Can Angus Handle the Peer Pressure?

The Scotsman › April 11, 2006

Linked as:

Summary

ECK had a sinister warning for Angus MacNeil, the party's Westminster representative in the Western Isles: "We don't want you disappearing without trace down the Thames." What could Eck mean? Was Angus prone to messing about in boats? Or did he face the threat of a concrete rubber ring from gangsters?

Mercifully, it was just the latter. Eck was referring to a chap in the last century who, like Angus, had mercilessly probed a cash- for-peerages scandal. Victor Grayson, an Independent Labour MP, had threatened to expose "a monocled dandy with offices in Whitehall" for selling peerages. As Eck noted, he didn't get the chance. He was last seen alive entering the London home of Maundy Gregory, the monocled dandy under advisement. Maundy was never done for murder but he was, eventually, done for his baubles racket. He in turn threatened to name names, and so all he got was three months in pokey and a GBP 50 fine. Later, he lived out his days in France on a GBP 2,000 pension provided, said Eck, by Conservative backers.