A very English Scandal

I haven't watched it all but I expect the NI card was just his way of keeping in touch.

Jalima wrote:

Jeremy Thorpe was very good MP, a good leader and a reformer - but a flawed character who will always be remember for this scandal.

That summary was needed. Thanks.
However isn't there a principle at stake; that upper class oppression of lower classes was and still may exist? JT was a liberal and I can think of liberals in my family who would regard rape of a minor as more than a flaw. Scott was not a minor in years, but he was a minor in power. The principle I refer to is that a man with power has the responsibility to serve and take care of social underlings, whether that social underling be a student, an employee, a patient, a child, a prisoner, aged person, etc etc.

In the play, Thorpe's defence was that he tried to help Scott but did not have sex with him. This defence, if true, overarched any legal consideration and would still be a defensible position today when homosexuality is not illegal.

Yes, it is strange that someone who campaigned for human rights and freedoms, was against apartheid yet could behave so ruthlessly and I think he was bisexual rather than homosexual but obviously had a need which was against the law then.
What would have happened nowadays I wonder?

Perhaps he could compartmentalise his thoughts and conscience, persuade himself that what he was doing was necessary for the greater good of the party and his political ideals.

That first paragraph sounds a bit odd, I tried to change it but it obviously didn't work!

I see nothing wrong with your first paragraph, Jalima.

Compartmentalising is polite name for prejudice maybe.

Good and evil can exist side my side in people and frequently does. I see no dichotomy between the two sides of JT.

JT had no power over Scott when the affair started. Scott was not forced or coerced into the relationship. The problem was, if the drama is to be believed, is that Scott fell deeply in love with Thorpe, who wasn't remotely in love with him and as far as JT was concerned the relationship ended when Scott left him to go elsewhere.

This is a pattern of human relationships that is only too common across all the combination of gender relationships, someone has a brief affair with someone, it breaks up and one moves on and the other doesn't, but remains bewitched and in thrall to their previous lover.

Give JT his due, though, despite being ferociously politically ambitious, he stuck with a party whose principles he believed in, even though their chances of getting near any power were, almost negative when he joined. Had he compromised his principles and joined the Conservative party he would undoubtedly have made very rapid progress up the greasy pole.

Homosexuality was illegal at the time of his affair with Scott, but after one election, there was a real possibility that he could have become a coalition partner. I can see how, a man in Thorpe's position at that time, faced with the prospect of power on one side and a gay lover who kept popping up like a game of Whac-a-Mole, and threatened his career at a critical moment and whose revelations could see him exiled from his whole life, his reputation ruined. At such a critical time a man in extrenis might well consider murder.

I see nothing wrong with your first paragraph, Jalima.
On re-reading, it sounded like gobbledegook!

MOnica wrote:

Good and evil can exist side my side in people and frequently does. I see no dichotomy between the two sides of JT.

I agree MOnica same as one must agree that none of us is Jesus Christ. However the prejudice that members of the lower orders may be raped or otherwise oppresssed is wrong , as I'm sure most of us agree.

I am not sure a member of the lower orders was raped or otherwise oppressed. Scott had a choice of refusing all the way through the process. He could easily have decided to blackmail JT. I am sure he would have paid up to keep all things quiet. That sort of thing happened a lot in the past (and probably still does).

Maybe not Scott but there were infamous incidents of ‘rent boys’ and public toilets. Of course some of those people blackmailed.

MOnica wrote:

I am not sure a member of the lower orders was raped or otherwise oppressed. Scott had a choice of refusing all the way through the process.

If it's true that Scott was attracted to and fascinated by Scott he was at least seduced by a superior in power and strength of personality.

My point is that someone with superior powers has a moral responsibility for a certain amount of care for less powerful people. If JT did nothing but care for Scott's welfare as he claimed then JT was positively behaving very well indeed. There is a principle involved that exploitation of the less powerful is never good. Sex is always potentially exploitative, which is why there are moral guidelines.

That's why e.g. doctors never should have unmarried sex with patients, teachers with students, or prison guards with prisoners.

I wish I could edit. I mean of course "attracted to and fascinated by Jeremy Thorpe".

If you read the book by John Preston he recounts/alleges that JT produced some Vaseline and bu**erd Scott until he bled. Scott claimed he was in agony but unable to cry out because JT’s mother Ursula was in the next room, this adding an extra frisson to JT’s pleasure.
A thoroughly disgusting scene, very much sanitised for TV as was, I feel, the whole sorry story.
I think only Germaine Greer would agree that a rape victim had a choice of refusing all the way during the process

MawBroon wrote:

I think only Germaine Greer would agree that a rape victim had a choice of refusing all the way during the process

Gremaine Greer claims that there is a difference between bad sex and rape.
What you describe, MawBroon, is violent bullying. I am sure that Germaine Greer would condemn violent bullying such as your copy describes.

I thought Germaine Greer had said rape is just bad sex?

Greer, a leading feminist and author of The Female Eunuch, suggested that most rape should not be seen as a “spectacularly violent crime” but as “lazy, careless and insensitive”. She said “most rapes don’t involve any injury whatsoever,” and conflated rape with “bad sex … where there is no communication, no tenderness”
The Guardian

I cannot see how anyone can condone a powerful well off man raping a young rather niave young man To say it was just a matter of Scott being in love with Thorpe and Thorpe not caring a jot is simplifying it enormously
Thorpe took advantage to satisfy his own needs he couldn’t care less about Scott and was even contemplating murdering him to cover up his own misdeeds and keep him quiet to save his career, that’s is just not normal behaviour of a decent person
Who in their lifetime considers murder no matter what anyone does to you ?

Well the powerful have taken advantage of the less powerful for sex throughout history.

Slaves exploited by their masters, Lords of the Manor expecting sexual favours from the minions or from the minions’ daughters/wives , schoolchildren exploited by priests, popstars exploiting their groupies, physically stronger men exploiting women, rent boys used by richer men, Artists expecting favours from their models, Harvey Weinstein using the casting couch.

‘Twas always thus.
Shouldn’t happen of course, but it did and still does.

well said mostlyharmless this kind of behaviour has gone on since time began unfortunately.

....that’s alright then, it’s always happened, so why worry

Blimey I thought we d move on in becoming a tad more civilised in 2021 I m astounded at those last two posts

I’m not condoning taking advantage of others bluebelle. Of course it is despicable behaviour. He was a callous and devious man. Apart from exploiting Scott he also exploited less powerful people by involving them in the murder attempt. Only luck prevented Scott’s death here.
The title of the play trivialises this whole episode.

Of course Thorpe seduced Scott, but if he hadn't in his turn been seduced by his physical charms, he wouldn't have done so.

Scott was in independent person when he met Thorpe. If he had been straight he would have ignored Thorpe and his blandishments and he was completely free to do that even if he was gay. At no point in this dramatisation has there been an suggestion that Thorpe used any coercion, physical or mental.

Going into someone's bedroom in surroundings unfamiliar to them, in your mother's house (and therefore "your territory"), slamming down a bottle of Vaseline on the bedside table and putting a towel on the bed "just in case"; when the other party is in floods of tears, doesn't involve some coercion? "And I'm going to kiss you now"... I thought JT was very intimidating in that scene.

At no point in this dramatisation has there been an suggestion that Thorpe used any coercion, physical or mental

That, M0nica is why I referred to the dramatisation as sanitised
“Seduced”always sounds so much better than “bu**ered” or “raped” doesn’t it?
And for those who claim “‘‘twas ever thus” all I would say is that we should bl***y well have moved on from the Dark Ages.

I guess Scott can read all these posts because unlike JT I believe he is still alive.