Jack Straw's nocturnal delving

Jack Straw looked acutely uncomfortable. He was standing in the doorway of his tall Victorian house in Islington’s Battledean Road, scruffy on the outside, plush inside. He was casually dressed in sandals and cords, saying he had hoped for a quiet evening. It was May 1976, and his visitors were Roger Courtiour and myself, both BBC journalists. He ushered us to his upstairs front room. We sat. He stood.

Mr Straw began by lying. ‘I know nothing of a missing file,’ he said.

Surely he knew of the missing DHSS file belonging to Norman Scott, the gay lover of Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe? Mr Straw changed tack. ‘I cannot say anything because of the Official Secrets Act.’

Hang on, we said. We knew that Barbara Castle had spoken to him about this file a few days ago. At this point Mr Straw changed tune altogether. ‘Yes I know of a missing file,’ he said, and repeated that he was bound by the Official Secrets Act. Then why did he lie when we first arrived? Straw replied: ‘I am not compromised personally in this matter.’ Looking distraught, he promised to take advice and to contact us within two or three days. He never did.

So concluded our first, unsatisfactory attempt to get the truth out of a man who would go on to become the present Foreign Secretary. He was then a special adviser to Barbara Castle, social services secretary, and there is overwhelming evidence that he had used his position to investigate the records of a private citizen for what can only have been party political advantage. He had been looking into the affairs of Norman Scott because in January that year, in a Barnstaple courtroom, the male model announced the curious fact that his National Insurance stamp had been paid by his employer, Jeremy Thorpe.