Violent Bonham Carter: Someone's been talking out of turn

From The Female Illuminati

When I ask him what became of Violent Bonham Carter, Lord Bonkers is evasive. "Some say he is lying low after an unsuccessful attempt to steal the Crown Jewels: others that he is to be found in one of the pillars of the Chiswick flyover," is all the old boy will offer.

If Violent is still with us, he won't be happy that his name is being banded about so freely. Following my earlier examples of 'Violent Bonham Carter' appearing in print, here is a set from the internet.

ABE Books listing for Lantern Slides: The Diaries and Letters of Violet Bonham Carter 1904-1914 edited by Mark Bonham Carter and Mark Pottle

Finest Hour, 133 (Winter 2006-7). Churchill Remembered: CD Review by John Ramsden.

Recruitment of Liberals into the Conservative Party, c. 1906-1935 by Nicholas Martin Cott (PhD thesis, University of Newcastle, 2015)

The making of Orpington: British political culture and the strange revival of liberalism,

1958-64 by Y. Membery (PhD thesis, University of Maastricht, 2021)

"A gent to his fingertips" was also how people described Violent - particularly if he had just threatened them.

GUEST POST A lifetime among the Liberals

Paddy Briggs looks back over a lifetime's political involvement and forwards to the next election.

I was 13 and for the first time I started to take an interest in politics. It was JFK wot did it. That summer of 1960 a man born in the same century as me was campaigning to be President of the United States. He was beautiful as was his wife. He wasn't Harold Macmillan or Ike or de Gaulle. He had charisma (though I don't think I knew that word at the time). He won!

 

In 1962 I got a bit excited again. Now Eric Lubbock wasn’t JFK but he made me momentarily famous at my boarding school. You see I lived in Orpington which hitherto had only been famous for its chickens. I decided to be a Liberal when he won. Of course I did.

 

As a student in the late 1960s there were plenty of good causes for liberals to care about. The old men defended the deadly nonsense of Vietnam. I didn't. They defended even the racial obscenity of Apartheid. I didn't. 

 

Surely the Liberal day had dawned ? But what did that mean ? Well it wasn’t Socialist (Good). Or Conservative (even better). So I knew what it wasn't – but what actually was it? That was more difficult.

 

The real dawn of the liberalism I believed in wasn't to come until the 1980s. Like Charles Kennedy and a few other good men and true I joined the SDP. Social Democracy and Liberalism. Perfect match. The SDP did well actually but the electoral system killed us. Charlie survived and a few others. I was mortified.

 

The Liberal Democrats were a decent post-SDP refuge and they did pretty well. Mainly as a home for those of the Centre/Left who lived in constituencies where Labour was nowhere and the Tories weren't that popular. Including mine – Twickenham. Vince was an old colleague of mine in Shell and a kindred spirit. Easy call. 

 

I liked the Coalition and thought the love-in in the Rose Garden was fine. My wife told me it was a public schoolboy alliance. She was certainly right but it suited me. But Nick didn't use his power as wisely as he could have. 2015 was a disaster. Even Vince lost. 2016 was the beginning of the end. The hideous referendum. Trump. Liberalism and pro Europeanism (my watchwords) became dirty words. 

 

So what now? Well first and foremost there’s Keir Starmer. He must be a man that the Libs can do business with. Surely to goodness. The policy is staring us in the face. Labour and the Lib Dems have much in common. An electoral alliance please. Labour to stand down in Lib Dem constituencies and in Tory constituencies where the LD’s are running second. The Lib Dems to do the same. Don't stand in Tory Conservative/Labour marginals.

You can follow Paddy Briggs on Twitter.

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Vinous Ali has visited the refugee camps of Northern Greece with Tim Farron.

The House of Lords by-election to replace Eric Avebury is ludicrous and should be boycotted, say John Lubbock and Seth Thévoz.

