Prime Minister, dogs and little babies, whom can you trust?) But this is a more tangible and less complicated problem than the larger ones the case raises. Similarly, the hypocrisy of much of the newspaper comment on the affair can be discounted. So can what had to be heard sooner or later the full, rich, oily, English tones of Pecksniff, represented on this occasion by Mr John Cordle, Tory (but of course) MP for (but of course) Bournemouth East, whose contribution was as follows: 'I was appalled to hear that our beloved Queen should be so wrongly advised to give an audience on Tuesday next to the former Minister of the Crown, who had proved himself untrustworthy and at last made public admission of his guilt. It seems to me surely an affront to the Christian conscience of the nation at a time when standards in public life need to be maintained at the highest level. I am absolutely staggered.' Irrelevant, too, however important, are the more straightforwardly political aspects. It is not a good thing for a Minister to tell lies to the House of Commons in a loud, clear voice; on the other hand it is common. I have myself heard Cabinet Ministers, on at least six occasions in the last few yearsand this does not include Suez tell flagrant, deliberate lies on 'matters of the first importance and in circumstances which ensured that nobody in the House believed them, and that they knew perfectly well that nobody in the House believed them (these were of course political, not personal, lies, though it might be argued that that made them worse, if anything). And, to explore one or two of the lesser political points involved, there has already been committed to legend the spectacle of Lord Hailsham ringingly declaring on television that the three-line whip had nothing to do with voting, but went no further than an instruction to the recipient to attend the debate; a contention which, incidentally, this gallant Christian gentleman expressed while kicking the fallen Mr Profumo repeatedly in the teeth for telling

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lies. One might say that Lord Hailsham was doing his usual roly-polyer than thou act; and Mr Paget in the debate actually did say that 'When self-indulgence has reduced a man to the shape of Lord Hailsham sexual continence involves no more than a sense of the ridiculous,' while Mr Wigg went so far as to call his Lordship a lying humbug'. I think that is enough of Lord Hailsham for the moment; and indeed for a very long time. But, the gravy having been baled energetically aside, there is still meat underneath. And the question to which all discussion ultimately must return is, to put it as bluntly as possible, this: if Mr Profumo goes a-whoring, or the Duchess of Argyll likes it that way, is it any business of anybody else's? It is obviously no business of Lord Wheatley, for instance, whose obiter dicta during his unnecessarily prolonged judgment in the Argyll case only maintained the reputation for impertinence in both senses of the word-that the Bench in this country has unhappily acquired Lord Wheatley's remarks about the 'disgusting' nature of the Duchess's sexual practices, and his contemptuous assertion that 'moderns' would find her behaviour acceptable, threw some light on his own psychology; but most of the 'moderns' I know would agree that a Divorce Court judge's func tion is to decide the case before him, and that he might with advantage leave sexual, psychology and social mores to those better equipped to discuss them. Now, whether we realise it or not, it is true that we ask of our public figures, and in particular those charged with national leadership of whatever kind, a higher standard of personal conduct than we are willing to practise ourselves. Indeed, there is clearly a feeling that 'they' are in some essential way different from 'us', or at any rate that they should be. This is nonsense, of course; there is no reason to suppose (and plenty of evidence to deny) that the proportion of adulterers, fornicators, homosexuals, psychopaths and drunks is substantially lower among members

mattachine REVIEW

of the House of Commons than among the sum of the various strata of society from which they come. But whatever these people are, we insist that they behave in certain ways. If a Cabinet Minister is a homosexual (I believe I am right in saying that at the time of writing none is) we insist that he be either celibate or discreet; if a University Chancellor is over-heterosexed, we takc it amiss only if he is found abed with his girl students; if a Bishop is an alcoholic, he had better not start a jag on the wine at Communion; if an Ambassador has a penchant for cheating at cards, he ought not to be caught doing so by the natives. It is important to separate the moral element in all this; obviously no one this side of a mentality like Mr John Gordon's would regard a homosexual condition (whatever they might think of certain forms of homosexual behaviour) as in any meaningful sense sinful; equally obviously few would fail to condemn, say, the deliberate heterosexual seduction by a guardian of a minor ward. But the collapse of middle-class morality, and the resultant strain it has put upon middle-class hypocrisy, has meant that there is now a much greater reluctance to strike moral attitudes that once would have been inevitable and widespread; we now confine ourselves, in the main, to asking our leaders to behave rather better in public than we do. Is this not just another aspect of middleclass hypocrisy? I do not think so. It is, surely, a welcome step on the road towards full psychological health, nation. ally speaking. It implies that a man's private life is indeed his own business, and that only where it impinges on the public weal is it of any public concern; those whose lives do not impinge on the publio weal at all, therefore, can do as they please. (Of course, there are here concentric circles of moral attitude: our neighbours may not forgive us if we are caught in behaviour they would con demn in principle, even if it affects none but ourselves. But of course one of the most important elements in a morally. indifferent attitude to public figures

among private ones is the distance between them; we do not feel personally threatened by a moral lapse on the part of a man we know only by reputation.) But if, then, there is a tacit understanding that public men, whatever their inclinations, must behave better than we do; that they must not resort to prosti tutes, accept gifts from those who might have motives other than friendship, or generally involve themselves in scandal or the rumour of scandal, then what is this understanding based upon, and has it any real justification? And how does the emerging pattern of la dolce vita fit into it?

At the very least, I think we have a right to demand that those who are to any considerable extent in formal charge of national public standards of behaviour, should themselves conform to a fairly high standard. A couple of years ago the Earl of Home made a highly significant speech, in which he urged the country to 'get a grip on itself', to remember that nations might have, as ours once had had, a moral purpose; to find again a faith we seemed to have lost. At the time he made that speech, Mr Profumo was at the height (if that is the word) of his liaison with Miss Keeler. Lord Home was not, at that time, to know; but if he had ⚫ known he could hardly have made such a speech. As a matter of fact, it is not easy to imagine anybody at any time holding up Mr Profumo as a kind of moral exemplar, but the principle is the thing. Ministers of the Government must not revolve in ciroles containing whores, pimps and criminals, because if they do the country's faith in its rulers, precarious at the best of times, is damaged, and its disinclination to get a grip on itself and find a faith consequently strengthened.

The same goes for those whose responsi bility, for leadership is less formalised than those in political authority; though perhaps the obligation on them is adoordingly diluted. The French Staviaky case (the nearest thing in recent years, though not so near as all that, to our 7