Anatomy of a (Political) Scandal
| Published date | 01 September 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/20419058231198577 |
| Author | Paula Keaveney |
| Date | 01 September 2023 |
8POLITICAL INSIGHT•SEPTEMBER 2023
Political scandals come in many
forms. When Jeffrey Archer was
made Deputy Chairman of the
Conservative Party in 1985, Tory
grandee William Whitelaw warned that the
novelist and former MP was an ‘accident
waiting to happen’. And so it came to pass:
ennobled in the 1990s and later lined up as
the party’s candidate for Mayor of London,
Archer’s fall was dramatic. In 2001, the
author of Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less
was jailed, after being accused of perjury in
a libel trial, and of persuading a friend to lie.
Archer’s downfall is far from the only
scandal to hit British politics in recent
decades. There are the criminal scandals.
Labour MP John Stonehouse, facing
charges of fraud, faked his own death and
escaped to Australia on a false passport. He
was jailed in 1976. Three years later, former
Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe was tried for
conspiracy to murder Norman Scott. He
was found not guilty.
Some scandals centre around sex,
such as in the case of Foreign Secretary
Robin Cook, whose affair was the first sex
Anatomy of a
(Political) Scandal
British politics has a long history of scandal – as Boris Johnson can
attest. But what makes a political scandal? And how can politicians
respond when they become the story? Paula Keaveney investigates.
scandal for Tony Blair’s government. Then
there are those about money, like the MPs’
expenses scandal in the UK, and those
that are primarily about hypocrisy, such as
Boris Johnson’s ‘partygate’ saga, with senior
politicians seen to create rules for others
but break the rules themselves.
Some scandals are about lying. Minister
John Profumo had to resign in 1963 after
misleading the House of Commons. Earlier
this year, Boris Johnson resigned ahead of
a highly critical report on his statements in
Parliament. But what turns an unfortunate
series of events into a scandal? Two things
need to be present: the public must see
something happen, and they must consider
it to be wrong.
© Johnny Green / Alamy Stock Photo
Political Insight September 2023.indd 8Political Insight September 2023.indd 814/08/2023 12:2414/08/2023 12:24
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