Scandal is a motif of extended periods of Tory government. The longer the stretch of uninterrupted Conservative rule, the bigger the scandals tend to get. At the fag end of Harold Macmillan’s premiership in 1963, the most lurid of them was the Profumo affair. The story is well known and can be summarised in two sentences. Jack Profumo was secretary of state for war and shared a lover, Christine Keeler, with a military attache at the Russian embassy. Profumo lied about it to the Commons, was forced to admit to the lie and resigned for committing what was then an unpardonable offence in British politics. All very sensational, but it is what happened next that is most remarkable to the contemporary eye. Profumo did not hang around in politics hoping that the clouds of disgrace would dissipate and he might contrive some kind of comeback. He did not try to worm his way back into government or bag himself a seat for life in the Lords or reinvent himself as a media celebrity. Profumo accepted that he had obliterated his political career, quit parliament, devoted the remainder of his life to charitable endeavours and ultimately secured some rehabilitation of his reputation from these good works.
