by Alexander Baron

The recent announcement by William Hague, David Cameron’s Foreign Secretary, that he had shared a hotel bedroom with his researcher but that he was most definitely not homosexual came as no surprise to the most scurrilous gossip I know – my solicitor. Indeed, he told me before Hague married that he was “gay” – not my word. But he also said the same thing about Gordon Brown.  I was particularly intrigued by this, and asked him on what evidence he made this defamatory claim. The main evidence was that Brown was over forty and unmarried, to which I replied that I was over forty and unmarried, and told him that if he were ever to cast such aspersions on me, I’d hit him with my handbag.

Subsequently, Gordon Brown married, but that didn’t satisfy him; it had to be a lavender marriage.

Rumours and scurrilous gossip of this nature abound, not just about politicians but about anyone who is famous – deserving or not – rich, influential, you name it, there are no real criteria anymore, not in the age of the Internet.

There was a similar rumour about Tony Blair many years ago, that he had been arrested for importuning in a public toilet, was charged, appeared at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court,  fined £500, and walked away. Nobody realised who he was because somehow he managed to use the name Charles Lynton. This story was so durable that even one of Britain’s leading Libertarians – whom I will not name – fell for it.

In the United States, even those holding high office – including the highest office – are nor immune from this sort of nonsense. Although Slick Willy was well and truly caught with his trousers down by virtue of the sordid tale of the semen stained dress, there is really no evidence that he was a serial rapist, as has been touted by some.

The current inhabitant of the White House has been subjected to similarly scandalous charges. In 2008, a white homosexual named Larry Sinclair came forward and claimed to have performed oral sex on then Senator Obama in the back of a limousine, and also that Obama had supplied him with cocaine. Sinclair was very precise about the date and location, and even made these allegations in a press conference at the National Press Club, Washington.

Videos of this conference and others of Sinclair can be found all over the Internet. The fact that neither Hillary Clinton nor John McCain alluded to Sinclair during the Presidential race is, I think, the only comment that needs to be made on their veracity.

Unsurprisingly, most such scandalous allegations are not made with such candour.  I have personal experience of the genesis and development of something just as disgusting which was directed at my colleague Mark Taha, who although very much the junior partner in the ITMA Project, was the inspiration for many of its earlier publications. On December 31, 1995, a lengthy article was posted to Usenet in both English and German. The author, though not the poster, was Graeme Atkinson, European Editor of Searchlight.

Among other things this grossly defamatory article accused Mark of being a former member of the British Movement – a ludicrous claim, and of “sexually propositioning young children”.

“Sometime prior to this, Mark was given the bum’s rush by a one-time friend of many years, who added that if there was anything in the claim that he had been seen propositioning young Asian boys he hoped he got his just deserts.” It so happened that this friend was the ex-husband of a certain overweight Stalinist photographer who is known to freelance for Searchlight. But the grand finale was something far more public. One night, on my way home I missed my stop, as I have done on occasion, and instead of disembarking the train at Sydenham I got off at Penge East, which is about twice the distance from my front door.  And as I walked home I found attached to sundry lamp posts, stickers bearing Mark’s face, and warning that he was a paedophile who frequented this area. Such stickers were also posted in other areas of London he was known to frequent, including Stamford Hill, where he was living at the time.

The parents of Stamford Hill were alarmed, so were the the police, and they called a special meeting in a local school at which they made it clear that they were not the slightest bit interested in Mr Taha but would be very interested in any information related to the person or more likely persons who had printed and posted the stickers.

The stickers urged anyone who had any information about Mark to contact the Hackney Anti-Paedophile League; this (non-existent) organisation’s address was given as a BNP box number.

The Internet posting was brought to our attention by Robin Ramsay, the Editor of Lobster; Mark was not the main target of this defamatory post, that bit of bile was thrown in because of the then ongoing libel action between myself and Searchlight magazine. Following defamatory allegations in the November 1993 issue I was subjected to a serious assault on my own doorstep by “anti-fascist” thugs who had obviously been hired or put up to it by a certain Jewish hatemonger and arch-liar whom I will not name here for legal reasons. I felt under the circumstances that I had no alternative but to bring this libel action. Subsequently, Mike Newland, the then press officer of the British National Party was subjected to an even more vicious attack, while an attack on Mark Cotterill, in the West Country, could well have been fatal had he not been able to duck into his kitchen, arm himself, and beat off his two attackers.

