John Preston has just published a gripping account of the Jeremy Thorpe case, A Very English Scandal (Penguin). Sometimes the details make one laugh out loud or gasp with amazement at the tale of the shooting of Rinka, the Alsatian dog, and all that followed. But although I was completely carried along by the narrative, I found myself resisting the book’s implied conclusion that Thorpe’s acquittal of conspiracy to murder Norman Scott was a disgrace.
Possibly I am biased, because my father worked for Thorpe over some of the period involved, writing his speeches and giving him political advice (luckily the personal and constituency sides of things never fell to him). But the point that emerges very clearly is that almost all the people involved — Peter Bessell, Scott, David Holmes, Andrew ‘Gino’ Newton, perhaps Thorpe himself — told lots of lies.
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