"There will be no incumbents, and few of the ex-MEPs are expected to run ... So, there is every possibility that new names may emerge and end up as Liberal Democrat MEPs." Mark Valladares says the forthcoming selections for Liberal Democrat Euro candidates will be the most open yet.

Kyra Hanson on guerrilla gardening and the battle against concrete paving and private development in London.

"Verification and fact-checking are regularly falling prey to the pressure to bring in the numbers, and if the only result of being caught out is another chance to bring in the clicks, that looks unlikely to change." Kevin Rawlinson on the new plague of fake news stories.

Flickering Lamps visits Brompton Cemetery and returns with tales of soldiers and adventurers - and rumours of a time machine.

Lord Bonkers on the by-election for a Lib Dem hereditary peer

The sad death of Eric Avebury means there has to be a by-election to choose a new Liberal Democrat hereditary peer.

A BBC News report suggests there will be two candidates: John Russell (the current Earl Russell and the son of the much-missed Conrad Russell) and John Thurso (former member of the Lords and former MP for Caithness and Sutherland).

But then the electorate is barely larger than the number of candidates:

Three current Lib Dem hereditaries are entitled to vote: Lord Addington, the descendent of a Conservative MP from the 1880s; the Earl of Glasgow, the descendent of one of the Scottish Commissioners who negotiated the 1703 Union of the kingdoms of Scotland and England; and the Earl of Oxford and Asquith, who is directly descended from the Liberal Prime Minister H H Asquith.

Or should that be four current Lib Dem hereditaries?

Lord Bonkers holds a Rutland peerage, which means he is sometimes overlooked by the pundits, but he is determined to vote in this election.

I don't know which way he will vote, but he did remark at dinner the other night that "the Russells always come good in the end" and that "this Thurso fella needs to make up his mind which House he wants to sit in".

He also said that a donation to the Bonkers' Home for Well-Behaved Orphans before the votes are cast on 19 April would be "a Terribly Nice Gesture".

Thanks to Mark Pack.

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"Eric's family hope you can join them for an afternoon to celebrate his life and work at The Royal Institution, 2.00pm on Thursday 30th June 2016. There will be a number of guest speakers, audio visual clips and music, followed by light refreshments." Details of the memorial service for Eric Avebury,

"I wish I'd never decided to work in an immigration detention centre," says an anonymous article on politics.co.uk.

Stephen Williams presents an electoral history of Bristol Liberal Democrats 1973-2016.

"Newsagents reached parts of the population that most booksellers and stationers hadn’t previously: the working class. Newsagents could provide a one-stop shop for working-class autodidacts in the interwar period." Misplacedhabits on the need for a history of newsagents' shops.

"Get Carter was different from all other films in that it somehow ‘belonged’ to the north-east – projecting and validating a tough-but-tender image of the region that chimed with the area’s self-romanticising view of itself." Neil Young on a great film, 45 years on.

Railway Maniac on a little piece of Lincolnshire railway history: the Allington Chord.

Charles Sydney Buxton and Eric Avebury were cousins

Embed from Getty Images

When I blogged about the Liberal flyer from the first 1910 general election I bought on Sunday, I said Charles Sydney Buxton and Eric Avebury were kinsmen.

A little research shows that they were cousins - or half-cousins, if there is such a relationship - as they had the same grandfather.

That grandfather was John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, who had 11 children from two marriages.

Charles was the son of his eldest child Constance Mary Lubbock. She was the daughter of John Lubbock's first wife Ellen Frances Hordern.

Eric Avebury was the son of his youngest child, Maurice Fox Pitt Lubbock. He was the son of John Lubbock's second wife Alice Fox-Pitt.

When I set off for the antique fair on Sunday I had just heard of Eric Avebury's death - just one of those odd coincidences.

It is striking to come across cousins who died more than a century apart and also strking that Eric Avebury eventuallly inherited his grandfather's title despite being born to the youngest of his 11 children.

