189: Jeremy Thorpe 7

from “Private Eye”, 20 February 1976

Until recently, every issue of issue of “Private Eye” opened with an editorial by its fictitious, hypocritically criminal proprietor “Lord Gnome”. In each editorial, the previous fortnight’s embarrassing scandals would somehow be incorporated into Lord Gnome’s mirror existence. “Lord Gnome” is usually vigorously heterosexual and homophobic, but an encounter with a “Mr Sweetie Roughtrouser” (a name suggesting both effeminacy and a hint of s&m?) is too good to miss. At this time in the public knowledge of the Thorpe affair, a guess at an affair involving a male prostitute and hush money wasn’t unreasonable, but of course not even close to what really happened.
The recourse to ravening lawyers is quite accurate though. Thorpe immediately retained Lord Goodman (and who now remembers him?) to put the fear of God into anyone even thinking about making unsubstantiated comments.

188: Jeremy Thorpe 6

from “Private Eye”, 20 February 1976
illustration by William Rushton.

A regular feature of the very early 60s “Private Eye” was “Chatto”, which like an English Jules Feiffer cartoon, would feature several panels of the Rushton-drawn respectable moustachioed figure rather simplemindedly working his way through all the contradictory commonplaces about some current issue. “Private Eye” exhumed Chatto for this hot social topic.
Here, the monologue runs the gamut from a pretense of superior disinterest, to considering Thorpe’s other character issues, to really reveling in salacious gossip. This is all played off against the encounter with the ear-ringed chap wearing the bracelet and the enormous fur coat. And quite what is occurring in the final panel, behind the umbrella held at waist level?

187: Jeremy Thorpe 5

by "Marc" (Marc Boxer)
February 1976

Marc Boxer had a regular pocket cartoon slot in the “Times”. This effort was rejected by the editor of the “Times”, William Rees-Mogg. Marc thought enough of this though that he printed it in his 1978 collection, “The Times We Live In”. A simple reversal of typical lover’s graffiti. Although petulant homosexual graffiti about prominent political leaders might be a bit too strong for the breakfast table. We shall see more of Rees-Mogg and the “Times” a little later on.

186: Jeremy Thorpe 4

by Trog (Wally Fawkes)
in the “Observer” 8 February 1976

Trog imagines the whole situation in the light of the current Winter Olympics where Thorpe is the skier trying to dodge his way through the obstacles.

The fat man (top right) with the suitcase, refers to another scandal which Thorpe had to deal with at the same time. “London and County Securities” had been a company dealing in second mortgages and property holdings. Thorpe had been a managing director, but had resigned just before L&CS had crashed. Thorpe’s associations with L&CS made him appear greedy and possessed of poor judgment to many in the Liberal party. A DTI investigation report had been published on 30 January 1976 (yes, the same day as Scott’s accusations), which acquitted Thorpe of malpractice, but it only served to remind people of Thorpe’s previous character issues.
The man with a white side parting, his hands in his coat and a slightly quizzical mien of suspicion (right middle) is Jo Grimmond, the former leader of the Liberal party, but still a Liberal MP and therefore also a significant figure in the Party.
The man with the dark parting, pixyish face and his arms behind his back (right bottom) is David Steel, another Liberal MP.
The enormous man wearing a bobble hat (left middle) is Cyril Smith, the Liberal Party’s chief whip. Unlike in most cartoons of fat people, this is a fairly accurate representation of Cyril Smith – any attempt at exaggeration would realistically have to span from border to border.
The man with at with a back widow’s peak and his arm folded across his chest (left bottom) is wholly unknown to me, but he certainly doesn’t resemble Norman Scott.
The rather balletic looking man, (left top) with his right hand on his hip, his left hand splayed at a jaunty angle from his outstretched arm, a rather mincing stance, pageboy haircut, and slightly exaggerated mouth doesn’t resemble Norman Scott, but he’s certainly what people expected a gay man to look like. So that’s good enough to do as Norman Scott, a gay former male model.

185: Jeremy Thorpe 3

from “Private Eye” 6 February 1976

A typically eye-catching cover from “Private Eye”. A good honest innuendo to get over the political observation that the Liberals were trying to put immense amounts of clear water between themselves and Thorpe. A homosexual “ducky” to point up the innuendo in “members”, or if you want, that Thorpe’s behaviour is beyond the pale even for homosexuals.

