A short history of prime ministers getting into trouble with the law

Boris Johnson’s relationship with Jennifer Arcuri is by no means the first time a British leader has been caught in a scandal, writes Sean O’Grady

Both Johnson and Arcuri deny they had an intimate relationship (Innotech Network/YouTube)

So the strange story of the prime minister and the ex-model appears to have been brought to a close. Boris Johnson’s alleged misuse of his office when mayor of London merits no further action, according to the Independent Office for Police Conduct who were looking into the matter (at the time of the events, Mr Johnson was in charge of the Metropolitan Police, raising a potential conflict of interest). They did state that there “may have been an intimate relationship” between Mr Johnson and Jennifer Arcuri. This has been denied by Ms Arcuri, an American, who once remarked of the Queen’s first minister that: “If I was banging the dude and there was some kind of, like trail or sex tape, but there’s nothing.”

Mr Johnson maintained that he visited her for “technology lessons”. There is no suggestion that the then mayor, keen cyclist and jogger though he was, availed himself of the pole Ms Arcuri had installed in her flat to practise her dancing; his actions did however give a whole new meaning to Disraeli’s famous phrase “the greasy pole”.

Looking around the world a little, Mr Johnson’s activities, whatever they amounted to, look rather tame. After all, Alex Salmond, former first minister of Scotland was cleared recently of very serious charges of attempted rape, sexual assault and indecent assault. The political repercussions of that may not be over.

Leaving aside gross human rights abuses in authoritarian states from Saudi Arabia to Hungary, among Mr Johnson’s contemporaries we find the current prime ministers of Bulgaria being accused of money laundering; of Malta the death of migrants; of Fiji the assault of a political opponent; and the premier of Lesotho on a charge of murdering his ex-wife (he has just stepped down). Meanwhile, Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel seems to be in permanent session with the Israeli police discussing fraud, bribes and breach of trust. Nor can we forget the impeachment of Donald Trump, his high crimes and misdemeanours reminiscent of similar episodes in the presidencies of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.

Historically, too, Mr Johnson is not alone among his 76 predecessors in having a brush with the law.

While his most vicious critics want still to see Tony Blair arraigned at international court in The Hague for war crimes, almost forgotten now is his almost two-hour-long interrogation by detectives on Tuesday 14 December 2006. Mr Blair had been referred by the SNP for the crime of selling honours, to rich Labour Party donors. Even though he was not questioned under caution, had no lawyer present and nothing came of it, it was embarrassing, and unprecedented, for the Old Bill to show up at No 10 in such a capacity. The element of political spite, arguably present in all such episodes, the law and police being used as partisan weapons, was possibly present in that episode; at any rate, the honours system continues.

Indeed it was the alleged sale of honours by David Lloyd George a century ago that led to it being subject to precise legislation prohibiting the practice, and was the law Mr Blair was accused of violating (the Honours (Prevention of Abuse) Act 1925). Always the adventurer, Lloyd George had made liberal and blatant use of what was then a legal, though shady, practice and would charge cronies some £50,000 for a (hereditary) seat in the House of Lords – £2.2m in today’s money. The cash would go into a political fund under Lloyd George’s personal control, rather than Liberal Party coffers.

Lloyd George enjoyed living life on the edge, notoriously so, and was also implicated in an insider share dealing scandal some years before, when he was chancellor. The great Marconi shares scandal of 1912 was probably the most discreditable personal financial scandal at the top of British politics, was satirised by George Bernard Shaw as the “Macaroni Scandal” and deserves to be better remembered than Lloyd George’s womanising, but there we are. In Britain, it seems that sex sells better than money and Mr Johnson’s liaison with Ms Arcuri unfortunately combined both.

The saddest and most bizarre criminal examination of a British prime minister remains the investigation by five different police forces of Edward Heath, for sexually abusing minors. Heath, it has to be said, had been dead for 10 years before they “caught up” with him. Certainly the victims, if there had been any, deserved justice and the truth, as with other posthumous enquiries (such as Jimmy Savile). The problem with the enquiries into Heath and various associated members of a so-called ring was that they seem to have been cooked up by a fantasist who is himself now serving an 18-year sentence for perverting the course of justice.

Maybe one last point worth mentioning when considering the case of politicians and the law is that our prime ministers are rather more often sinned against than sinning. They are famously reluctant to sue the press for libels against them – John Major was the last to do so, back in 1993 (the New Statesman and Scallywag – he won). Their personal business and financial interests have to be placed in a blind trust, and every microscopic aspect of their behaviour, especially if they happen to be female, is subjected to often misinformed or deliberately skewed “scrutiny”.

Their families are always used as proxies to attack them. They and those closest to them are routinely accused of hypocrisy, dishonesty, lying, infidelity, corruption and, in Harold Wilson’s case, of being a Soviet spy. They run the real risk of assassination, as when the IRA so narrowly missed murdering Margaret Thatcher in 1984.

While there have been many rogues, chancers and deeply flawed personalities to find themselves in Downing Street, and there has been wave after wave of sneakers, the more remarkable thing is how relatively clean British politics remains. Before too long Ms Arcuri’s name will probably only figure as a slightly tricky answer to a pub quiz question.