From the Profumo Affair onward: political scandals that shook British history
An essay published in HistoryExtra this week examines 12 of the most striking political scandals in British history from the 18th century to today. From the Profumo Affair to Cash for Honours, from John Stonehouse faking his own death to the Tory Sleaze of the 1990s, the cases together illustrate how political ethics in Britain have been historically shaped.
The essay's author, Professor Mark Garnett of the University of Birmingham's politics department, analyses the 1963 Profumo Affair as the most famous case. The relationship between British war secretary John Profumo and 19-year-old model Christine Keeler became a Cold War-era national-security crisis when it emerged that Keeler had also been seeing the Soviet naval attaché, Yevgeny Ivanov.
Profumo resigned in June 1963 after lying to the House of Commons. The affair accelerated the end of Harold Macmillan's Conservative government; Macmillan's successor Sir Alec Douglas-Home lost the 1964 general election to Harold Wilson's Labour. Garnett emphasises that the matter was less an ethical question than a national-security one — meeting the same woman as the Soviet attaché created an intelligence-leak risk.
Profumo's life after the affair is also addressed in the essay. He began volunteering at the Toynbee Hall charity in east London and devoted the remaining 40 years of his life to social-welfare work. In 1975 he was awarded the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire), personally recognised by Queen Elizabeth II. It became an extraordinary example of rehabilitation after disgrace.
The second striking case in the essay is the 1974 scandal of John Stonehouse. The Labour MP Stonehouse staged his own suicide in Florida and tried to begin a new life in Australia under a new identity. He was identified by Australian police, extradited to Britain and sentenced to seven years in prison. The affair severely shook public trust in the British Labour government and led to the development of disclosure rules covering MPs' finances.
The 1990s 'Tory Sleaze' era is examined in detail in the essay. During John Major's 1990-1997 Conservative government, multiple MPs were accused of taking payments to ask questions in parliament (the Cash for Questions scandal). In 1996, an independent inquiry chaired by Sir Gordon Downey found that three MPs had received financial payments from Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed. The process led to the creation of the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner.
The 2006 'Cash for Honours' investigation broke during Tony Blair's Labour government. The investigation looked into allegations that promises of appointment to the House of Lords had been made in return for party funding. The inquiry resulted in no charges, but Blair became the first sitting prime minister to give evidence in such a case, and the laws on political-party funding were reviewed.
The 2009 MP Expenses Scandal stands as one of the biggest political scandals in modern British history. The Daily Telegraph's disclosures showed that, over years, MPs had misused the parliamentary expenses system — claiming for garden moats, second-home mortgage speculation, and using single-occupancy homes as a 'second residence'. Five MPs received prison sentences and dozens had to repay funds. The affair led to the creation of IPSA (Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority).
Garnett also emphasises in the essay that the nature of political scandal has changed in the digital age of the 21st century. 'New forms have emerged: file scandal, photo scandal, messaging scandal. The 2022 Partygate (the scandal over parties held at Downing Street during the COVID-19 lockdown period) is the most recent example. Wikileaks, leaked internal emails and the speed of social-media diffusion have changed how a scandal flows.'
The essay closes on how historical scandals have shaped British political ethics. 'Every big scandal has been followed by a reform: national-security reviews after Profumo, MP financial disclosure rules after Stonehouse, the Standards Commissioner after Cash for Questions, IPSA after MP Expenses. That is the working of a healthy democracy — learning from crises and building institutional safeguards.' Garnett ends the essay: 'The next scandal is inevitable; let us hope the next reform is also inevitable.'