A very English Scandal

Well used to have one of those old cards which literally had stamps on them when I was working in the uni holidays. Of course I lost it - it didn’t matter a jot do either this was all made up or NS got fixated about it for some odd reason

I've still got one of mine somewhere.
Yellow with brown print, and the address changed so many times there was hardly any room.
It says:
'Exchange this for a new card during the week beginning --- at a local office of the DHSS.
On the back:
6. If the employee leaves, return the card to her (sic) stamped up to date. If there is some reason why you cannot return it to her, send it to the Department's local office with a note of explanation.

which is what should have happened with Norman's.

No, I can’t see Torpe or Profumo as any kind of a victim! Someone please convince me, I’m interested.
When homosexuality became legal I asked a discreet elderly homosexual friend what he felt. Having lived in the shadows all his adult life he answered in one word: ‘Bitterness’

We're all the poorer for what happened.

Jeremy Thorpe revitalised the Liberal Party which could have gone on from strength to strength had this not happened.

I wonder though Jalima if Thorpe had such a ruthlous and vicious streak in him to want to kill someone who was ‘getting in his way’ he could well have plotted against people who were stopping him in his quest to the top seat

Are we judging Thorpe by the recent tv series?

This is the danger Jalna rather like judging Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn from The Tudors or “Wolf Hall”.
We need to distinguish drama/fiction and dramatisations of fiction from historical fact. But unless you have studied the period most of us (me included) know the anecdotes better than the historical details.
In the same way Shakespeare handed down a whole version of English and Scottish history in his “historical plays” with very dubious historical accuracy!

Sorry Jalima -fat finger syndrome!

Well I’m not judging JT by the TV series but by a great deal that I’ve read about the whole issue of gay rights and the hypocrisy of the upper classes during the struggle for gay rights not to mention Simon Hughes in 1983. How can ‘we’ be poorer for the loss of the upper class hypocrite JT? I rather think MB that some of us don’t need you to tell us that we need to distinguish drama/fiction and the dramatisation of fiction from historical fact and yes I guess many of us know that Shakespeare’s wasn’t always accurate.

I was not telling anybody what to think but expressing an opinion in answer to the question posed, “are we judging JT from the recent TV series” so would you ever do respectfully please stop overreacting and nit picking everything I say.

(Still waiting for LWB mind you

You would be right to “guess”:that not only was Shakespeare less than historically accurate but had the twofold sim of telling a good story while not risking the wrath of the powers that be, especially the King.
Ian McKellen is interesting on the subject
www.mckellen.com/writings/stage/700000r2.htm

“Aim” not “sim”

I watched the documentary after the drama MawBroon which I presume was not fictitious

No indeed BlueBelle as I understand it was made years ago but never screened.
I wonder why, BBC? ??

I didn’t watch the drama, the writer said he knew Scott and wanted to put Scott’s story forward, I didn’t think it was fair for one to speak whilst the other was dead.

I do feel sorry for Thorpe, being Gay would have ruined his career and possibly a prison sentence. When homosexuality was legalised it didn’t mean Gays could just come out and all would be well. Years of hiding one’s sexuality must have caused much damage to a man.

It was due to originally be aired just after the verdict - but when he was acquitted the BBC pulled the programme and said all copies should be destroyed but Tom Mangold managed to keep a tape and then transfer it to a DVD which survived his dog trying to eat it!

On the subject of the National Insurance Card, I took this part of the story to highlight how fixated and vulnerable Scott was. I saw the first episode and bits of the second but my DH didn't want to watch it so we headed for Dave...again. I will watch it though when he is not around.
I think it is difficult to imagine just how terrible a thing homosexuality was seen to be for a man of the establishment (even though it seems to have been rife) and it is hard to see how desperate JT must have been. That isn't to say it was excusable to try to murder anybody but in those days homosexuality was still thought to be akin to paedophilia in the minds of the many of the electorate.
I was only a spring chicken in those days but I got the definite impression from the talk I heard (in our lowly, down trodden, underclass) that JT had been targeted by a Walter Mitty type and the whole thing was a smear campaign.

I wonder where that interpretation came from?

Disagree entirely Anniebach. The ‘Old Boy’ network worked perfectly to protect Thorpe even though his reputation was in tatters he escaped a custodial sentence.

By contrast Scott’s life was made almost impossible by his lack of a NI Card and because he was a ‘nobody’ in the eyes of Thorpe and his cronies, and a similar stance by the police when he tried to go through legal channels, he was powerless. He took the only option left open him which resulted in an innocent dog losing its life and a near miss for Scott himself.

It’s nothing really to do with being Gay but more to do with the power wielded by the likes of Thorpe.

You're right OldMeg. The prejudice against Norman Scott and men like him, was staggering. His vulnerability in a 'relationship' with a man like JT wasn't acknowledged. It was re-framed as NS exploiting Thorpe's friendship, as icanhtb recalls in her post earlier.
The summing up by the Judge is all that's needed to put this in its historical context.
Young women in a similar position as Norman Scott, would I'm sure have been viewed in the same negative, judgemental way. Christine Keeler, Mandy RiceDavies?

OldMeg, what was Thorpe found guilty of to escape a custodial sentence?

He escaped a custodial sentence because his trial was a miscarriage of justice engineered by the Establishment at a whole variety of levels and in a whole variety of ways. The very choice of the judge for the trial raise many eyebrows and his summing up was a travesty of justice and a disgrace to the English judicial system.

The judge and his summing up was parodied by Peter Cook.

Nevertheless JT was finished as a politician and a social pariah. Sad times.

No comparison between Keeler and Rice Davies with Scott. Keeler had an affair with Profumo , she didn’t end up in court because of the affair, he lost his job and she made money from a book and the Keeler in the nude on a chair photograph,