A brilliant clip of a 1991 G7 drinks reception has emerged and is doing the rounds this morning, featuring an Avengers Assemble cast of Margaret Thatcher, Ted Heath, Lady Diana, a coterie of world leaders and the Queen herself. A real flashback…
One of the highlights of the clip is the Queen saying what we all knew directly to Ted Heath’s face; when the former PM mentioned he’d been to Baghdad the Queen jokingly responds, “I know you did, you’re expendable”. The Queen of diplomacy…
Convicted child abuser Jonathan King defends Ted Heath:
“The moment Edward Heath sat down in the first class seat next to me on the flight from Scotland to London, shook my hand and said ‘Jonathan, it is a pleasure to meet you’ I determined to flirt with him in order to find out whether the rumours that he was gay were true… He could not have been nicer. Of course, I may not have been ‘his type’ – I was hardly an athletic sailor. But we queens can spot the signs. I knew hundreds of gay men and women, still do. Heath was, quite clearly, non sexual. Whether he had been in the past – who can tell? But there was not the slightest indication of it in the man I sat next to on the plane. And I got no invitation of any kind whatsoever.”
“Anyone with any sense who was in trouble would come to the whips and tell them the truth, and say now, “I’m in a jam, can you help?” It might be debt, it might be a scandal involving small boys, or any kind of scandal which a member seemed likely to be mixed up in, they’d come and ask if we could help. And if we could, we did. We would do everything we can because we would store up brownie points. That sounds a pretty nasty reason but one of the reasons is, if we can get a chap out of trouble, he’ll do as we ask forever more.”
The words of former Tory MP Tim Fortescue. Who was appointed a government whip in 1970, by one Edward Heath…
Full statement from the IPCC:
The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) is to investigate allegations concerning Wiltshire Police’s handling of an alleged claim of child sexual abuse made in the 1990s.
It is alleged that a criminal prosecution was not pursued, when a person threatened to expose that Sir Edward Heath may have been involved in offences concerning children. In addition to this allegation, the IPCC will examine whether Wiltshire Police subsequently took any steps to investigate these claims.
The allegations were referred to the IPCC by Wiltshire Police following allegations made by a retired senior officer.
Developing…
