 |
Scandal, or Priscilla's Kindness is a satirical novel by A. N. Wilson first published in 1983 about a British politician's rise and fall, the latter caused by a relationship with a prostitute. Although the title is the same and there are similarities in the subject-matter, Wilson's book is not the literary basis of the 1989 film Scandal (in fact, both are inspired by the real-life Profumo affair).
Set in the early 1980s, Scandal is about Derek Blore, an MP who, as a public figure, pays lip service to traditional values such as marriage, family and religion while at the same time paying for kinky sex with a young prostitute who is too stupid to realize who he really is. A few years earlier that girl, Bernadette Woolley, left her home town of Bognor Regis after an argument with her mother, went to London, advertised her services in a sleazy shop in Notting Hill, and had her first sexual intercourse, at 17, with her first customer.
Now Bernadette has her own flat in Hackney where she can work undisturbed, and a pimp looking after her, Stan Costigano. Without Bernadette knowing let alone caring about it, her apartment has been equipped with video cameras and microphones which can be used to compromise, and eventually blackmail, her customers. Soon the people who pull the strings behind the scenes have Blore on tape—a long-term victim of his public school education, in shorts, on his knees, begging to be caned by his "teacher", Bernadette. As it happens—this is the time of the Cold War —Costigano's employers have a direct link to the Soviet embassy, where each of the politician's clandestine visits to Hackney is secretly registered. When he becomes a secretary of state in the new government Blore finally stops seeing Bernadette because it dawns upon him that now the risk of being found out is just too high.
However, Derek Blore's downfall does not come about through Soviet intervention or through a political opponent seeing him enter or leave Bernadette's flat. Rather, it is his beautiful and absolutely loyal yet promiscuous wife Priscilla whose indiscretion towards her current lover, a journalist called Henry Feathers, triggers the "Blore Affair". ("Priscilla did not sleep with every man in London. When Feathers seduced her, it was a whole eighteen months since she had been unfaithful to Derek.") One day, after their lovemaking, she casually tells the journalist about the morning when her husband's "whore" came to see him at home. Reckoning that the story will be a scoop, Feathers composes a series of articles which finally appear in mid-summer, while the Blores are on a family holiday in France.
Denying all allegations, Derek Blore is intent on sitting out his ordeal ("I've been in politics now for twenty-five years. And I hope I'm going to be in politics for a further twenty-five years.") and also announces that he is of course planning to sue Feathers and his newspaper. However, the prime minister is informed of the true state of affairs, knows that Blore is lying, and has him arrested while he is taking part in a rural pageant in his capacity as a church warden.
Marriage was for the common-sensical, it was for those who took short views, or no views at all; it was for those for whom life was largely a matter of meals and clothes, orgasm and real estate. For anyone who nurtured Emotion as the centre of existence, and who felt the permanent pull of an unseen, spiritual or cerebral world, the quotidian triviality of married intimacy was bound to be intolerable. So, in practice, it invariably was. Not only were the married lives of most poets and musicians intolerable. So too were the lives of religious mystics if they made the mistake of getting married. As often as not, this category of person sensibly opted for a celibate existence. (Chapter Five)
It was adapted for BBC tv in 1989, with the title Blore, MP, as part of the Screen One strand.
The Profumo affair was a major scandal in British politics during the early 1960s. John Profumo, the 46-year-old Secretary of State for War in Harold Macmillan's Conservative government, had an extramarital affair with the 19-year-old model Christine Keeler beginning in 1961. Profumo denied the affair in a statement to the House of Commons in 1963; weeks later, a police investigation proved that he had lied. The scandal severely damaged the credibility of Macmillan's government, and Macmillan resigned as Prime Minister in October 1963, citing ill health. The fallout contributed to the Conservative government's defeat by the Labour Party in the 1964 general election.
John Dennis Profumo was a British politician whose career ended in 1963 after a sexual relationship with the 19-year-old model Christine Keeler in 1961. The scandal, which became known as the Profumo affair, led to his resignation from the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan.
Babette Louisa Valerie Hobson was a British actress whose film career spanned the 1930s to the early 1950s. Her second husband was John Profumo, a British government minister who became the subject of the Profumo affair in 1963.