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Eric Avebury, the Liberal Democrat peer and Liberal victor in the famous Orpington by-election, has died. Lib Dem Voice has an interview about his life that he gave to his son John and Seth Thevoz last year.

Emran Mian says we should not harangue Google for paying so little tax in Britain but globalise taxation.

"At Petworth we can walk through the realised dreams of the landlords: a glorious country estate that projects the power, prestige, even the seeming naturalness, of the aristocracy. The history of our more humble ancestors ... are smoothed over, buried, obscured." Mark Hailwood goes for a walk in the country.

Nicholas Whyte has been to the Royal College of Physicians' exhibition on John Dee - "scholar, courtier, magician".

"John Perry was heard crying out for assistance in the garden. When help arrived, he was found alone but in a state of some agitation. He claimed that, while working in the garden, he had been unaccountably set upon by two men dressed in white, who had assaulted him with their swords." Alwyn Turner examines what sounds very like a 17th-century UFO abduction.

Historic England presents nine breweries of architectural distinction.

Who is the oldest Liberal Democrat peer?

When Lord Mackie of Benshie died last month, I asked who the oldest living former Liberal MPs are.

With some help from readers, I came up with this list:

James Davidson (b. 10 January 1927)

Elizabeth Shields (b. 27 February 1928)

Eric Avebury (b. 29 September 1928)

Then, the other day, Joshua Down emailed me:

Your recent blog post about the oldest surviving Liberal MPs prompted me to think about the equivalent people in the House of Lords. As far as I know there isn't a single source of birth dates as there is for former MPs, which makes it a bit more challenging. 

As it happens though, the Telegraph recorded that Lord Ezra, sometime chairman of the National Coal Board, was 96 yesterday, making him about five months older than Lord Mackie by my reckoning. He is still sitting, unlike Lord Hutchinson of Lullington, who's 99 but retired from the House some time ago. I have no idea who would be in third place on the list.

I did however find that Lord Tanlaw, like Lord Mackie a member of the Scottish Liberals though subsequently a crossbencher, is the third most senior life peer by date of creation. He is also, exotically, descended from the last White Rajah of Sarawak!

Can any other readers help to compile an authoritative list of the oldest Liberal Democrat peers?

Top of both these lists, of course, should be Lord Bonkers.

In his foreword to last year's Liberator songbook, he shared the secret of his longevity:

I strongly recommend that you either bathe regularly in the spring of eternal life that bursts from the hillside above what used to be headquarters of the Association of Liberal Councillors in Hebden Bridge or get your hands on the cordial sold by the Elves of Rockingham Forest.

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Eric Avebury, the Liberal Democrat peer, writes movingly on the campaign to legalise assisted dying and his very personal interest in the subject.

The Telegraph has a chief executive, but what it needed was an editor, says Peter Preston.

"A recent panel for Smith College alumnae aimed at 'challenging the ideological echo chamber' elicited this ominous 'trigger/content warning” when a transcript appeared in the campus newspaper: 'Racism/racial slurs, ableist slurs, antisemitic language, anti-Muslim/Islamophobic language, anti-immigrant language, sexist/misogynistic slurs, references to race-based violence, references to antisemitic violence.'" Wendy Kaminer on the progressive ideas behind the lack of free speech on American campuses.

Good sense on cycling safety from Scotland: "My name is Alexander and I am 10 years old. I live in the countryside and the roads around my home are single track with passing places. I would like something to slow cars down because when I go on my bike and I hear cars coming they don’t slow down even though there is not much room. I usually stop and get off my bike and stand on the grass verge but they still don’t slow down."

Ian Sample fears noise pollution is making us oblivious to the sound of nature.

"If London’s roads had been 'futureproofed' in the 1970s to cope with anticipated demand today, some of the capital’s most popular neighbourhoods simply wouldn't exist today." 853 on the campaign against the Silvertown Tunnel.

