AS I WAS SAYING
Why Aitken's public life was dishonest because his private life was too
PEREGRINE WORSTHORNE
Again, most serial philanderers make mistakes and get caught out, but not Jonathan, who was too clever to get caught out and, on the rare occasions when he was too charming to suffer any serious ill effects. On the whole he did not treat women badly, Carol Thatcher being more the exception than the rule. But, like all monumental Don Juans, he treated the truth badly, becoming — as all Don Juans must — a congenital liar. Mrs Thatcher was quite right to exclude him from her govern- ment, just as Macmillan would have saved himself a lot of trouble if he had excluded Mr Profumo, who was also turned into a liar by his amorous proclivities.
All's fair in love and war, of course, and it is that conventional wisdom — conven- tional at any rate in male society — which, I believe, led poor Jonathan to his doom. The lies and deceits necessary for success- ful serial adultery are not taken seriously, are easily overlooked and forgiven, even admired. Good old Jonathan, was the atti- tude. I remember going to dinner in the late 1960s at the house of Hugh Fraser, then a leading Tory MP, for whom Jonathan was working as a young assistant — his first political job, I think. When Hugh went off to vote, he asked Jonathan to keep his seat at the head of the table warm for him until he returned from the House of Commons. 'He's keeping some- thing else warm too,' said a fashionable lady on my right. The men just looked at each other knowingly, since it was common knowledge that our hostess, Hugh's wife at that time, was Jonathan's mistress. Jonathan's demeanour was quite impecca- ble. I was immensely impressed. This was cuckolding raised to a fine art.
What has this to do with the lies and deceits which have now, 30 years on, led him to his ruin? A very great deal, in my view. Why should it be supposed that a man who in his private life — when engaged in the business of stealing other men's wives — has made a habit of lying and deceit on a massive scale, can suddenly become truthful and straightforward in his public life when engaged, say, in the selling of arms? Why should it be assumed that a man who has consistently, over and over again, cajoled other men's wives into get- ting him out of adulterous scrapes by lying to their gullible husbands, will think twice about cajoling his own wife into perjuring herself to get him out of a legal scrape? There is no good reason for assuming any such thing. Indeed, in some ways a lifetime of adulterous deceit, which often involves pulling the wool over the eyes of old friends and, in the case of Hugh Fraser, for exam- ple, a patron and benefactor, must make lying to a judge, by comparison, seem rather small beer.
I don't think I am trying to bend over backward to make excuses for Jonathan's conduct in the matter of lying about that hotel bill and getting his wife and daughter to do likewise, for such behaviour is inex- cusable. But equally inexcusable for many years was his private life, and well known to be so. Yet he was allowed to get away with it. As host to the Conservative Philosophy Group, which has been meeting under his roof and accepting his hospitality for very many years, he has entertained some of the most respectable men and women in the land, including the Archbishop of York, no less. Is it any wonder that he was encour- aged to think that his good looks, charm and intelligence, which have allowed him to walk a tightrope so successfully in his pri- vate life, would do the same in his public life, that lies and deceit which had served him so well in one kind of bad behaviour would serve him equally well in another?
In the event they very nearly did, and had it not been for the courage and persever- ance of the Guardian — reverting to its old job as guardian of the nonconformist con- science — they would have. The lesson, however, is not so much the one now being drawn: that Jonathan's luck lasted so long because the upper class, or what now pass- es for that, looks after its own. Up to a point that is true and will be used to drive one further last nail in the Establishment's coffin. But it is not the whole truth, or even the most important part of the truth. The most important part of the truth is that pri- vate and public lives, contrary to conven- tional wisdom, are not lived in separate compartments. The habits of lying and deceit necessary for the life of a cad and a rake are not in a different moral universe from those required for the life of a crook and a fraudster. No more than an egg can be bad in parts can a man be a liar and deceiver in his private life and scrupulously honest and trustworthy in his public life. That is the unwelcome truth which the per- missive society ought to draw from the sad tale of my old friend. But it won't, prefer- ring quite naturally to heap coals of fire on his head rather than on its own.
Aa political footnote, let me suggest then that the right question to ask today is not what the Tories are for, but what they are against. Governments propose, opposi- tions oppose. New Labour has hit the ground running and the Tories have the job of trying to trip them up. It is as simple as that. The Tories must not try to be the wheel, but rather the spanner thrown into the spokes of the wheel, and only by prov- ing themselves a damned effective spanner will they have any chance of convincing the public that they might at some future date — perhaps as soon as in five years' time make a good wheel.
That is how the British political system works. For the foreseeable future one good parliamentary ambush which succeeds in bringing an over-confident minister crash- ing to the ground, or even one surprisingly close division, will be worth a hundred new think-tank studies outlining new Tory ideas about reforming the welfare state. The time for new ideas will come. But at least until much nearer the next election the so-called Tory philosophers like David Willetts should be put in the back room, making way for a very different breed of political animal — the parliamentary bruiser and plotter with a nose for scenting blood.
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