184: Jeremy Thorpe 2

by Osbert Lancaster
in the “Daily Express” 30 January 1976

Printed in the wake of the British media at long last acknowledging Norman Scott’s accusations against Jeremy Thorpe. Nothing sneering or condescending about either homosexuals or the Liberals, just good honest shock. Which would be a fairly honest response by most of the populace at the time. Osbert Lancaster’s cartoons, since they are just little pocket cartoons, rather than the larger canvas used by most editorial cartoonists, can often just use rely upon simple interaction between its characters rather than having to inflate the point to fill the available space – no need for masses of collapsed women in a collective faint or enraged men clenching their fists in horror and disgust. This cartoon features his two main recurring characters, Maudie and William Littlehampton.

183: Jeremy Thorpe 1

from “Private Eye”, 20 July 1974

Actually nothing whatsoever to do with the "Trial of the Century", but I include here just to kick things off.
One of those accidentally and suggestively embarrassing newspaper clipping so beloved of humorous magazines. “Bedfellows” in the sense of Heath trying to arrange a Con-Lib alliance. “Private Eye” had been made aware of rumours about Thorpe’s homosexuality, but a source like Tom Driberg was not entirely reliable. Besides, Thorpe was twice married, whereas if you wanted a political butt for comic suggestions of homosexuality you couldn’t ask for a better target than the pretentious, unmarried Prime Minister Edward Heath

Jeremy Thorpe - 0

Ah me! While we may not reach a three digit figure I’ll be surprised if this lot doesn’t run somewhere into the high 20s at the very least. And there probably would have been a lot more material if it hadn’t be for a lot of circumspection, or cowardly pussyfooting if you prefer, by the national media in fear of law suits.

And do please remember in all of this, Jeremy Thorpe was acquitted of conspiracy to murder and he’s still alive. So let’s mind how we go, okay?

Christ, though, but where to begin in all of this? Whole books have been written about this. And I don’t mean to add to them.

Jeremy Thorpe had the traditional Establishment background. He was born April 29, 1929, schooled at Eton and studied Law at Oxford University. He was the Liberal Party MP for North Devon, from 1952 to 1979. By this time the Liberal Party was just a hint of its former 19th and early 20th century glories, but Thorpe stood out as a young headline-grabbing showman. In 1967 he became the leader of the Liberal Party. By the 1974 General Election the Liberals had recovered to the point that they were now in a position to refuse an offer of a coalition government from Edward Heath’s Tories, making it possible for Harold Wilson’s Labour government to scrape in with the smallest of majorities. (This is the almost unfathomable reason why a man in a strangely horse-like mask and a trilby hat keeps appearing to wave at the camera throughout the very last episode of “Monty Python”.)

In late 1960 or early 1961, Thorpe casually befriended a young groom called Norman Scott, leaving Scott an open-ended invitation to come see him if he ever needed anything. In November 1961 Scott, twenty-one years old, unemployed and recovering from a nervous breakdown, visited Thorpe at Westminster. Scott alleged that on the night of 8 November 1961 Thorpe seduced him with the aid of a copy of James Baldwin’s novel “Giovanni’s Room” and a pillow. Their “affair” lasted for several years but Thorpe eventually found Scott too erratic and left him. Since this was before decrimalisation in 1967 any homosexual relations were illegal. Thorpe got fellow Liberal MP Peter Bessell to make a series of payments to buy Thorpe’s silence. Scott would eventually take his allegations to the police, giving them several letters Thorpe had written him but no further investigation resulted. In 1971 Scott’s claims that Thorpe had been his lover had reached the Liberal Party. An internal investigation exonerated Thorpe, and Scott was again left feeling victimised. By 1974 the Liberal Party treasurer David Holmes had taken on the responsibility of buying Scott’s silence. When Scott gave some of his documents to his then physician, Dr Gleadle, to look after, Holmes would purchase them from Gleadle. By 1974 Scott had moved to North Devon and would still talk to anyone who would listen, but few people were inclined to believe a former male model’s accusations against one of the UK’s foremost politicians and his claims of mysterious threats. David Holmes then arranged through various intermediaries to use “election expenses” to hire a former airline pilot, Andrew “Gino” Newton, to kill Scott. On Friday 24th October, Newton met Scott and pretending that he was there to protect him, convinced Scott to come away with him to Exmoor. Scott would only get in the car though if he could bring his beloved Great Dane, Rinka, with him. Newton had a phobia about dogs but let Scott bring Rinka with him. Newton drove Scott down a secluded lane, and formulated an excuse to get Scott out of the car. As the two men got out, Rinka also leapt out of the car. Newton was suddenly panicked by the excitable dog and shot it in the head. Newton was having problems with his gun and the sight of the distraught Scott cradling his dead dog only further compounded Newton’s lack of control over the situation so he suddenly drove off. The police made a pretence of investigating but again it went nowhere. Journalists had started to pick up on rumours about the shooting of a dog belonging to a man who had been making claims about Jeremy Thorpe but still it wasn’t a story worth pursuing. Then at the end of January 1976, Scott appeared in court on minor fraud charges (which Scott claimed to have perpetrated as a means of gaining a soapbox). A horde of journalists had been prepped that something momentous was about to revealed, and Scott was finally able to repeat his allegations that Thorpe had sexually corrupted to an interested audience.

