There's a great bit of willy-waving going on at the moment between Bloomberg and the UK Spectator magazine, who have both chosen this weekend to write about the top political scandals of all time.
Bloomberg have listed a predictable top 10 of US political scandals that are, in the view of the magazine once nicknamed the Sextator for the overactive libidos of its contributing editors, rather tame compared to their US equivalents. The Spectator blog is here
TheBloomberg list compiled by Albert R Hunt are all rather modest variations on the 'married US politician has an affair' theme: Clinton/Lewinski comes in at number 1, Larry Craig is about the most amusing fandango on the list, and few of them are politically interesting except for the Sanford neglect of duty or the hypocrisy of moralising about families before running off with a stripped.
I've decided to compile a brief head-to-head to show quite how far the US has to go before it can claim it's scandals are equal to the immoral farce that we get to enjoy over in the UK.
REDS UNDER THE BED - Score draw
So you guys had Alger Hiss and the McCarthyite witchhunts, whereas in Britain we hadthe infamous Cambrige Spy Ring. Guy Burgiss, Donald McClean, Kim Philby and John Cairncross. But the most-secret Soviet double agent was Anthony Blunt: a knight of the Realm, an honorary fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and Surveyor of the King's (later the Queen's) Pictures. He was the traitor at the palace, who warned his fellow conspirators, and passed information to the Russians from his job at MI5 until he joined the Palace at the end of WWII. After Philby was outed in 1964, Blunt confessed in return for immunity, and was allowed to keep his job to avoid public scandal until 1972.
If the book that was banned in the UK, SpyCatcher by former assistant director of MI5, was correct, then both Prime Minister Harold Wilson and former Director General of MI5 Roger Hollis were both in the pay of the KGB. That would give the UK a clear win in this category, but in absence of further proof, I'll call this one a score draw.
SEX SCANDALS - clear UK victory
Bloomberg has given us quite a long list - from Clinton to Gingrich to Spitzer and Vitter. The first of these was important because the protagonist was President of the US. In the UK, the affair between Prime Minister John Major and a cabinet minister Edwina Currie never came out until after he had left office.
For Larry Craig's indiscretion, I'd argue Welsh Secretary Ron Davies claim that he was spotting badgers late at night on cruising ground Clapham Common when he was 'mugged' was a far better scandal. Running off with your secretary Wayne Hays style? I think Foreign Secertary Robin Cook teling his wife at the airport that he was leaving her because the newspapers were about to reveal his long-standing affair with his secretary was more explosive.
British sex scandals will always, however, have to compete with the Profumo affair. In an incident that ended the 'Age of Deference', John Profumo was the serving Minister for War who was discovered to have been having an affair with call girl Christine Keeler after they met at the party held by Lord Astor. That wouldn't be much of a story, but it transpired she was also sleeping with the Soviet naval attache. The scandal was outed when her pimp Stephen Ward was involved in a fracas with a West Indian gangster who had been another of Keeler's lovers. Ward was convivted of earning from prostitution and 'killed himself' (or MI5 did), Profumo had lied to the House of Commons, and the Conservative government never recovered.
ATTACKING THE OPPOSITION - US victory
Watergate wins this one hands down, but the recent Smeargate scandal (involving the firing of the PM's closest Special Advisor for inventing rumours about the Opposition) had a little more colour - even if the links to the very highest office could never have been proven.
After being thrown out of government for selling access in Lobbygate, Labour spin doctor Derek Draper returned to lead the new Internet Project for Labour, to reassert the Left online. His blog, Labour List, had Cabient ministers downwards writing for it, but the secret new website Red Rag (to have Labour and Union funding) was never launched - it was desitgned to spread rumours about the Conservatives and their families. Accusations included attacking the mental stability of the Shadow Chancellor's wife, questioning the Sexual Health of the Leader of the Opposition and his wife, accusing a well known Tory backbencher of having an affair, and seeking to out another as gay and having done political favours for the business of his secret boyfriend.
Draper, a questionably trained psychotherapist, was married to a TV presenter who sued the Mirror for damages after claiming she was having an affair with her co-dancer on 'Strictly Come Dancing'. Damien McBride lost his job at Number 10, and other ministers rumoured to be involved have since resigned. The scandal was broken over 12 days by the blogger Guido Fawkes.
