A Very English Scandal - BBC1

[LMcD]

A triumph, too, for Tom Mangold, in getting his formerly banned 1979 documentary finally broadcast. Anyone who needs to know the true meaning of "BBC political documentary" as it once represented in terms of investigative journalism, to the point where leading representatives of the ruling class felt their reputations sufficiently safeguarded to speak frankly and at length in revealing facts that today would be obscured by a hyped up over-eagerness, and interruptions from interviewers who, seemingly unable to grasp passing clues, have lost all sense of etiquette and basic manners, should see this. As John Pilger demonstrated in persuading top Pentagon figures to reveal Cold War truths, you don't need to be brusque or rude to elicit secrets such as we all need in order to be informed participants in our supposed democracies.

Agreed in all respects!

[Serial_Apologist]

Agreed in all respects!

Much appreciated, thanks!

[Lat-Literal]

Not a surprise - given the intermediaries, the man probably has very little to add:

Police will not reopen investigation into Jeremy Thorpe scandal - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...-scandal-gwent

But the backdrop is Peter Hain and his time around 1975 both as Honorary Vice-President of CHE and President of the Young Liberals. The latter were much more radical than the mainstream Liberal Party. Many were far from enamoured with Thorpe because of his discussions with the Conservatives to try to form a Government in 1974. Some were in a long-term and heated spat with Hain who opposed them on a significant lowering of the age of consent for all down to childhood. It was in March 1976 that the notorious NCCL press notice was published which stated "NCCL proposes that the age of consent should be lowered to 14, with special provision for situations where the partners are close in age, or where consent of a child over ten can be proved." By a remarkable coincidence, it was on 16 March 1976 that Newton's trial began at Exeter Crown Court, where Scott repeated his allegations against Thorpe despite the efforts of the prosecution's lawyers to silence him. Newton was found guilty and sentenced to two years' imprisonment, but did not incriminate Thorpe and he was released as early as October 1977 at which time he took his story to the London evening press and sensationally alleged that he had been acting on behalf of a senior Liberal politician.

By 1 August 1978, when it appeared certain he would face criminal charges, Thorpe asked the Attorney-General what sum of capital possessed by an applicant would prevent him from receiving legal aid. Three days later, Thorpe, along with Holmes and two of Holmes's associates, was charged with conspiracy to murder Scott. That coincided to the month with the Child Protection Act 1978 coming in to force, following a year of high profile news stories including questions raised by Sir Bernard Braine and Mary Whitehouse, the NCCL's briefing note in which Harman/Hewitt had urged amendments to the Bill declaring that "images of children should only be considered pornographic if it could be proven the subject suffered", and the start of police officers beginning investigations into corruption in the London police services (Operation Countryman). Consequently, it seems to me the Thorpe affair was used by the establishment as a diversion. Gruesome though they were, Thorpe's failings were acted upon in an un-establishment way to divert the public from more serious controversy elsewhere.

And it was essentially the post-war political system which wished to divert. The Lib-Lab pact was fading. Something was needed. The right wing Conservatives who were talking about old fashioned values and making hay with the more sinister allegations of establishment abuse were sensing their opportunity to bring in a new economic system for the Americans. Ironically, they had plenty to answer to as 21st Century papers were to reveal but in the moment - politically crucial - that could be swept aside in all the furore over Thorpe and Scott. Thorpe had to be found not guilty as well as having his career finished off because he was essentially one of the old order, albeit from the dispensable mainstream Liberal Party. Had there been no Keith Joseph and no election in 1975 of Mrs Thatcher as Tory leader, and no dark side in the old guard, it would never have been permitted to leave him in desperation. As for Benn and Co, they could be tarnished by alleging linkages to NCCL "leftists" and dealt with by a Labour - for which read post-war consensus - victory in 1979, however unlikely.

[Serial_Apologist]

But the backdrop is Peter Hain and his time around 1975 both as Honorary Vice-President of CHE and President of the Young Liberals. The latter were much more radical than the mainstream Liberal Party.

As a flippant aside to all this, Hain was of course at the helm on the anti-apartheid demonstrations to stop the Springbok tour around that time. I recall being at a public meeting addressed by a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain [sic] (CPGB), who was heckled by a member of the audience disagreeing on the Party's leadership role in the demonstrations, and shouting, "It was our Peter Hain who threw the flour bombs!" - to which the CPer answered, "Maybe - but we supplied the flour"!

[Lat-Literal]

As a flippant aside to all this, Hain was of course at the helm on the anti-apartheid demonstrations to stop the Springbok tour around that time. I recall being at a public meeting addressed by a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain [sic] (CPGB), who was heckled by a member of the audience disagreeing on the Party's leadership role in the demonstrations, and shouting, "It was our Peter Hain who threw the flour bombs!" - to which the CPer answered, "Maybe - but we supplied the flour"!

