Prime Minister Harold Wilson and his secretary, Marcia Falkender, with Jeremy Thorpe at the Savoy Hotel in 1975. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images
Senior Labour politicians knew about Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe’s relationship with Norman Scott for a decade and a half before it became public in the mid-1970s, but orchestrated a cover-up amid fear that it would be exploited by foreign intelligence agencies, according to a newly unearthed memo. The revelation will reignite speculation about the extent to which the establishment sought to protect Thorpe, even during his trial for conspiracy to have Scott murdered,
Q. Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, when we have a situation in which The RICS have, "politically influenced" and "engaged" Ministers, MPs and civil servants and those self-same Ministers, MPs and civil servants then freely permitted the Ombudsman Service ADR scheme to maladminister consumer complaints and hand bewildered complainants, "unfair" and "illogical Final Decisions" isn't this also A Very English Scandal and yet another appalling example of how the Establishment invariably resorts to The Full English Cover-up when things invariably go wrong?
Peter Hain, then a well-connected Labour activist, now Lord Hain of Neath, wrote a private memo in July 1978 – shortly before Thorpe was charged – that was copied to several senior Labour politicians, including Tony Benn and Neil Kinnock.
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Suggesting, correctly, that Thorpe was about to be charged, Hain told his Labour colleagues that he had seen evidence that there was “indeed” a plot to murder Scott “and that its principal instigator was Jeremy Thorpe, working through his close friend David Holmes (the best man at Thorpe’s first wedding).”
The beginnings of Ombudsman Services' Broken Solution in a Broken Market, coincided with the Liberal Democrats propping up a Coalition Government. This was Good For
The Tories but Bad For Liberal Democrats.
Q. Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, we have sent hundreds of emails to Vince Cable, Jo Swinson, Sajid Javid and Greg Clark in an attempt to raise the issue of Ombudsman Services' Broken Solution in a Broken Market but we never received a reply. Was this because RICS' politically influenced and engaged civil servants were deleting our emails and preventing the information from reaching those Government Ministers and MPs or were they perfectly happy to see the scheme they had approved and were monitoring on behalf of the British public, continue to hand consumers a Broken Solution and Further Break A Broken Market?
Q. Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, the Ombudsmans61percent Campaign has had two email accounts hacked. The hackers did not target other accounts - accounts which were not involved with the campaign. The police said they were unable to help us as it was a matter for our service provider. Who do you think hacked our accounts and why?
At the time Hain wrote the memo, the Liberal party had agreed to a pact to prop up the Labour government, and there were concerns that a Thorpe trial could damage both parties, to the benefit of the Tories.
Q. Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, is a RICS appointed Property Ombudsman who; fails to understand the complexity of property cases, misrepresents information, forces complainants to submit further representations, refuses to grant face-to-face meetings, refuses to order site re-inspections, declines - but does not refuse - to ask questions, maladministers complaints and reduces the level of financial awards significantly benefitting fee-paying members or the people who brought the complaint - complainants?
Hain warned: “The Labour party and its leadership ought to consider this all very quickly but there must be no pressure for a further cover-up on electorally expedient grounds.”
Q. Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, why has the Labour Party remained silent on Ombudsman Serives' private ADR - ADR which is A Broken Solution In A Broken Market?
The memo, marked private and held in the National Archives, explained: “There is also clear evidence that leading politicians over the past 15 years, together with civil servants, the police and the security services, have been party to a cover-up surrounding the affair. Most of the politicians involved are Labour.”
Clearly, the politicians involved in The Full English Cover-Up of Ombudsman Services' Broken Solution In A Broken Market are Liberal Democrats and Tories.
Q. Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, how long will the victims of Ombudsman Services' Broken Solution In A Broken Market be kept waiting for justice?
Hugh Grant as Jeremy Thorpe in A Very English Scandal. Photograph: Sophie Mutevelian/BBC/Blueprint Television Ltd Hain’s memo stated: “It is likely that a number of leading Labour politicians – eg Harold Wilson, Barbara Castle, Alice Bacon etc will need to be interviewed by the police in order to fill in the political background to the cover-up, even if they may have no direct role in it.” Q. Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, why has no-one been interviewed by the police as to the cover-up of Ombudsman Services' Broken Solution In A Broken Market?
The memo eventually made its way to the prime minister, Jim Callaghan, who asked his officials to look into allegations that members of the Wilson government had examined Scott’s social security file for evidence to corroborate his claims that he had been in a relationship with Thorpe, including one that the MP had paid his national insurance contributions.
Wilson feared that South Africa’s Bureau of State Security, known as Boss, had collected information about his friend Thorpe, a critic of apartheid, that could be used to blackmail him or ruin his career.
“I think Wilson was genuinely trying to help Thorpe,” Hain told the Observer. A journalist, Gordon Winter, who worked for Boss, had interviewed Scott and had enough material to destroy Thorpe. He eventually published a lengthy account of Scott’s relationship with Thorpe, albeit after the scandal broke.
Hain, a prominent opponent of apartheid, had concerns about Boss that were later justified when, in 1987, former MI5 officer Peter Wright confirmed in his book Spycatcher, that there had been a plot by the South African security services to disrupt the UK’s Liberal and Labour parties – both trenchant critics of apartheid. “The South African security services worried that there would be a Lib-Lab pact and wanted to undermine that prospect,” Hain said. “The fact that it [the pact] happened showed their fear was a real one.”
But Hain’s memo concluded that attempts by the Labour left to continue covering for Thorpe could not continue, given “what is in effect not just a criminal but a political conspiracy”.
Q. Baroness Kennedy of the Shaws, is covering-up the maladministration of consumers' complaints and handing them A Broken Solution In A Broken Market a criminal conspiracy, a political conspiracy or both and why hasn't anything been done about it?
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