Ted Heath
Edward Heath, more familiarly known as Ted, was the British Prime Minister in the early 1970’s. He was also the head of England’s Conservative Party until an up and coming woman on the rise named Thatcher displaced him. His counterpart on the opposing Liberal Party is quoted as having made a particularly pithy metaphorical observation about Heath, describing him as:
“The plum pudding around which no one has succeeded in lighting the brandy.”
It is almost certainly more humorous to Brits than to Americans, but the point is clear enough from context.
He’s No Ted Bessell
Peter Bessell was also a member of the Liberal Party, representing Cornwall in Parliament. Bessell apparently was quite the Don Juan—or something approaching it in British terms—which is surprising considering his physical appearance:
“Bessell did not look like a conventional Lothario. He once likened his face to a `a badly tessellated pavement’ and the mohair suits he wore caused him to shimmer slightly whenever he stood near an electric light.”
Portrait of a Gas Crisis
Although it may seem hard to believe now, the gas shortage crisis of 1973 was truly a life-altering event. Lines at gas stations literally stretched for miles and usually those at the end of the line could never hope to get to the station before the supply for that day ran out. Things were just as bad for Britons:
“All over the country there were regular power cuts, because power stations were also short of fuel. Many factories had closed. Bessell had arrived for one meeting in Mayfair to find the building in darkness. A secretary holding a torch led him through to a candlelit boardroom. It was like walking into a scene from a seventeenth-century Dutch painting.”
Bessell’s Dark Side
Metaphor reveals Bessell to have had quite a dark side. At least in terms of what might be potentially possible were legal matters extricated from moral considerations:
“Bessell found himself imagining what it would like if Scott were really with him in the car...`I imagined heaving the warm body into the ditch where the creatures of the night would gnaw and nibble at it like carrion.’”
The Evidence of Mr. Norman Scott
Norman Scott is painted as the central villain of this story by many participants though it would really taxing the patience of anyone to suggest that that any of the major players come off looking any particularly better. And, after all, Scott is undeniably a victim in the way the tale plays out. Nevertheless, a tumult of metaphor is directed toward Scott by Joseph Cantley, presiding barrister at the trial of Jeremy Thorpe. Speaking of Scott, Cantley assert he is:
“A hysterical, warped personality…He is a crook. He is a fraud. He is a sponger. He is a whiner. He is a parasite.”