Thorpe as he became - it could conceivably have happened to Heath or Jenkins (etc) prior to the early/mid 70s although both perhaps didn't have the character to be pushed into the wildest actions. Certainly not the latter. That it didn't was partially because each was in a major party, partially because there was no neo-con order on the horizon, partially because establishment abuse was hardly noted, partially because there were few trendies saying that the modern way was to have an age of consent of 10 or 4, and almost wholly because it was the "Commies" and ilk who were regarded as the biggest threat to the status quo. The sailing conductor and the champagne socialite from the valleys was old Britain's best defence.

(Plus Harold!)

I do appreciate that some might question the nature of the commentary above and what is being discussed with what. However, I think the 1967 reform - and other reforms of the sixties - were just so fundamental in terms of righting wrongs that they took about three years before fully settling in. Once they did, there was a loss of perspective in many who were liberally inclined and that wasn't discouraged by the significant differences in the age of consent depending on adult orientation. In some - NCCL, the Young Liberals - everything seemed up for debate and in their naivety they fell for some very dark arguments that were being put forward by a very tiny fringe. Those - and it was lethal politically - happened to coincide with the beginning of an understanding of significant institutional abuse which hadn't been addressed and probably will never be to the general public's satisfaction.

It was, I think, precisely because the illegality of same sex adult relationships had been so abhorrent and irrational that the few people who had leanings towards children were able to feel equally discriminated against and with what they believed was a likelihood of redress. But society was never going to accept it. It was only with clarity in further legislation for both genders during the ensuing decades that it would become clear what its preferences were in terms of a redrawing of the lines. Meanwhile, there was a decade and a half when whatever had happened in the mire of the pre 1967 position could emerge to cause chaos. The economic instinct among the powers that be was to defend their ways at all cost.

That a culmination is in the alleged attempted murder by an establishment figure of someone who was about 19 when the two met seems to me to be a precise symbol of a country which in the late seventies has not fully accepted its own legislative reform for same sex relationships between adults, has not decided in every circumstance what is the age of an adult and the age of a child and has not an advanced appreciation of the manner in which abuses are often systemic and of a specific character where institutions interact with individuals.

[Nick Armstrong]

In some respects Carman was the most interesting character in the final episode. I imagine that the legal profession has a vast repertoire of stories and gossip about GC and that the fictionalised scenes between him and Thorpe were based on that rich seam of hearsay?

More likely from the warts-and-all biography of GC by his son Dominic, "No Ordinary Man", published in 2002, the year after his death, which apparently goes into his wife-beating, his homosexual tendencies, his drinking etc etc. I failed to read it or to get hold of a copy, to my chagrin now that I see the prices second-hand copies are fetching, here and elsewhere

[Richard Tarleton]

More likely from the warts-and-all biography of GC by his son Dominic, "No Ordinary Man", published in 2002, the year after his death, which apparently goes into his wife-beating, his homosexual tendencies, his drinking etc etc. I failed to read it or to get hold of a copy, to my chagrin now that I see the prices second-hand copies are fetching, here and elsewhere

Piece by Dominic in Sunday's ST......

[Andrew353w]

I was born in Barnstaple, grew up in north Devon and was in college in the late 1970s, and so I feel a particular attachment to the programmes. I watched all of these episodes, including the Tom Mangold documentary afterwards. Although I feel Jeremy Thorpe was in some ways portrayed as a "champagne Charlie" in the programmes, having heard & seen him "on the stump" in Bideford a number of times during the 1979 election, that portrayal was very accurate-Thorpe's use of language and quips to reduce hecklers and others heel-bent on wrecking his speeches was fantastic. On one occasion I remember a fisherman shouting at him from a boat tied up on Bideford Quay, to which Thorpe reposted "ladies and gentlemen, the opinions of the 'floating voter', should you wish to hear them......." A truly excellent put-down!

During the trial we all watched News at Ten every night. My late father re-named it "The Jeremy Thorpe Show" for the duration.....

[aeolium]

Did anyone else find it slightly uncomfortable that Mangold seemed to regard Thorpe’s getting away with all that homosexuality early in his career as almost as reprehensible as getting away with conspiracy to murder would have been (and ultimately was)?

Possibly, but I thought it was more the case that Mangold was irritated at the way Thorpe could be cavalier, even reckless in his gay affairs precisely because he believed he could rely upon the establishment to look the other way, offering him protection that certainly was not available to his generally weaker and poorer lovers. And the facts bore that belief out - he did get protection from the Attorney General, the Home Secretary and eventually, in the trial, a senior judge even though the evidence against him was compelling if not damning. He was not unusual in using his class and establishment credentials to escape legal persecution - Tom Driberg was another famous example, protected by Lord Beaverbrook in the 1930s and enjoying what Kingsley Amis called "baffling immunity...from the law and the Press to the end of his days", and Guy Burgess was notoriously reckless. The vast majority of those suffering imprisonment for homosexual activity - over 1000 a year in the 1950s - had no recourse to powerful friends. It was surely the callousness of Thorpe's attitude in regarding people like Scott as dispensable, and eventually a nuisance to be eliminated, that Mangold was reacting to.

