Word: profumo
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...Stuart bar sinister). But there was just as much vigor among the Puritan opposition, which lustily preached fire and brimstone. In Ward's Britain, vice tends to be half-hidden by respectability-and only half-condemned. There is a relative lack of moral indignation in many quarters, including Profumo's own constituency (see following story). The Labor Opposition, though it has muttered about the corrupt aristocracy and the twilight of a class-and exploded the Profumo scandal in the first place-has put far more stress on the practical issue of the British security system...
...sense of outrage does remain. Profumo, for example, would not dare to enter one of the St. James clubs, or to appear at the Goodwood races (he fled to Scotland and his sister's place during the recent bank holiday). Lord Astor continues to entertain, but, says one Establishmentarian, "people resent him for mixing his family and his circle with his peccadilloes...
...Shakespeare country, where John Profumo was four times elected to Parliament before he was cut off in the blossoms of his sin, the air last week was promise-crammed. Campaigning for Profumo's seat were: left-wing Labor Candidate Andrew Faulds, 40, a bearded Shakespearean actor who actually discovered a slum in the Warwickshire countryside; Publisher Derick Mirfin, 33, a bright, toothy Liberal, who declared that "it's time to give the Tories a kick in the pants"; and Tory Angus Maude, 50, an able journalist and former M.P. who rebelled against the government's handling...
...staunch Tory stronghold, Stratford returned Profumo in 1959 with a massive, 14,129-vote margin over a Labor opponent. Though Maude last week was the odds-on favorite, fellow Tories feared that the presence of a vigorous Liberal candidate and two extremists in the race might seriously cut into Conservative strength. Maude was helped by a gentleman's agreement among all the candidates to avoid dragging Profumo into the campaign. In any event, the great majority of voters seemed unperturbed by disclosures of vice in high places...
Indeed, says Stratford Herald Editor Harry Pigott-Smith, the voters had long known that Profumo was "a naughty boy," and would gladly have kept the ex-War Minister as their M.P. if only he had not lied about his affair with Christine Keeler to the House of Commons. Stratford's most serious criticism of the government was that it had launched an irritating political diversion in the Shakespeare industry's peak season. On the other hand, most voters were probably too busy changing dollars and Deutsche marks to change parties...