I was glued to the screen for the three instalments of “A Very English Scandal” – not least because I was at party headquarters during the later years of Jo Grimond’s leadership and am the last remaining active member of the small cabal that tried, somewhat quixotically, to prevent Jeremy Thorpe becoming leader in January 1967. I was also a party officer in the later stages of his leadership. Our opposition to Jeremy at the time had nothing whatever to do with his homosexuality, which simply did not figure in any discussion. It was entirely to do with his lack of political depth and his capricious authoritarianism which was difficult, and at times unpleasant, to accommodate. I was glad that there was coverage of Thorpe’s principled stand on anti-colonialism which was always commendable. A lot of the reminiscences since the film stress his undoubted communication skills and his showmanship but, alas, these are not key attributes of leader. Also, it is clear that there was the most remarkable compartmentalisation with the Norman Scott saga being contained entirely within the parliamentary party separate from the problems we had to cope with at headquarters. My obituary of Jeremy Thorpe can be found here.

Taken as a whole the programmes covered the period well. There was inevitable compression of the material which sometimes gave a skewed perspective, and Russell Davies’ “dramatic licence” led him to treat some of the rumours and speculations of the period as facts. The one serious misrepresentation is that of Emlyn Hooson who is portrayed as a sly politician always seeking an opportunity to topple Thorpe in order to take over the leadership. He certainly wanted to be leader – he stood against Thorpe in January 1967 – but I know of no evidence that he took any action with a view to causing his resignation for selfish purposes. I went back over all my files and publications and there is no such indication in any of them. In fact, Emlyn’s leading role in discrediting Norman Scott at the now infamous meeting with Scott in February 1971 had the effect of entrenching Thorpe’s leadership. Emlyn was, in fact, a man of considerable intellect and principle.

I would be wary of writing off the whole of Peter Bessell’s career. For much of his time in parliament he was a loyal and able spokesman for the party. He was certainly a deeply flawed individual and he eventually became completely unreliable and, as his personal and business affairs collapsed, he also became inconsistent. In their own context the lengths he went to to protect Thorpe were commendable, if at times naive. He was never going to be a compelling prosecution witness but his bizarre arrangement with the Sunday Telegraph to have his fee doubled if Thorpe was found guilty was fatal. His book “Cover-up” has some errors but it is a far more reliable record of the whole period than is often admitted. It would also be unwise to assume that the charges against Thorpe were, despite the jury verdict, not well-founded. Later revelations, not least by David Holmes, were very significant in this regard.

From the Liberal party’s point of view all those involved, whether at headquarters or in parliament faced the perennial political problem that any criticism of a serving party leader from within the party is electorally fatal. Hence it was necessary to hide all the problems of Thorpe’s leadership from the party. This led to many party colleagues being very critical of the party’s treatment of him when his continuation as leader became untenable. Eventually the truth came out, not least at the closed session at the Liberal Assembly of 1978 when (Lord) Gruff Evans, as President, was ruthless in opposing a motion critical of party officers. His detailing of the difficulties we had faced over many years was a revelation to delegates.

Finally, the acting in the film was exceptionally good. Hugh Grant was uncannily like Thorpe. He must have studied his mannerisms closely. Ben Wishaw played the very difficult role of Norman Scott with great sensitivity, and Alex Jennings had the “smoothy” style of Peter Bessell extremely accurately.

* Michael Meadowcroft has been campaigning for Liberalism for sixty-two years! He has served in just about every capacity in the party and in elected offices, including MP for Leeds West, 1983-87. He then spent twenty years working in new and emerging democracies across the world