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War on Terrorism (Politics)
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Mick Harper
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Three Questions

1. If over a period of ten years, a person of interest is giving private medical treatment to everybody from the American ambassador downwards, and providing them and others with professional caricature portraits, how does he manage to do this without a bank account?

2. What kind of services would wealthy patrons prefer to pay for in cash?

3. What would you think about an investigation of the said person of interest that constantly mentioned the said lack of a bank account without ever wondering why?
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Mick Harper
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I suppose one reason why the Profumo Affair has still not been put to bed is the possibility that Ward's clients might have included people with daily access to state papers and may still be around.

Fun fact: Prince Philip is ninety-eight.
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Mick Harper
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I am indebted to a mole at the heart of Berkshire high society for this

Astor’s first wife, Sarah Norton, was a socialite and linguist who worked for three years at Bletchley Park during the war. She is Samantha Cameron's grandmama.
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Mick Harper
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How did Sarah Norton, the chatelaine of the pro-Nazi Cliveden Set, get a job at Bletchley Park? No wonder we lost the war. Sam's OK though. We've introduced positive vetting since those days.
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Hatty
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Fun fact: Prince Philip is ninety-eight.


The family of Philip's mother-in-law, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, seems to have been close to the Astors

The Hon. Pauline Astor (1880–1972) m. Herbert Henry Spender-Clay (1875–1937) – Soldier and Conservative Party MP for Tonbridge.
    Phyllis Mary Spender-Clay, Lady Nichols (1905-1962) m. Sir Philip Bouverie Bowyer Nichols (1894–1962) (two sons and two daughters)
    Rachel Pauline Spender-Clay, Lady Bowes-Lyon (1907-1996) m. The Hon. Sir David Bowes Lyon (1902–1961)
    Davina Katherine Bowes-Lyon, Countess of Stair (1930-2017) m. John Aylmer Dalrymple, 13th Earl of Stair (1906-1996)
    Sir Simon Alexander Bowes-Lyon (1932-) m. Caroline Mary Victoria Pike (1940-)


The daughter of Philip's daughter-in-law, Camilla, is married to the grandson of another Lord Astor, the 2nd Baron of Hever

The Hon. Sarah Violet Astor (born 1953) m. 1975 The Hon. George Edward Lopes (born 1945), son of Massey Henry Edgcumbe Lopes, 2nd Baron Roborough and Helen Dawson
    Harry Marcus George Lopes (born 1977), m. 2006 Laura Rose Parker Bowles (born 1978), daughter of Andrew Henry Parker Bowles and Camilla Rosemary Shand, (since 2005 known as the Duchess of Cornwall).

The Astor family have tentacles in other royal circles even including a branch of the Prince of Obolensky line via Serge (1890–1978), who became a member of the OSS after fleeing Russia. He ended up as Vice Chairman of Hilton Hotels chain and 'maintained a substantial art collection' as you might expect. He married three times, the second wife being Ava Alice Muriel Astor
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Mick Harper
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son of Massey Henry Edgcumbe Lopes

Johnny Edgecombe fired the shot heard round the world (at Christine Keeler) but I'm treating that as seventeen degrees of separation. As I do most of your dynastic rhapsodising though the Queen Mum, née Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, was ferociously anti-Churchill on account of Churchill being ferociously pro-Edward VIII. I think Cliveden only really came into its own politically after Eddie had gawn so Lizziekins the Elder could have been a fully paid up member. I'm writing this in code for obvious reasons.

PS Wallis Simpson learned the Singapore Grip in Shanghai where Hollis was recruited.

PSS Prince Obolensky played rugby for England so is in the clear.
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Mick Harper
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In World War II, Astor served as a naval intelligence officer, acquiring no distinction, but gaining many influential contacts.

This is really baffling. Astor was an MP at the time. It was quite acceptable for MP's in wartime to go off and do something dashing and/or important but I've never heard of an MP going off to do something dull and unimportant. I dinna believe a word of it. And since nobody has felt moved to notice this, much less comment on it, I rest my 'careful ignoral' case. As did my brother at Gare de Lyon when queuing at the ticket office, and had his nicked. The insurance refused to cough up. Indeed when he pointed out his lecture notes were in it, they said he owed them.
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Mick Harper
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Coupla stray points. The Astors were actually the Backhouse Astors. Backhouse is a) an unusual name and b) one that crops up from time to time for us, notably The Hermit of Peking, Sir Edmund Backhouse, of blessed forgery fame. The Astor we are interested in, "Bill" Astor, the third viscount, died in mysterious circumstances in 1966 in New York of a heart attack, aged 59, as soon as Profumogate had died down. (I made up the 'mysterious' bit, but it's convenient and unusual.)
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Grant



