Injustices Arise Where Truth Is No Defence

Implications for those who legally silence Revisionists

 

'Lonely' Currie helped Grey Man sample the spice of life

Revelations of the former prime minister's affair with Edwina Currie have shocked Britons, write David Cracknell and Richard Brooks in London

The Sunday Times/The Australian,30 September 2002

 

Jonathan Lloyd, one of London's top literary agents, prides himself on being fazed by nothing that he discovers about his clients. Even so, his jaw dropped when Ewina Currie, the flamboyant bonkbuster writer and former Tory minister, told him her closest secret.

She had an affair with the grey man of Downing Street, John Major. And that was not all: she was going to reveal this when she published her diaries.

"We had a long conversation about the affair," Lloyd says. "She had no qualms about revealing it. I said to her, 'Are you sure?' She replied that a long time had elapsed, and now was the right time."

Lloyd has lived with Ms Currie's secret for almost a year.

Yesterday it was out, and colleagues and friends on both sides began to revise their views of them.

"Some of us in Conservative Central Office who were not fans of Major always thought his judgment was flawed," said one senior female Tory. "Now you have to think what on earth was he thinking about with his back-to-basics policy. He must have been very sure of Edwina's silence."

M Currie's admission could also prompt legal action from  magazine that says it was driven out of business after Mr Major sued it a decade ago for saying he was an adulterer.

David Price, lawyer for defunct satire magazine, Scallywag, said it never recovered from being sued for repeating rumours that Mr Major had an affair  with a woman who ran a catering service.

Ms Currie is said to have secured a six-figure sum for her diaries. A secret operation was put in place to protect the story.

Ms Currie held an interview with The Times earlier this month in a hotel room booked in her new married name of Mrs Jones. In it she sought to justify the revelation.

"All these things are a very long time ago, before John became prime minister. But the making of a prime minister, it seems to me, is a profoundly significant piece of knowledge, a piece of history. And this is part of the story that no one else knows."

Ms Currie revealed she seduced Mr Major in 1984, when she was a newly elected MP and he was a government whip.

"What happened when I first arrived (at the House of Commons in 1983) was that I found myself isolated, very lonely, and treated like a freak. I was constantly having to justify myself to idiots who had one-third of my brains and experience, but John was ... John understood."

At the beginning of 1984 they were friends  but by the summer there was a strong attraction. After Mr Major teased her and then sent a note of apology, he came to her office. They embraced and then went back to her flat and the affair started.

 Although she claims she ended the affair in early 1988, after Mr Major's swift promotion to the cabinet as chief secretary to the Treasury, she maintains she still loved him and felt hurt when he did not offer her a big job on becoming prime minister in 1990.

"to my complete astonishment, I appeared to have been forgotten. It felt like I'd been pushed off in a boat adrift at sea."

She describes Mr Major as ruthless. "He really had quite a Machiavellian streak, and if you are a politician you admire that."

Mr Major was unaware of the book until he was contracted at 6 pm on Friday. He released a statement at 8.50 pm.

"Norma has known of this matter for many years and has long forgiven me," he said. "It is the one event in my life of which I am most ashamed and I have long feared it would be made public. Neither Norma nor I have any further comment."

 

 

Fredrick Töben comments

And that is why those who persecute Revisionists need to cover their backside: Truth will out on the 'Holocaust' issue.