Great Parliamentary Scandals: Four Centuries of Calumny, Smear and Innuendo

by Matthew Parris

In this highly revealing, entertaining and salutary expedition into the moral swamps of British politics, award-winning columnist and broadcaster Matthew Parris presents the low side of high office.
From the Victorian Prime Minister who brought prostitutes into Downing Street to the MP caught red-checked in the House of Commons shower; from two leaders groped by one backbencher to shady share dealings in the newly invented wireless; from the sale of peerages for cash to love-sick House of Commons secretaries; from rent boys to Soviet spies; and from pistols at dawn on Putney Heath to three-in-a-bed romps with serving wenches all is revealed here.
Researching this book, Parris has been able to talk to many of those living politicians and former politicians who appear here, and while this all-too-readable history includes the scandals you would expect - starting with Elizabeth I's Francis Bacon, who went on to become the most corrupt Lord Chancellor ever, and ending with the scandal-rocked 1990s - there are also some surprising and little-known the MPs who (until now) got away.

Genres: History, Politics, Nonfiction, Current Affairs

252 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1995

Reviews

[Richa · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting chronicle, written with just the right amount of humour. Personally, I found some scandals very tame, almost non-scandalous. Infact, at times, I even felt respect for the erring MP; like in the case of the Irishman, Charles Stewart Parnell,John Jeremy Thorpe and Maureen Colquhoun. At other times, I felt my eye brows getting raised, feeling quite scandalised in this age, to read what happened in the eras gone by.
All in all, a good book, if tad repetetive, in the nature of scandals concerned.
As a post script I would like to say, if our society had accepted homosexuality as natural, most of these scandals wouldn't have been. Infact, I am pretty sure, men, who were otherwise very talented, would have had a fruitful life and the size of this book, would have been cut by half!
Considering, this so called "menace" has been around since centuries (kings have been gay), I wonder why it still scandalizes us so much...

[Tony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good. Paris is a witty and humane writer. Who can forget his marvellous account of Howe's resignation speech?

[Salem Lorot · Rating 4 out of 5]

The beauty of this book is that Parris was empathic. I got to learn so many things about the 'humanness" of us all. We are all frail, little creatures.

[Ipswichblade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent book about politicians and scandals, not hard to find. Written in the mid nineties before a lot of the recent stuff came to light