STRAIGHTFORWARD CORRUPTION - clear UK victory
Labour scandals are always about money, Tory scandals are about sex. But the Tories also do money. After Mohammed Al Fayed (owner of Harrods, father of Dodi who died with Diana, conspiracy theorist par excellence) was irritated that he was refused a British passport. In revenge he revealed that he had been paying Conservative MPs to ask questions in Parliament. Neil Hamilton lost his seat to Independent anti-corruption campaigner Martin Bell, but the Cash for Questions saga went well beyond a single MP. We have since had members of the House of Lords taking money in return for access or even amending legisltation for their colleagues' lobbying interests. Add to that the embargo-breaking Arms to Iraq scandal, or the hillarious perjury of Cabinet Minister Johnathan Aitkin (who said he would weild the 'sword of truth' against journalists who - correctly- said that Arab businessmen were paying for his suite at the Paris Ritz, before he was sentenced to jail time) and I can't think of many overt cases of outright corrutption in recent US political history. We can all hypothesis about Dick Cheney and Halliburton, but for a broken scandal I think Brits have this one locked down. Oh, and that's before the recent ExpensesGate - MPs using their expenses to live lavish lifestyles including claiming to have their moats cleaned, duck islands built, or claiming for non-existant mortgages. The police are still investigating.
THE ALL-SINGING, ALL DANCING EPIC - clear UK victory
I think the best US scandal in this category must be that of Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick. The Mayor faced eight indictments, ranging from misconduct in office and assault, to perjury and obstruction of justice. The sheer range of controversy makes this scandal astonishing to try and fathom - from a whistleblower trial that was lost at great expense, the murder of an exotic dancer, and wild parties at a city-owned mansion, through a text-messaged extra-marital affair with his Chief of Staff (and now co-defendent) Christine Beatty (pictured), the funnelling of state money to organisations close to his wife, nepotistic hiring practices, and finally to death threats towards the Wayne County Prosecutor, and assaulting a police officer who was serving his friend with a subpoena for a hearing related to Kilpatrick’s trial.
The weirdness of this is perhaps only matched by the trial of Jeremy Thorpe in the UK. Thorpe was the Liberal leader and a closet homosexual. He had been one of the really high-fliers at Oxford but had met a 'troubled individual' called Norman Scott, who claimed the pair of them had been lovers (which would have been illegal at the time). Thorpe helped Scott avoid a charge of theft in 1962, but the two fell out badly. Scott went to the papers in the late 60s to tell of their affair, but they feared the libel case that would follow and did not publish. Scott then moved to Thorpe's constituency jsut as Thorpe was negotiating to get the Liberals into a coalition government with Conservatives under Ted Heath PM. Reputedly, an assassing was hired by Thorpe to kill Scott, but instead the hitman killed Scott's dog Rinka as a warning he would be next if he did not shut up. The court case over the shooting of the dog and the allegations gave Scott the chance to tell of his affair from the witness box, and the press were given license to report it free of fear of a libel suit. The assassing, found guilty of firearms offences, claimed he had been hired to kill Scott, though he only admitted this after leaving jail. Thorpe lost his seat in 1979 and later that year was tried for Conspiracy to Murder, but was found Not Guilty.
I'd suggest that was one of the best scandals, but there is one case that probably deserves the crown.
Robert Boothby was an MP and PPS to Winston Churchill. He had an affair with the wife of the Prime Minister, Harold MacMillan, who apparently knew but gave him a peergae and a seat in the House of Lords anyway. A bi-sexual, Boothby also was a lover of Ronnie Kray, the famous East End gangster.
From his Wikipedia page:
"From 1930 he had a long affair with Dorothy Macmillan, wife of his fellow Conservative politician and Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.[1] Boothby is thought by many to have been the father of Sarah Macmillan, who was raised by the Macmillans as their own daughter.[1][2]
This connection to Macmillan, via his wife, has been seen as one of the reasons why the police didn't investigate the death of Edward Cavendish, 10th Duke of Devonshire, who died in the presence of suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams.[1] The duke was Lady Dorothy's brother, and it is thought the police were wary of drawing press attention to her while she was being unfaithful.[1]
Boothby was bisexual[1] and had a homosexual relationship with Ronald Kray, one of the notorious Kray twins. Although initially known by the Sunday Express, that paper opted not to publish a story that would damage the Conservative Party, a party which the Express supported.
Subsequently when the matter was reported anonymously in 1964 in the left-wing tabloid Daily Mirror[1] (with the parties subsequently named by the German magazine Stern),[3] Boothby threatened to sue; the Mirror newspaper backed down, sacked its editor, apologised, and paid Boothby £40,000 in an out-of-court settlement.
Subsequently, other newspapers became less willing to cover the Krays' connections and misdeeds, and as Boothby was a Conservative politician, his party did not subsequently press for the Krays to be pursued by the police for fear of further publicity about the alleged relationship.[citation needed]
In a documentary broadcast by Channel 4, made by Richard Bond, titled "The Gangster and the Pervert Peer", it is claimed that journalists who investigated Boothby were subjected to break-ins and other harassment, and that much of this suppression was directed by Arnold Goodman.
He also had a close friendship with Tom Driberg, who was a homosexual Labour MP, "the most disreputable MP in the House",[1] and a friend of KGB spy Guy Burgess.
After his death in Westminster aged 86, Boothby's ashes were scattered at Rattray Head near Crimond, Aberdeenshire."