Westminster fringe benefits
Auberon Waugh
Isn't it time we had a decent sex scandal in Britain ? Washington is plainly in for an enjoyable summer, as disgruntled secretary after disgruntled secretary comes out with her exclusive account of sexual adventures on Capitol Hill. In Britain, it looks as if we have nothing but a few race riots to look forward to in the long, dead month of August when law courts and Parliament are in recess. And if the blacks aren't prepared to get off their backsides, we shall just have to look into the sky and pretend to see flying saucers ...
Perhaps British politicians are less venal than their American equivalents, or British secretaries more discreet. Or perhaps both have succumbed to the general torpor. But it is a sad fact that no scandal has much chance of getting off the ground in Britain unless some reference can be made to it in Parliament or in the courts, where reporting is privileged. A secretary may have been gangbanged by the whole Government Front Bench and even the Opposition Front Bench, too, poor woman, but not one of our brave, crusading newspapers will mention the fact until she says it in court, or somebody brings up the matter in Parliament.
The Profumo scandal broke when a Negro called Aloysius Lucky Gordon appeared in court charged either with letting off a gun in a public place or maliciously breaking some windows—I forget which. The glorious Jellicoe-Lambton episode only surfaced in Parliament long 'after various newspapers had received photographs and statements which would have been more than enough to discourage any plaintiff in a libel action. Norman Scott had to wait for years before producing his interesting allegations about Mr Jeremy Thorpe in a Barnstaple court where he was accused of social security offences, although Fleet Street had been buzzing with them for months.
I hear a chorus of protest against this opening of old wounds. On every side people are saying what a decent chap George Jellicoe was, and no doubt others can be found who will say the same for Lord Lambton. Both of them. I imagine, are now work ing their fingers off for some charitable housing trust in the East End of London. Jeremy Thorpe's innocence of all Mr Scott's charges has been proved to the complete satisfaction of all prudent mortals by his detailed and categorical denials, given exclusively to a Sunday newspaper. For my own part, I am so completely convinced by his denials that I would quote them in full if I were not frightened of infringing Lord Thomson's copyright.
John Profumo, of course, has worked his way back, so it is in the worst possible taste to mention the earlier episode at all. If he had been convicted of anything at the time, it would now be libellous to mention the fact. In any case, of course, it wasn't his going off with a tart which worried us—good gracious, we're all sufficiently men of the world to take that in our stride—it was his Lying to the House.
Of all commentaries on the Profumo affair, this one has always struck me as the oddest. In several years of sitting through every important debate in the House of Commons, I never consciously heard anyone tell it a word of truth; I never once checked on an answer to a Parliamentary Question without finding it either gravely misleading or a straight lie. But then I never uncovered any sexual scandals, either—or none to which I was prepared to give serious credence—and this discouraged me after a time. As a natural romantic, I had hoped to find the House of Commons like a cornrick where every sheaf lifted will reveal a family of rats fighting, eating and copulating with each other and dashing for cover when exposed to the light of day. Instead, I found an assembly of dirty-minded but torpid and inadequate drunks.
Nothing could be more depressing than to discover that our parliamentarians are almost as sexually torpid as their idiotic public image seems to require. My intention, believe it or not, was the entirely benign one of trying to prove that politicians are really human, against all the evidence. I am convinced, as I explained on this page some months ago, that a huge majority of Englishmen and Englishwomen find sexual disclosures about politicians funny, not shocking, although if one can succeed in making a few people genuinely indignant about such matters—Lord Hailsham, perhaps, or the late Sir William Haley—it only adds to the entertainment for the rest of us. The glory of our democratic system is that such disclosures still destroy a politician's repulsive career in a way that proven association with crooked business enterprises does not.
But it is no good living on past shock horror sensations. If we are to enjoy any political sex scandals this summer, we shall have to invent them ourselves; there will be no help from those sluggish, overpaid ranks in the House of Commons.
Oddly enough, I have been working on the outlines of a political sex extravaganza for some time, without ever having the opportunity to write it. No doubt the plot, when explained, will prove too preposterous for any West End impresario or mogul of Independent Television, most of whose minds are on higher matters. No audience will invest much credibility in it either, so resigned are
Spectator proposition l 9 june at 19 political leaders are sexless as well as Ma] ruptible. But since nothing else has haPPene°, this week for me to write about, I suPPose might as well set it down. The hero is a youngish, fairly idealistic politician—I suppose we had better make him Labour—who falls from grace just once. that o7u6 we all to the gloomy r Although he is already married, he ernhark,s on an affair with a lady from work. The affair only lasts a comparatively short time—ah0°1 two years—but he makes the mistake during this time of taking his lady friend w Russia with him, where he is visiting on business', not one but three times. During the first °I these visits, they are photographed ill ccm. promising circumstances by agents of the Soviet security police at a hotel where they are both staying. The plot, as I say, is a preposterous one-anybody who knows anything about politic! will know how absurd it is to suggest that ° politician could ever have an affair with anY" one who was not his wife—but this is the least preposterous part of it. Those who have made a study of such matters assure me thal the KGB take infinite pains, and every sing.le, applicant for a tourist visa to the Sovici listsUnion—even onaThomson half-witted students et on ut sr _o r so mu rti er' the subject of a KGB decision on vilhet"nthe applicant should be recruited, c°1111),r;,mised or merely neutralised (that is, ted from seeing anything unsuitable). 'A, risk of a politician visiting Russia with a lady friend being Made the subject of such atte°' tions is so great as to be a virtual certaintYi' and where repeated visits are involved, it s more than a certai nty.
At any rate, our hero comes back from the Soviet Union to disclose that the KGB
the screws on him, and the only person England who knows this is his ladY frier14 Fortunately, she remains loyal to Min in fact stays by his side like the proverbia limpet long after their sexual passion has roll; its course. But the knowledge undouhteel gives her a certain moral purchase. His career progresses, as politicians' c°_, eers are wont to do, and in time he finds hittliv di self the leader of his party and eventua"... (why not ?) Prime Minister of Great Britaii.r, As the former Isady friend approaches a ce,„ rain age, her influence be,comes unsettliell; The demands she places upon his loyaltY ore come more strenuous, and the threats °Ibis overt. Eventually he inexplicably resigns, ds last actions in obedience to her dernarithe wleahvoilnegepaisnoodteic.eable question mark over • a ni The truth finally comes out when, in ciy of hysteria, either the politician, or his friend—or possibly both—institutedso 11ru:7_, nb, proceedings against a brave, ha much-loved journalist who has guessed t el; secret. In the final court scene it is reca 1_°11 that the former Prime Minister has been agent of the Soviet Union—albeit an norldw10"f ingone—throughout his entire office.Pert
Are there any takers for this pre fiction ? Posterous
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