I’ve written here about Roy Jenkins before. I had read or perused books or articles or listened to talks by him over many decades and stood in awe of his intellect and generally admired him, though not always agreeing
with him. What really got my goat was his biography of Winston Churchill whom he reckoned made peace in Ireland, and his concession that Lord Mayor Terence MacSwiney of Cork, who died on hunger strike in Brixton Prison, was a cut above the Irish-American political racketeers of Tammany Hall.
I outlined what I’d read of Richard “Boss” Croker, the West Cork- born Tammany Hali thug, who got out of New York in a hurry, lived in style in Dublin and whose horse Orby won the Epsom Derby in 1907.
Croker was a crude thug and a murderer, but an innocent abroad compared with at least one later tenant of his Dublin mansion, long the residence of the British Ambassador in Ireland.
In 1969 Sir Andrew Gilchrist was the Ambassador and when, following the August onslaught by RUC, B Specials and Orange mobs on Catholics in Belfast and Derry, Irish Foreign Minister Patrick Hillery appealed to the UN in New York, Gilchrist and Lord Caradon (Hugh Foot), British Ambassador to the UN, completely overawed him, persuaded him that a more UK-friendly history curriculum be introduced to Irish schools. Earlier in his carreer Caradon had served in Palestine with ex- Black and Tans. Also in 1969 Gilchrist set in motion the establishment of the IRISH TIMES TRUST to steer the paper back to its posture during the Black and Tan terror.
Gilchrist’s handiwork endures to this day, not only in Ireland, but in Indonesia, where, as Ambassador in 1965 he was the prime mover of the murderous coup by General Suharto which overthrew President Sukarno, gifted the country’s huge resources to western corporations, and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of unarmed men women and children, with the assistance of the British Navy and America’s CIA
This was when Britain had a Labour Government and Lyndon Johnson was US President and “Honest Jack” Lynch Taoiseach. Roy Jenkins was a junior minister in Wilson’s Government at the time.
Jenkins was hailed as a libertarian Home Secretary for decriminalizing male homosexual conduct, making divorce easier and decriminalising abortion under certain conditions.
Banging up gay men together at public expense was never a good idea. The divorce laws gave employment to hotels, pretend mistresses, private detectives, perjurers, lawyers, judges and press hacks, and amusement to millions of commuters on their way home from work, besides which they served no useful purpose. The simplification of the process was a humane reform.
But it seems to me that disinterested altruism had little to do with the Home Secretary’s pet projects. Roy Jenkins had as a young man condemned marriage as a bourgeois institution. But while he married in 1945 and remained so until his death 58 years later, he was part of a metropolitan, cross-party set of swingers, AC/DC, partner swapping, and role reversing. I had included Hugh Gaitskell, Chancellor of the Exchequer under Attlee and his successor as Leader of the Labour Party in 1955.Gaitskell died in 1963. Gaitskell’s conquests included the wife of Ian Fleming. Jenkins had been a lover of Anthony Crosland, who later served with him in Cabinet.
As the herald of the permissive society Jenkins was doing himself and his chums a big favour. Easy divorce, gay liberation and, in the event of a slip up, abortion. Though perhaps in their case abortions could be arranged despite the law. Theirs was a privileged set. There wasn’t much liberal about the Prevention of Terrorism Act, introduced under Roy’s watch. Innocent people were banged up for many years. Peaceful public meetings were banned. The Irish community in Britain was targeted by police and media muzzled.
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