Merry Christmas!

Cleverly made the joke to female guests while attending a Downing Street reception earlier this month.

Yikes! The added context makes it even worse.

If the government has even the smallest modicum of dignity, he'll resign or be sacked. It's one thing to enjoy crass and offensive jokes, I certainly do, but there's a time and a place for such humour. I mean he's the Home Secretary for fucks sake! How in the world did he think that that kind of joke would go down well?

I've seen first hand the aftermath of someone's drink being spiked... It's not something I ever want to deal with again. Though I'll bet it was far worse for the unfortunate victim of it.

According to the paper, Cleverly – a senior minister in Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government – said that adding “a little bit of Rohypnol in her drink every night” was “not really illegal if it’s only a little bit.” He reportedly added that the secret to a long marriage was to ensure your spouse was “someone who is always mildly sedated so she can never realise there are better men out there.” His comments came on the same day that Cleverly vowed to strengthen British laws on the growing epidemic of drink spiking in the UK, according to the Mirror.

He should have been sacked when he described Stockton -- a place ravaged by 13 years of Tory austerity -- as a 'shithole' during a televised parliamentary session.

Not for calling Stockton a shithole (I love the place but it really is a bit rough), but for being the sort of politician that is so poor at their job that they say stuff like this in front of the public.

He made a joke in poor taste about his own wife. Not like he advocated raping strangers. Not like he advocated raping his own wife, it was a poor joke. It was meant in a self-deprecating manor.

Jesus people, let a bad joke go. I'm quite sure he hates himself for it and is quite regretful. Or shall we beat his ass more?

When conservatives talk "cancel culture", this is the kinda thing they point to. Don't feed them ammo.

looks like cleverly isn't very clever with his jokes

God's sake. I mean... At least he's apologising? I could imagine some of our recent lot doubling down on this and refusing to give in to wokeness blah blah blah...

But yeah. I'm really trying hard to be charitable cos it's Christmas and everything. That's not really pleasant stuff to hear from the guy who is in charge of the Police (over 1,100 under investigation for sexual assault or domestic violence atm)

According to MBFC, CNN has bias by omission and consistently fails fact checks. Not sure why this story is allowed.

He makes a mean barbecue sauce, too. Really knocks you off your feet.

So, Lemmings only go with titles, instead of reading the article, like redditors? Smh my head