Jeremy Thorpe

The Right Honourable John Jeremy Thorpe (born April 29, 1929) is a British politician, who was leader of the Liberal Party from 1967 to 1976. He is best remembered for losing his post and his seat in Parliament as a result of charges brought against him (which were overturned in court) regarding his involvement in a conspiracy to murder an alleged former gay lover.

Politics

The son and grandson of Conservative MPs, he was educated at Eton College and then at Trinity College, Oxford, where he studied Law. He was very politically and socially active at Oxford, becoming Chairman of the Liberal Club and the Law Society and finally becoming President of the Oxford Union in 1951. He was called to the bar in 1954, working back-to-back as a TV interviewer

Thorpe was adopted as Liberal candidate for the Conservative-held North Devon constituency in 1952. In the 1955 General Election he managed to halve the Conservative majority, paving the way towards his narrow victory in the subsequent 1959 General Election. He remained MP for North Devon for the next 20 years.

In 1965 he became Liberal Party Treasurer and, following Jo Grimond's resignation in 1967, was elected party leader with the support of 6 of the 12 Liberal MPs. Thorpe's style, in contrast to Grimond's intellectualism, was youthful and dynamic, and was sometimes ridiculed as too gimmicky. He was, however, a staunch defender of human rights, as examplified by his prominent role in the Anti-Apartheid Movement. He was also a key figure in the campaign for Britain to join the Common Market.

A colourful character, Thorpe was renowned for his assortment of Edwardian suits, silk waistcoats and trilby hats, as well as being a noted raconteur and impressionist. He famously commented on the subject of Harold Macmillan's Night of the Long Knives: "Greater love hath no man that this, that he lay down his friends for his life". Critics argued that he was little more than a political lightweight, but Thorpe was undoubtedly a popular figure.

The 1970 general election was a disaster for Thorpe's Liberals, as their number of MPs more than halved from 13 to 6 (with 3, Thorpe included, only surviving on tiny majorities), which led to opponents' jibes that the entire parliamentary party could fit in one taxi -- a joke which was expanded to two taxis after the election of the extremely corpulent Cyril Smith as MP for Rochdale. But between 1972 and 1974, Thorpe led the Liberals to an impressive string of byelection victories, at Rochdale, Sutton and Cheam, Ripon, the Isle of Ely, and Berwick. In the General Election of February 1974, the Liberals ended up with 14 seats, and 18.3% of the vote, with some opinion polls at times even placing it as high as 30%. This is in contrast to the 8.5% of the vote which had been held by the Liberals when Thorpe became leader. The 14 seats secured gave the Liberals the balance of power in the hung parliament which arose from the election.

In the subsequent negotiations with the Conservatives, Thorpe was offered a seat in the Cabinet as Home Secretary by Prime Minister Edward Heath as part of a coalition deal, but declined when it was clear the Liberal Party and many who had voted for it were not enthusiastic about keeping Heath in power. Thorpe pushed for significant commitments toward electoral reform, which Heath would not accede to. The prospective coalition therefore collapsed before it started.

Private Life

In 1968 Thorpe married his first wife, Caroline Allpass, with whom he had a son, Rupert. Tragically, Caroline died in a car crash in 1970. He married his second wife, Marion, a former concert pianist and the former wife of the 7th Earl of Harewood in 1973.

Persistent rumours about Thorpe's sexuality dogged his political career, particularly in relation to an alleged homosexual affair with Norman Scott, a former male model. Scott claimed that he had met Thorpe in 1961 while working as a stable lad, and had a homosexual relationship with him between 1961 and 1963, at a time when homosexual acts were still illegal in Britain. Scott's airing of these claims led to an enquiry within the Liberal Party in 1971, which exonerated Thorpe. Scott, however, continued to make the allegations.

In October 1975, while walking a friend's female Great Dane (called "Rinka") on Exmoor, Scott was confronted by Andrew 'Gino' Newton, a former airline pilot, who was armed with a gun. Newton shot and killed the dog, which had been loaned to Scott for protection, then pointed the gun at Scott, but it apparently failed to go off. The name 'Rinkagate' was subsequently given to the scandal.

