A couple of small-ish fires in a posh London street shouldn’t lead to a potential political scandal involving the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom but it might. The arrest of an admittedly handsome Ukrainian man and several of those allegedly associated with him for arson against a property and a car linked to the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has set the online tongues wagging and has led to a lot of questions being asked about the incident and those allegedly involved in it. These questions include those such as why these items of property allegedly associated with the PM were attacked and how could what look like ordinary Ukrainian men have found out the location of the home that was attacked and a car that is said to have been linked to the PM?
For those out of the political loop here is what happened. There was an arson attack recently against the front door of a home where the PM once lived and against a car that is said by the gossips to be linked to the PM. Internet jokers suggested that such is the unpopularity of Starmer that there were at least 70 million suspects. Others speculated that these arson attacks could be the result of Islamic extremists or Britain’s miniscule neo-Nazis or the far more numerous far leftists.
However when the arrest and charge of a man accused of the arson attack was revealed by the police the tone and content of the public speculation changed. Accusations flew around that the accused was a male prostitute and that Starmer was his client. Of course we will not know the truth about what happened until the court case happens and concludes but British rules about sub-judice which include not commenting on cases that are active and live have been thrown to the wind online.
Those of us who are old enough to remember previous political scandals involving sex and politicians are pointing out that there are similarities between this case of the arson against Starmer’s property or property once associated with him and other scandals involving politicians and sexual impropriety.
One online wag asked the question ‘has anyone killed anyone’s dog yet’ which is a reference to the Thorpe Affair in the late 1970’s. In this case a dog owned by a former male model, Norman Scott, who was alleged to have had a relationship with the Liberal Party (forerunner of the Liberal Democrat Party) leader Jeremy Thorpe was shot in order to allegedly intimidate Scott into being silent about the alleged relationship between Thorpe and Scott. The scandal culminated in Thorpe and other men being charged with conspiracy to murder Scott although they were later acquitted at the Old Bailey.
Others such as Grannyopterix in an excellent video which can be found here has found other echoes of the case of Starmer and his alleged contacts with the alleged Ukrainian male prostitute in the form of the Profumo Affair. In that scandal the Minister for War, John Profumo, was in a relationship with a party girl Christine Keeler whilst Keeler was also in a relationship with a Soviet defence attaché from their London embassy. Because of the security implications of Profumo being in such a relationship he was asked about it it and subsequently lied to the House of Commons about the nature of his dealings with Keeler. Because he lied to the Commons he was forced to resign his ministerial position and subsequently forced from political life.
In both the Thorpe case and the Profumo Affair what drove what were private matters into the public eye were relatively small. In the Thorpe case it was Norman Scott going on trial for a relatively minor social security matter which resulted in Scott going public with his allegations against Thorpe and with Profumo it was a West Indian man who Keeler was also in a relationship with discharging a firearm at the door of a house where Keeler was staying.
In the Starmer case what is really a quite minor arson attack has pushed stuff that might not have come to light into the public eye and it is this aspect of the Starmer scandal that has similarities with both the Thorpe and Profumo Affairs. If the alleged Ukrainian suspect for the arson of Starmer’s property had not been apprehended and charged then I believe that it is unlikely that we would be seeing the furore that we are currently seeing regarding Starmer’s alleged involvement with an alleged male prostitute.
Whilst there are strong similarities between the Thorpe and Profumo Affairs and the current Starmer Scandal there’s also major differences. Both of the previous scandals mentioned happened in a significantly different media environment. No media would touch the Thorpe case in the early stages because of fear of libel laws and it was Profumo’s decision to lie to the House that made the case a live and publishable story. Today things are very different. With social media there are no gatekeepers holding back the story or the speculation for legal or political reasons and the public has waded in with full throated speculation. In comparison, the mainstream media is being less than voluble about the Starmer Scandal and that is probably because they know that if they screw up and get it wrong or breach sub judice rules than they are in deep legal shit. The denizens of social media on the other hand are showing no such fear of legal consequences and that is probably because some of the more popular venues for speculation are based in free speech positive environments such as the United States.
We will of course not know exactly what has happened until the final court case ends but that is not stopping the speculation especially as the original Ukrainian arson suspect has been joined with two other men, another Ukrainian and a Romanian national who have also been charged in connection with the arson incident. As with the Profumo Affair and to a lesser extent the Thorpe Scandal what we have here is something that might have remained hidden from the public were it not for the arson attack on Starmer’s property. All it took for the Profumo scandal to come to light was a lovesick West Indian to go full Tonto with a firearm and for Thorpe to fall a disgruntled former political associate to decide to speak up and all it took for Starmer to become the subject of extreme gossip about his private life was a minor arson.
Nobody at this stage in the game knows how this scandal or proto-scandal will turn out. What were the motivations for the arson attack? What connection is there if any with Starmer and the alleged arsonists? Is there any relationship between this alleged scandal and the reduction in public appearances of Starmer with his wife Lady Victoria Starmer? Will this case even get to court or will it be hushed up and the case against the alleged arsonists be quietly dropped or the motive be dismissed as ‘mental health’ resulting in a hospital order? We don’t know but the longer this case goes on without a proper resolution the more the gossip will continue and the more outrageous that speculative gossip will become.