Wot no Jeremy Thorpe thread?

[bluescreen]

Jeremy Thorpe: The Silent Conspiracy

The tragedy that homosexuality was criminal. The tragedies that flowed from that.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wz633

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Wider picture: Thorpe wanted a coalition with the tories to keep labour out. Liberals, libdems, same shit.

 

[bluescreen]

No, I think he hated the Tories.

Harold Wilson thought the Norman Scott issue was a Tory plot.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

yet he was prepared to govern with them if they gave him high office.

Was he a victim of homophobia? yes. Was he also a cunt? yes.

 

[oryx]

My main memory of the fallout from the Thorpe case is that a friend went to a student 'come as your favourite corpse' (yes, I know ) party dressed as Norman Scott's dog.

 

[jakethesnake]

I remember all this being on the radio when i was a kid - my mum being all awkward about homosexuality being said out loud in front of the children... old news now though?

 

[TheHoodedClaw]

Political scandals are so dull nowadays - "Husband watches porn on expenses", "Gets moat cleaned on expenses", "Disrespects a VOTER who DRIVES a VAN on twitter". Nobody is hiring hitmen any more

 

[bluescreen]

The Tom Mangold programme is on Listen Again now but tbh it's not telling us anything we haven't heard before.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wz633

 

[Orang Utan]

Thread title
OP is worse than Hitler.

 

[bluescreen]

Thread title
OP is worse than Hitler.

? Cor, that's going some. I prolly shouldn't have raised the subject at all. But was curious to see whether any South African or Tory conspiracies would creep out of the woodwork.

 

[bluescreen]

I read somewhere that Wilson thought the Tories were behind the smears but it was actually the South Africans. Wish I could find it again....

 

[dominion]

Private Eye, Auberon Waugh and Peter Cook:

http://howiescorner.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/jeremy-thorpe-protected-by.html

 

[bluescreen]

That Peter Cook sketch is a treasure. The audience reaction is telling, too.

 

[nino_savatte]

Wider picture: Thorpe wanted a coalition with the tories to keep labour out. Liberals, libdems, same shit.

It's always been that way with the Liberals. They're more than happy to form coalitions with the Tories but will only support Labour in a confidence and supply arrangement. 1924 is a good example of their treachery.

 

[nino_savatte]

I read somewhere that Wilson thought the Tories were behind the smears but it was actually the South Africans. Wish I could find it again....

Well, many Tories (especially those who were members of The Freedom Association) were on extremely friendly terms with the South African establishment.

 

[newbie]

The Tom Mangold programme is on Listen Again now but tbh it's not telling us anything we haven't heard before.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wz633

there was certainly a much more interesting programme in there struggling to get out, more relevant to our current preoccupations.

What Mangold discussed were attempts by various parts of the establishment to expose/smear the sexual activities of a leading politician while other parts, including the security services, closed ranks behind a member of the Privy Council. These events, with backstory of sexual, and in particular illegally homosexual, scandals and blackmail, and the stark warning from Denning were a very few years, and a change of government, before the Elm Guest house, Dickens dossier and so on. So while those attempts at exposure may well have stemmed from sexual prurience or party advantage, there was also a well founded 'national security' element. And then Thorpe nearly became Home Secretary which Mangold, along with all the other reports I've so far encountered, dismissed with a one-line "the rest of the Libs wouldn't be doing with that".

Those elements frame the story, not a shot dog or a (funny but) bigot like Waugh.

 

[bluescreen]

there was certainly a much more interesting programme in there struggling to get out, more relevant to our current preoccupations.

What Mangold discussed were attempts by various parts of the establishment to expose/smear the sexual activities of a leading politician while other parts, including the security services, closed ranks behind a member of the Privy Council. These events, with backstory of sexual, and in particular illegally homosexual, scandals and blackmail, and the stark warning from Denning were a very few years, and a change of government, before the Elm Guest house, Dickens dossier and so on. So while those attempts at exposure may well have stemmed from sexual prurience or party advantage, there was also a well founded 'national security' element. And then Thorpe nearly became Home Secretary which Mangold, along with all the other reports I've so far encountered, dismissed with a one-line "the rest of the Libs wouldn't be doing with that".

Those elements frame the story, not a shot dog or a (funny but) bigot like Waugh.

Agree with this. Frustrating that there isn't more, when there's a suspicion still of things being held back.