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I posted in 2017 about Priti Patel:
"Interesting that Boris said she was a first class minister just after she resigned. Next job Home Secretary"

Why do you pygmies dare to question me?
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Mick Harper
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Probably because you're the sort of cretinous oaf that posts stuff up in the wrong place. But it's only a guess. A guarded congratulation however on noticing that Boris Johnson reads us assiduously. And not just you either. It was me that gave him the idea for Brexit, though it wasn't called that at the time.
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Hatty
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The Astor we are interested in, "Bill" Astor, the third viscount, died in mysterious circumstances in 1966 in New York of a heart attack, aged 59, as soon as Profumogate had died down.

Astor died in Nassau, the Bahamas. But no obituary is available online even though at the time the Astor family owned and edited The Observer and The Times papers.

What he was up to in Nassau isn't clear. There may be a clue in the goings-on of former prime minister David Cameron, husband of Samantha, Viscount Astor's step-daughter

Tarbert Estate on Jura is popularly believed to be owned by Mr Cameron’s stepfather-in-law, William Astor. In fact, it is owned by Ginge Manor Estates Ltd., a company registered at PMB 58, Nassau, Bahamas. The name is a bit of a giveaway – Ginge Manor is a manor house in Oxfordshire and the home of William Astor. Indeed it is where David Cameron married Samantha Gwendoline Sheffield on 1 June 1996.
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Hatty
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Mick Harper wrote:

What did the Cabinet Secretary advise Profumo to do? Well, apparently this

That same day, Profumo wrote Keeler a letter, beginning "Darling...", cancelling an assignation they had made for the following day

“Let me think now. I’ve just been hauled in by the Cabinet Secretary, the second greatest power in the land, who knows all about me doing the naughties with Christine and that I’d better cool it. I suppose I’d better give her a bell and tell her the bad news. No, I’ve got a better idea. I’ll write to her addressing her as "Darling" and making sure the context shows we’re having an affair. That should put everybody off the scent."

John Profumo seems to have made a habit of writing unwise love letters. MI5 had become aware of his earlier relationship with a German model who worked for German intelligence during the war

MI5 documents suggest he had a relationship with German model Gisela Winegard in Oxford in the early 1930s. Dr Stephen Twigge from the National Archives said this could have exposed him to blackmail.

It was apparently MI6 who passed the docs to them but the rest of us only found out in 2017

The declassified papers - published on Tuesday - were compiled by MI6, the UK's foreign intelligence service, and then given to MI5, the domestic branch of the secret services, at the height of the so-called Profumo Affair.

In the letters, Winegard's American husband Edward - who was her jailer when she was convicted of espionage - claimed that the couple separated in 1950 because of her "endearing letters from John Denis Profumo... written on House of Commons notepaper".

But MI5 already knew about the affair with Gisela, reportedly informed by Profumo 'in a memo'

The documents claim that the fashion model - whose maiden name was Klein - worked for German intelligence during World War Two.

Profumo, who was MP for Kettering from 1940 to 1945 and then for Stratford-upon-Avon, told MI5 about the spy in a memo in 1941, where he admitted to meeting her in 1936 "and got to know her well". "Lady Astor is alleged to have expressed the opinion that she was a spy," he added.

The file adds that Winegard was rejected for a UK visa in 1951 as it was thought she had "recently engaged in blackmail activities". "Jack Profumo, MP for South Cattering [sic]" was named as a reference on the visa.

There's no evidence that Profumo was blackmailed as both MI's knew about or could easily have found out about the Gisela affair, just one of many. The continuing correspondence with her seems odd though, almost as if he wanted the letters to be found.
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Mick Harper
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Oh gawd. Would you mind not opening cans of worms with such gay abandon?
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Wile E. Coyote


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Profumo (Italian name) was the son of a fascist father, so Jack might have fancied a Nazi, and had mixed loyalties at one stage, but after touring Nazi Germany in 1938 he came back apparently unimpressed. He voted against appeasement. He had a good war.

I suspect it's a repeated story.

Ever fallen in love with someone you shouldn't have fallen in love with?

It can happen more than once.
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Mick Harper
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I'm not strenuously disagreeing with any of this, Wiley, but everyone had a good war eventually. Even to the point of sympathy with the Commies? Why was he touring Germany in 1938 in the first place? "Darling, they say Dachau is awfully good at this time of the year."
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