John Creasey, creator of George Gideon, was a Liberal candidate

John Gregson as Commander George Gideon

Writing about the Gideon's Way police series from the 1960s the other day, I suggested that John Gregson played the hero as "a world-weary liberal".

I may have been on to something because, as an article by Ian Millsted from the Journal of Liberal History once revealed, the author of the books the series was based on was himself a liberal - and a Liberal

John Creasey, who wrote the books, once said:

I have been a political animal all my life. At twelve I was organising and speaking at street corners for the Liberal Party.

Creasey fought Bournemouth West for the party in 1950, finishing third with 17 per cent of the vote. This was a very respectable vote for a Liberal candidate in this era, though the party had come second in the seat in 1945.

In the second half ot the 1960s, though he was often seen in Liberal circles, Creasey fought a number of parliamentary by-elections to promote the All-Party Alliance, He had set this up himself in 1996.

Millsted says:

Its principal aim was to see elected a government of the best people from all parties in order to sort out the problems of the day.

In the last of these by-elections, Oldham West in 1968, he beat the Liberal candidate into fourth place.

The aim of the All-Party Alliance may sound naive, but Jeremy Thorpe was to call for something similar in the general elections of 1974.

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Police to reopen Jeremy Thorpe case

From ITV News:

An investigation into the alleged involvement of the former leader of the Liberal Party in a plot to kill is to be reopened. 

Avon and Somerset Police has passed the files from the original investigation about Jeremy Thorpe, former MP for North Devon, to colleagues in Wales. 

The alleged hit man Dennis Meighan told The Mail on Sunday that he met representatives of Thorpe in 1975. He claims they wanted Norman Scott, said to have been the MP's gay lover, silenced. 

However a few days later Mr Meighan says he backed out of the plot and told the police. But he alleges that all mentions of Jeremy Thorpe in his police statement were removed. He believes that someone in Whitehall covered up his claims. He was never called to give evidence at Mr Thorpe's trial along with three other men accused of attempting to murder Scott. All four men were acquitted at the high profile trial.

First Lord Lucan and now this. Seeing the scandals of my teenage years being recycled makes me feel young again. Can John Stonehouse be far behind?

The odd thing about this is that Meighan's story was known at the time of the Thorpe trial. As I blogged in December 2014:

Here is Auberon Waugh writing in the Spectator on 5 June 1981. Among six questions that remain to be answered about the affair, he lists:

Why Denis Meighan, the man who sold Newton his gun, was not allowed to mention Newton's offer of £1,000 to do the job - of murdering Scott - for him.

So it may be that the police are concerned about something else.

And I think I know what it is.

One of Thorpe's co-accused was a nightclub owner from South Wales by the name of George Deakin.

As I revealed earlier in 2014, he was the uncle of the guitarist in Black Lace.

You know: "Agadoo doo doo, push pineapple, shake the tree."

Lock them up, I say. Lock up the whole bloody family.

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Jeremy Thorpe and Des Wilson go shopping

View image | gettyimages.com

A scene from the Hove by-election of 1973.

Des Wilson was already well known as a campaigner, particularly as the founding director of Shelter, and joined the Liberal Party in order to fight this election. He later became a significant figure in the party and in the Liberal Democrats in that party's early years.

The Liberals had not fought Hove in 1970 (though they did achieve 16 per cent there in the 1966 general election), when the Conservatives had won 69 per cent of the vote in a straight contest with Labour.

In what was seen as a brave by-election campaign in an unwinnable seat, Des Wilson came second with 37 per cent of the vote. He was less than 5000 votes behind the winning Tory.

Today Hove is a Labour/Tory marginal. Labour won it in 1997, held it until 2010 and then won it back in 2015.

I guess the retired colonels and their ladies have died out, hitting the Conservative vote.

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