 

[JHE]

Those elements frame the story, not a shot dog or a (funny but) bigot like Waugh.

It wasn't really about a dead dog, but an almost-murdered Scott. Conspiracy to murder and getting away with conspiracy to murder thanks (at least in part) to judicial bias seem pretty interesting and important parts of the story.

 

[newbie]

they're writing and lawyering the sunday papers right now

 

[newbie]

It wasn't really about a dead dog, but an almost-murdered Scott. Conspiracy to murder and getting away with conspiracy to murder thanks (at least in part) to judicial bias seem pretty interesting and important parts of the story.

sure, but a) that's pure history with little contemporary resonance, and b) a jury acquitted him. That won't change, no matter how many acres of what is still called 'newsprint' or pages of thread, and there'll be nothing much that hasn't already been said unless there is real documentary evidence, in which case it would be dynamite of the sort that would have already been published.

 

[bluescreen]

The Cook sketch says things that couldn't otherwise be said at the time.

 

[bluescreen]

There won't be proof of anything, I'm guessing. But at least there is the possibility of discussing stuff now without getting sued. Such as why Andrew Newton shot Rinka. Well, maybe not, since Newton is still alive and can sue.

 

[newbie]

it was said at the time

 

[JHE]

The new stuff (at least afaik it's new) in the Mangold documenary is the interview with Dennis Meighan, London crim. Meighan claims to have been contracted to murder Scott, but backed out at a fairly late stage because he felt too conspicuous.

The other thing to be said in defence of the Mangold programme is that, for reasons of youth, inattention or forgetfulness, lots of people are not familiar with the Thorpe story. (I was 18 at the time of the trial and there was lots in the docu that I didn't know.)

Anyway, I thought it was a very good prog.

 

[bluescreen]

The new stuff (at least afaik it's new) in the Mangold documenary is the interview with Dennis Meighan, London crim. Meighan claims to have been contracted to murder Scott, but backed out at a fairly late stage because he felt too conspicuous.

The other thing to be said in defence of the Mangold programme is that, for reasons of youth, inattention or forgetfulness, lots of people are not familiar with the Thorpe story. (I was 18 at the time of the trial and there was lots in the docu that I didn't know.)

Anyway, I thought it was a very good prog.

True, that is new info. Being older than you, I had a big yawn about all this - while at the same time raging at how people get away with stuff and always have done.

 

[newbie]

fair enough you didn't know about it- but Meighan was part of the story at the time, eg see here
http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/6th-june-1981/6/another-voice
I don't know (or really care) whether his claims were known at the time, nor why the Mangold doc was held until after Thorpes death- was there anything there he would sue about?

 

[JHE]

In Mangold's view it's a story about how the establishment worked in those days ("the silent conspiracy" he calls it) to protect one of its own. Thorpe: Eton, Oxford, the Bar, Member of Parliament, party leader, Privy Councillor... definitely a gent. Gentlemen and their reputations mattered, unlike the dreadful oik Norman Scott.

 

[bluescreen]

In Mangold's view it's a story about how the establishment worked in those days ("the silent conspiracy" he calls it) to protect one of its own. Thorpe: Eton, Oxford, the Bar, Member of Parliament, party leader, Privy Councillor... definitely a gent. Gentlemen and their reputations mattered, unlike the dreadful oik Norman Scott.

True in a profound sense, and this is at the bottom of a lot of our problems. Newbie is also right. There is stuff here which has maybe been overlooked. Jeez it's like an octopus.

 

[JHE]

fair enough you didn't know about it- but Meighan was part of the story at the time, eg see here
http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/6th-june-1981/6/another-voice
I don't know (or really care) whether his claims were known at the time, nor why the Mangold doc was held until after Thorpes death- was there anything there he would sue about?

I think there are three possible motives the BBC may have had for withholding the prog until Thorpe pegged it. One is that the Beeb's lawyers may be ultra-cautious and thought there was some risk, though very slight, that he might sue and thought the risk should not be taken. (The docu does, after all, present him as guilty of an extremely serious crime, of which he was acquitted.) A second is that they thought it was unkind to the old boy to drag up all this beastly stuff in the twilight of his life. He's probably a member of the same club as various top Beeb folk. The third is that Thorpe's death would provide a convenient news hook on which to hang the promotion of the programme - and it has.

 

[bluescreen]

Mangold has always done this sort of stuff, thoughtful investigative journalism, so I guess it was just a question of waiting till the time was right.