Which is where we start this whole mess, and just from the précis above you already know more than most of the participants did at the time.

There are an awful lot of cartoons about this farago. Most of them are about the Liberal Party’s machinations to evade the embarrassing Thorpe, but not actually confronting the whole murder and homosexuality thing, which is of course why Thorpe was such a liability.

newspaper cutting in “Private Eye”, 20 July 1974
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/11/183-jeremy-thorpe-1.html

Osbert Lancaster cartoon in the “Daily Express” 30 January 1976
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/11/184-jeremy-thorpe-2.html

“Private Eye” cover, 6 February 1976
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/11/185-jeremy-thorpe-3.html

Wally Fawkes “Trog” cartoon in the “Observer” 8 February 1976
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/11/186-jeremy-thorpe-4.html

Marc Boxer cartoon, unpublished, February 1976
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/11/187-jeremy-thorpe-5.html

William Rushton “Chatto” cartoon in “Private Eye”, 20 February 1976
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/11/188-jeremy-thorpe-6.html

editorial parody from “Private Eye”, 20 February 1976
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/11/189-jeremy-thorpe-7.html

Marc Boxer cartoon in “Private Eye” 20 February 1976
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/190-jeremy-thorpe-8.html

“Private Eye” cover, 19 March 1976
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/191-jeremy-thorpe-9.html


Thorpe letters parody by Eric Idle from “The Rutland Dirty Weekend Book”, 1976
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/192-jeremy-thorpe-10.html

Raymond Jackson “JAK” cartoons in “Evening Standard”, 11 May 1976 and “Evening Standard”, 14 May 1976
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/193-jeremy-thorpe-11.html

Osbert Lancaster cartoon in “The Daily Express”, 20 October 1977
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/194-jeremy-thorpe-12.html

“Lloyd George Knew My Father” parody article by Alan Coren in “Punch”, 26 October 1977
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/195-jeremy-thorpe-13.html

"Auberon Waugh's Diary" in "Private Eye", 29 October 1977
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/196-jeremy-thorpe-14.html

“Times” editorial parody from “Private Eye” 11 November 1977
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/197-jeremy-thorpe-15.html

David Austin cartoon in “Private Eye”, 15 September 1978
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/198-jeremy-thorpe-16.html

“Private Eye” cover, 24 November 1978
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/199-jeremy-thorpe-17.html

Michael Heath cartoon in “Punch” 29 November 1978
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/200-jeremy-thorpe-18.html

Michael Heath cartoon in “Punch”, 13 December 1978
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/201-jeremy-thorpe-19.html

Auberon Waugh’s "Dog Lover’s Party" campaign materials in “The Spectator”, 28 April 1979
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/202-jeremy-thorpe-19.html

“Entirely A Matter For You” sketch by Peter Cook from “The Secret Policeman’s Ball”, 29 and 30 June 1979
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/205-jeremy-thorpe-23.html

“Private Eye” cover, 6 July 1979
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/203-jeremy-thorpe-20.html

“Auberon Waugh’s Diary” in “Private Eye” 6 July 1979 and 20 July 1979
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/204-jeremy-thorpe-21.html

“Notebook” by Alexander Chancellor in “Spectator”, 7 July 1979
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/206-jeremy-thorpe-24.html

news parody in “National Lampoon” October 1979
http://ukjarry.blogspot.com/2008/12/207-jeremy-thorpe-25.html

Nothing to Do With What This Is Usually About

Just before we start all over again, many years ago I had a website about the amazing writer Thomas M. Disch. The website eventually vanished, but what I know about his life I’ve put into a rather exhaustive, or maybe just exhausting bio, over at http://ukjarry.livejournal.com/
Certainly, for wit, surprises, dark humour and some beautiful writing, you really ought to read a couple of his books, stories, essays or poems.