SALLY

Underwood Political Animal

WELL it’s safe to say it hasn’t been a good week for the Conservatives.

Between Rishi’s fixed penalty notice for not wearing a seatbelt, Boris’s £800,000 loan controversy, and Zahawi’s seven­figure tax payback, the Tories are not currently having the best time of things.

Two of these controversies are now subject to reviews, while Rishi has accepted fault in the seatbelt incident.

While this certainly doesn’t look like a great time for politics, as one columnist recently pointed out these scandals are somewhat tame compared to some of the UK’s historic political controversies.

Let’s start with possibly the most shocking, the Thorpe Affair. It’s hard to contemplate now the idea that the leader of a major political party might end up being tried for murder, but in 1979 that’s exactly what happened in the case of Liberal Party leader, Jeremy Thorpe.

While he was eventually acquitted, the stain of being accused of attempting to have his former lover killed was ­ fairly understandably ­ enough to end his career.