Newton was convicted of the offence in March 1976. Scott used his Court appearance to once again air his claims of a relationship with Thorpe, alleging that Thorpe had threatened to kill him if he spoke about the affair. Scott also sold letters to the press which he claimed to be love letters from Thorpe, including the memorable line "Bunnies can and will go to France". The scandal led to Thorpe resigning as leader of the Liberal Party on May 9, 1976. He was replaced temporarily by Jo Grimond and then on a permanent basis by David Steel.

Upon his release from prison in April 1977, Andrew Newton renewed the scandal by claiming that he had been hired as a hit-man to kill Norman Scott. On August 4, 1978, Thorpe was accused along with David Holmes (deputy Treasurer of the Liberal Party), George Deakin (a night club owner) and John Le Mesurier (a carpet tycoon rather than the Dad's Army star) of conspiracy to murder. Thorpe was also separately accused of inciting Holmes to murder Scott.

Thorpe's political career could not withstand the scandal, and he lost his parliamentary seat in the general election of 1979, which came just a week before his trial. The election is remembered for the unsuccessful candidacy of Auberon Waugh, representing the "Dog Lovers' Party".

One of those who claimed an inside knowledge of the conspiracy was former Liberal MP and failed businessman Peter Bessell, who claimed to have been involved in some discussions regarding the conspiracy within the Liberal Party. According to Bessell, who later sold his story to the press, poison had been rejected as a method of assassinating Scott because 'it would raise too many questions if he fell dead off a barstool'. One alleged plan had been to shoot Scott in Cornwall and dispose of the body down a disused tinmine.^[1]

Bessell agreed to appear as a witness in exchange for immunity from prosecution. His testimony was somewhat undermined, however, when it was found that he had sold his story to The Sunday Telegraph for a fee which would increase if the prosecution was successful. Thorpe did not testify in the case, but his legal team argued that although he and Scott had been friends, there had been no sexual element to their relationship. The defence claimed that Scott had nevertheless undertaken a campaign of blackmail against Thorpe, and that although Thorpe and his friends had discussed 'frightening' Scott into silence, they had never conspired to kill him.

Summing up the case, Mr Justice Cantley was widely criticised for showing a nakedly pro-establishment bias, in which he described Scott as 'a crook, an accomplished liar ...a fraud'. The summing up was at once mercilessly and famously satirised by Peter Cook during his performance at The Secret Policeman's Ball in a piece which has become known as Entirely a Matter for You. In spite of the Judge's direction, the jury were at first split 6-6, but, following 15 hours of deliberation, they finally reached a verdict of not guilty. The four defendants were all acquitted on June 22, 1979.

Not long after the end of the trial, Thorpe was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease and retired from public life. For the past twenty years, his disease has been at an advanced stage. He did, however, manage to make an appearance at the funeral of Roy Jenkins in 2003.

In 1999, Thorpe published a set of memoirs entitled "In My Own Time", in which he described key episodes in his political life. He did not, however, shed any further light on the "Rinkagate" affair. Thorpe has never made any public statements regarding his sexual orientation.

In 2002, questions were asked about Jack Straw's involvement in "Rinkagate", after a tape-recording surfaced of Harold Wilson including comments such as: "Look, I saw Jack Straw, he's very worried if he were mentioned in this context, he thinks he'll be finished [2]." There has been speculation that Wilson may have asked Straw to secure information from Scott's social security records which could have been used against Thorpe in the case of the Liberals looking to ally with the Conservatives in the hung Parliament of 1974, although Straw remains silent on the matter.

Notes

^ Bessell's allegations are contained in a book by journalists Roger Courtiour and Barrie Penrose, entitled The Pencourt File.

Preceded by: Jo Grimond

Leader of the British Liberal Party 1967-1976

Followed by: Jo Grimond