Scott and Straw
From Mr Norman Scott Sir: While my recollection of contact between myself and the author Mr Jeremy Scott and his wife is at great variance with that stated in his letter (26 October), I do remember talking to them about my National Insurance cards, then in the hands of the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe.
As Mr Scott rightly suggests in his just published autobiography Fast and Louche. Mr Thorpe unlawfully retained my National Insurance cards in the 1960s to keep control over me — a documented fact which emerged in 1979 at the Old Bailey trial when Mr Thorpe was found 'not guilty' of plotting and paying for my murder.
Understandably, people have been at a loss to comprehend the significance of my missing National Insurance cards, but Mr Thorpe knew their value, and the danger to himself; so the need to keep them well hidden.
We now know from the present Foreign Secretary that he also went hunting through my National Insurance file on behalf of the then Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson. Why? 1 certainly did not give him permission and would dearly like to know why he wanted the information. Shades of Watergate, methinks!
The least Mr Straw can do is to explain what he was up to.
Norman Scott
Throwlcht, Devon