Profumo affair showed ruling-class hypocrisy

Mandy Rice Davies could reasonably claim to be a friend of Mrs Thatcher. After all, Thatcherism was an extension of the kind of hypocrisy and self-seeking greed that the Profumo affair best summed up and temporarily ended (Report, 20 December). There were the victims, like Christine Keeler, a much more genuine ingenue than Rice-Davies, and Stephen Ward, who the state determined to break. Then there were the beneficiaries like Mandy Rice-Davies, who got the wealth and Belgravia address she wanted and, ultimately, Profumo himself, who was readmitted to the ranks of the great and good through his “charitable work”. Now we can see the affair as a short period when the curtain was lifted and we were allowed to see the greed, irresponsibility and sexual mores of a ruling class that still punished homosexuality, prostitution and unmarried mothers. And now through its media and narrowly based politics encourages us to hate people on benefits, immigrants, disabled people and anyone else with little power or money.
Professor Peter Beresford
Brunel University London