I have been following the latest machinations over rape allegations with some interest, as they have serious consequences for all involved in casual sex. For the past ten years or more, a politically driven agenda has been thrust down the throats of court users about the deplorably low percentage of rape allegations that lead to conviction, and successive governments have sought to do something about it.

My considerable experience tells me that there are basically two defences to an allegation of rape: “it wasn’t me, guv”, or “she was gagging for it”. It is also correct in my own experience that most of those accused of rape are acquitted, not simply as a result of the brilliance of my advocacy, but because the jury did not believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the victim did not consent, and that, at the end of the day, is the proper and only test to be applied.

Into this squirming sack of grubby emotions steps Ms. Alison Saunders, who is the Director of Public Prosecutions, so she should know better. And is it just me, or are women taking over the world? And is it just me, or do you share my dislike for the prefix ‘Ms’? It’s all to do with political correctness, or so they say, but speaking for my wife, and I suspect millions of other wives, when she agreed to marry me, convention dictated that she took my name and became Mrs. Osborne. She does not wish to be referred to as Ms. Osborne, nor does she wish to be known as my partner. It’s absurd!

But I digress. Back to Ms. Saunders and her camp followers. She has decided, or rather it has been decided for her, that anybody who makes an allegation of rape must be believed, and everything possible in the trial process must be bent towards the conviction of the accused. Rape trials from now on are no longer to be prosecution led, but conviction led, and when you add into the mix that prison sentences for rape are getting longer and longer, the opportunities for a serious miscarriage of justice are self-evident. Or should that be ‘ms.carriage’?

Sarah Vine, or more properly Ms. Sarah Vine the journalist, summed up the feelings of the legions of fair minded people. Like me, she deplores the so-called ‘vagenda’ (her word not mine), the all-men-are-rapists brigade advanced by vocal feministas like Harriet Harman and the ‘femi-fascist’ twitter mob who increasingly seem to hold sway in public policy. Predictably, Ms. Harman, and I use that form of address advisedly, replied to Ms. Vine’s comments with the usual ‘feminista’ clichés, defending Ms. Saunders for trying to ensure that victims of rape get justice.

I have always found it distasteful and unattractive the suggestion that as the victim was blind drunk she was therefore unable to give her consent to sex, or more to the point, she gave her consent which she would not have given had she been sober. In my book, consent is consent, blind drunk or otherwise, and regret after the event cannot make it rape as Ms. Saunders and Ms. Harman seem to be advocating. It is also right to add that the converse is true, namely that if a woman does not consent, blind drunk or otherwise, it would be rape if sexual intercourse takes place. That is what the offence of rape is all about.

PS. It seems that my timely intervention in the casual sex and consent debate is already reaping dividends. Teenage pregnancies have fallen to their lowest rate since records began more than four decades ago.