Christine Margaret Keeler was an English model and showgirl. Her meeting at a dance club with society osteopath Stephen Ward drew her into fashionable circles. At the height of the Cold War, she became sexually involved with a married Cabinet minister, John Profumo, as well as with a Soviet naval attaché, Yevgeny Ivanov. A shooting incident involving a third lover caused the press to investigate her, revealing that her affairs could be threatening national security. In the House of Commons, Profumo denied any improper conduct but later admitted to having lied.
Marilyn Foreman, better known as Mandy Rice-Davies, was a Welsh model and showgirl best known for her association with Christine Keeler and her role in the Profumo affair, which discredited the Conservative government of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in 1963.
Martin Bell, is a British UNICEF Ambassador, a former broadcast war reporter and former independent politician who became the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tatton from 1997 to 2001. He is sometimes known as "the man in the white suit".
Stephen Thomas Ward was an English osteopath and artist who was one of the central figures in the 1963 Profumo affair, a British political scandal which brought about the resignation of John Profumo, the Secretary of State for War, and contributed to the defeat of the Conservative government a year later.
John Thomson Stonehouse was a British Labour and Co-operative Party politician, businessman and minister who was a member of the Cabinet under Prime Minister Harold Wilson. He is remembered for his unsuccessful attempt at faking his own death in 1974. It is alleged that Stonehouse had been an agent for Czechoslovak military intelligence.
Gerda Munsinger was an East German prostitute and alleged Soviet spy. She immigrated to Canada in 1955. Munsinger was the central protagonist of the Munsinger Affair, the first national political sex scandal in Canada, and was dubbed "the Mata Hari of the Cold War" because of her involvement with several Canadian politicians. She returned to Germany in 1961, became the centre of press attention in 1966 when the scandal was publicly revealed, and was the subject of a feature film.
First Among Equals is a 1984 novel by British author Jeffrey Archer, which follows the careers and personal lives of four fictional British politicians from 1964 to 1991, with each vying to become Prime Minister. Several situations in the novel are drawn from Archer's own early political career in the British House of Commons, and the fictional characters interact with actual political figures from the UK and elsewhere including Winston Churchill, Alec Douglas-Home, Harold Wilson, Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher, Douglas Hurd, Muammar al-Gaddafi, Gary Hart and Queen Elizabeth II.
William Waldorf Astor II, 3rd Viscount Astor was an English businessman and Conservative Party politician. He was also a member of the Astor family.
A scandal is a strong social reaction to a disgraceful or discreditable action, circumstance, etc.
London Blues is a novel by Anthony Frewin first published in 1997 about Soho in the late 1950s and early 1960s and in particular about the early days of pornographic movie production in Britain. London Blues is a mystery novel in that it describes not just the dangerous life but also the disappearance of a young photographer in the wake of the Profumo affair.
The Pallisers is a 1974 BBC television adaptation of Anthony Trollope's Palliser novels. Set in Victorian era England with a backdrop of parliamentary life, Simon Raven's dramatisation covers six novels and follows the events and characters over two decades.
Stanley Clinton Clinton-Davis, Baron Clinton-Davis, was a British politician and solicitor. A member of the Labour Party, he served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Hackney Central from 1970 to 1983, and was a minister in the Labour governments of Harold Wilson, James Callaghan and Tony Blair. He was European Commissioner in the Delors Commission (1985–1989). In 1990, he became a life peer, sitting on the Labour benches in the House of Lords until his retirement in 2018.
Petals of Blood is a novel written by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o and first published in 1977. Set in Kenya just after independence, the story follows four characters – Munira, Abdulla, Wanja, and Karega – whose lives are intertwined due to the Mau Mau rebellion. In order to escape city life, each retreats to the small, pastoral village of Ilmorog. As the novel progresses, the characters deal with the repercussions of the Mau Mau rebellion as well as with a new, rapidly westernizing Kenya.
Aloysius "Lucky" Gordon was a British-based Jamaican jazz singer who came to public attention during the Profumo affair. He arrived in Scotland from Jamaica in 1948, and moved to London after a few days.
The Trial of Christine Keeler is a British television series based on the chain of events surrounding the Profumo affair in the 1960s. The six-part series premiered on BBC One in the United Kingdom on 29 December 2019. The series was adapted by screenwriter Amanda Coe and stars Sophie Cookson, James Norton, Ellie Bamber, Ben Miles, Visar Vishka, Emilia Fox, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett and Anthony Welsh.
Mariella Novotny was an English socialite and prostitute who was part of Christine Keeler's social circle and mixed extensively with British establishment figures in the events leading up to the Profumo affair.