The way this attack was reported in Searchlight is an indication of the general veracity of this magazine.

The net result was that my libel action against Gerry Gable and Searchlight Magazine Ltd – and its printer, distributor and a number of outlets – was settled to my satisfaction; Mark also screwed some money out of Gable, who walked away from the High Court with empty pockets, having taken an enormous battering on costs, especially after his then solicitor-advocate Anthony Julius came unstuck with a strike out application which was so complex, convoluted and disingenuous that it confused me, Mark, Mark’s Counsel John Orme, Mr Justice Eady, and probably Julius himself.

The icing on the cake came on February 23, 2000 when the late Morris Riley won an historic judgment against Gable, Searchlight Magazine Ltd AND Ray Hill, Gable’s “mole” – read agent provocateur inside the extreme right during the early 1980s.

Although his action was not related to ours, I assisted him with its preparation, and also acted as a McKenzie Friend during preliminary hearings, and his victory can truly be said to have been the culmination of the rout of one of Western Man’s most perfidious enemies.

If all the above takes us a long way from the allegations against William Hague, it does give an insight into the genesis of scurrilous rumours and outright lies.  The lies invented and circulated about Mark Taha were clearly designed as at best intimidation and at worse to incite violence against him. At this time there was a certain hysteria in the media and in the air about any mention of paedophiles. It remains to be seen if the allegations against Hague have an equally sinister motive.

The evidence against Hague - if that is what it can be called - is that he was photographed in the company of a younger man, and that both were smiling, and that subsequent to that he admitted (loaded word though that is) that the two of them had on occasion shared a room with twin beds. Knowing the Tories, this smacks more of financial indiscretions than other, more sordid ones – ie booking one room and claiming expenses for two. Ironically, the case against Hague would be stronger if they had booked separate but adjoining rooms.

There is though the question of that lavender marriage. Probably the most famous of such was that between Cole Porter and his somewhat older wife. It remains to be seen if Porter was entirely homosexual; his wife suffered a miscarriage, and they were together for over thirty years, until her death in 1954. Marriages are in any case generally based on more than sex; Porter’s sex life came to an abrupt end in October 1937 when he was crippled in an horrendous riding accident.

Though the former Linda Lee Thomas tolerated her husband’s infidelities, and Mary Archer appears to have tolerated her husband’s equally sordid assignations with whores, it remains to be seen if the lovely Ffion would have been quite so tolerant of any by Billy Boy. The statement Hague issued concerning their personal life and her multiple miscarriages was obviously put out at her insistence. It is barely conceivable that she would have considered doing something like that if there had been even a nano-grain of truth in these persistent rumours.

Considering all the above, I think we can rule out William Hague being anything but a red-blooded heterosexual. Let me make one point clear; this is not a case of giving Hague the benefit of the doubt. It is a simple fact that many rumours have absolutely no basis in fact. If it were indeed the case that there is no smoke without fire, then simply starting a rumour would mean it must contain at least a grain of truth, a proposition that is clearly ludicrous. The truth about William Hague is probably a lot more simple than sordid. Some men are not as obsessed with sex as the rest of society, and some have little or no interest in it at all. Edward Heath, the only unmarried Prime Minister within living memory, was widely rumoured to be homosexual; John Lees even alluded to him as “a sailor oh so gay” in a classic Barclay James Harvest song. But Heath had three interests in life – and sex wasn’t one of them. Although far from our most distinguished Prime Minister, he clocked up over fifty years in the House – no mean achievement – was passionate about sailing, and about his organ, which brought him honorary degrees from both the Royal College of Music and the Royal College of Organists.

There is little or no evidence that he ever used his other organ for anything besides micturation, which is what I suggest Hague does with his in future on the rumour-mongers.