[Nevilevelis]

Possibly, but I thought it was more the case that Mangold was irritated at the way Thorpe could be cavalier, even reckless in his gay affairs precisely because he believed he could rely upon the establishment to look the other way, offering him protection that certainly was not available to his generally weaker and poorer lovers. And the facts bore that belief out - he did get protection from the Attorney General, the Home Secretary and eventually, in the trial, a senior judge even though the evidence against him was compelling if not damning. He was not unusual in using his class and establishment credentials to escape legal persecution - Tom Driberg was another famous example, protected by Lord Beaverbrook in the 1930s and enjoying what Kingsley Amis called "baffling immunity...from the law and the Press to the end of his days", and Guy Burgess was notoriously reckless. The vast majority of those suffering imprisonment for homosexual activity - over 1000 a year in the 1950s - had no recourse to powerful friends. It was surely the callousness of Thorpe's attitude in regarding people like Scott as dispensable, and eventually a nuisance to be eliminated, that Mangold was reacting to.

Nailed it!

[Richard Tarleton]

Nailed it!

Indeed, excellently put.

If anybody came out well from the Mangold documentary, I thought, it was Scott. I liked the little postscript section.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Nailed it!

Indeed, excellently put.

If anybody came out well from the Mangold documentary, I thought, it was Scott. I liked the little postscript section.

[Stunsworth]

In some respects Carman was the most interesting character in the final episode. I imagine that the legal profession has a vast repertoire of stories and gossip about GC and that the fictionalised scenes between him and Thorpe were based on that rich seam of hearsay?

His son wrote a 'warts and all' biography that's sadly out of print...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ordinary-Man-Dominic-Carman-2002-10-03/dp/B01K92M1KK/ref=la_B001KDCPHW_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1528199474&sr=1-2

I'd have bought a copy if it had been available.

[Lat-Literal]

Possibly, but I thought it was more the case that Mangold was irritated at the way Thorpe could be cavalier, even reckless in his gay affairs precisely because he believed he could rely upon the establishment to look the other way, offering him protection that certainly was not available to his generally weaker and poorer lovers. And the facts bore that belief out - he did get protection from the Attorney General, the Home Secretary and eventually, in the trial, a senior judge even though the evidence against him was compelling if not damning. He was not unusual in using his class and establishment credentials to escape legal persecution - Tom Driberg was another famous example, protected by Lord Beaverbrook in the 1930s and enjoying what Kingsley Amis called "baffling immunity...from the law and the Press to the end of his days", and Guy Burgess was notoriously reckless. The vast majority of those suffering imprisonment for homosexual activity - over 1000 a year in the 1950s - had no recourse to powerful friends. It was surely the callousness of Thorpe's attitude in regarding people like Scott as dispensable, and eventually a nuisance to be eliminated, that Mangold was reacting to.

Which is true but it comes with provisos such as:

(a) why it was he who ended up in a situation in which he was pushed into extreme action and subsequently brought before a court, especially a decade after the law had changed in many ways in his favour (answer: as I have suggested earlier, the nature of his marital relationship and especially the politics of the time, plus that the activities in 1960-1 had been with someone who was under the age of 21 which was the age of consent in the late '60s/'70s and also onwards - that is what I meant by society not having decided in every circumstance who was an adult or a child - the standard age of consent was 16 but Scott would at age 19/20 have been an "illegal" even if the events of 1960-1 had been in 1977-8)

(b) why Heath was protected on what is known about his lifestyle in the 1950s etc, let alone subsequent more lurid allegations, given that he was from a grammar school background (answer: possibly because Heath became PM to help ensure it wasn't ultimately Benn in a coup as happened with Livingstone a bit later at the GLC and that the blasé assumption in Thorpe from very early on was largely derived from his ultra establishment background and schooling, then deemed in a new class system to be unmanageable by the old elites).

I was born in Barnstaple, grew up in north Devon and was in college in the late 1970s, and so I feel a particular attachment to the programmes. I watched all of these episodes, including the Tom Mangold documentary afterwards. Although I feel Jeremy Thorpe was in some ways portrayed as a "champagne Charlie" in the programmes, having heard & seen him "on the stump" in Bideford a number of times during the 1979 election, that portrayal was very accurate-Thorpe's use of language and quips to reduce hecklers and others heel-bent on wrecking his speeches was fantastic. On one occasion I remember a fisherman shouting at him from a boat tied up on Bideford Quay, to which Thorpe reposted "ladies and gentlemen, the opinions of the 'floating voter', should you wish to hear them......." A truly excellent put-down!

During the trial we all watched News at Ten every night. My late father re-named it "The Jeremy Thorpe Show" for the duration.....

My memory - almost certainly in late 1974 (Sep?) - was of the Liberals descending by helicopter onto North Devon beaches full of holiday makers to hand out election leaflets. I don't know if you recall this? I was 11 at that time. The drama of it, with hindsight, was very Thorpian!

[Nick Armstrong]

His son wrote a 'warts and all' biography that's sadly out of print...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ordinary-Man-Dominic-Carman-2002-10-03/dp/B01K92M1KK/ref=la_B001KDCPHW_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1528199474&sr=1-2

I'd have bought a copy if it had been available.

Yes, see my #66 above. We are in the same boat - no bloody copy at a sensible price!