Lord Mackie of Benshie has flown his last mission

Sad news today. Lord Mackie of Benshie - farmer, war hero, Liberal MP and peer - has died at the age of 95.

As his Guardian obituary says:

The whole of his life had been coloured by the war, and like many other participants in that terrible conflict, the experience made him a passionate believer in European unity. 

Much of his political life was devoted to that idealistic concept, including membership of the Council of Europe and a brief spell in the European parliament before it became a directly elected body. He spent many years on House of Lords committees charged with examining EU legislation.

As George Mackie he sat for Caithness and Sutherland between 1964 and 1966. At the time of his death, he was the longest surviving former Liberal MP.

Who holds that crown today?

George Mackie held the crown even when I blogged about it back in 2009. And the silver and bronze medalists then - Clement Freud and Emlyn Hooson - have both died too.

So by my reckoning the three oldest former Liberal MPs are now

1. James Davidson (b. 10 January 1927)
2. Elizabeth Shields (b. 27 February 1928)
3. Eric Avebury (b. 29 September 1928)

James Davidson was MP for West Aberdeenshire between 1966 and 1970. Elizabeth Shields was MP for Ryedale between 1986 and 1987. Eric Avebury, as Eric Lubbock, was MP for Orpington between his famous by-election victory in 1962 and 1970.

Unless, of course, you know better.

Later. Thanks to Greg Stone for pointing me to Elizabeth Shields' date of birth.

Pratap Chitnis has died

The Guardian website has an obituary of Lord Chitnis, who died on Friday. It describes him as "one of the most prominent fixers in centre-left politics from 1960 to the end of the 1980s".

Pratap Chitnis was Eric Lubbock's agent when he won the 1962 Orpington by-election. The obituary also reveals that Chtinis fell out with Jeremy Thorpe in a pretty fundamental way:

When Thorpe went on trial in 1979 for attempted murder and conspiracy to murder, Chitnis and some Liberal friends persuaded the former MP Peter Bessell to return to England from the US to be a witness. Bessell claimed to have heard discussions about the murder plot. Thorpe was acquitted but he had to resign the party leadership.

Sir John Lubbock - Eric Avebury's great grandfather

The other day the Guardian interviewed the Liberal Democrat peer Eric Avebury as part of a feature on people who are still working past the ago of 80. In it he said:

On my 80th birthday, I said I am never going to retire and I have stuck to that. It would have been a great disadvantage if I didn't have work. People who don't do anything after a certain age decline – the lack of mental stimulation has a bearing on your physical side too.

And he demonstrated his continuing activity by writing a piece for Liberal Democrat Voice on the plight of gay asylum seekers.

By chance today I came across an article about Sir John Lubbock who, by my calculation, is Eric Avebury's great grandfather. As it says, Lubbock was a banker and a politician, but as it is on the Royal Society site it is most interested in his career as a scientist:

In 1842 Charles Darwin moved in to Down House near to the Lubbock family home of High Elms. Despite his initial disappointment (Lubbock later recalled that when his father came home with the promise of ‘great news,’ he had rather hoped his father was going to announce that he was getting a pony rather than hailing the arrival in the neighbourhood of an eminent scientist), young John soon found a mentor and comrade in his dyspeptic neighbour and became a regular visitor to Down, applying his burgeoning work ethic to the study of natural history and biology.

The Royal Society is holding an event to honour Sir John Lubbock - Avebury's Circle: the Science of John Lubbock FRS (1834-1913) - on 23 March.

Finally a note on names. Sir John Lubbock became the 1st Baron Avebury and Eric Avebury, the 4th Baron Avebury, began life as Eric Lubbock. Under that name he was famous as the winner of the Orpington by-election in 1962.

That was my problem with 18th-century history at school: politicians changed names halfway their careers and unless you could cope with that you were lost. I never did work out where Godolphin had sprung from.

Aghet - A Genocide

Thanks to Eric Avebury for tweeting the link to this 90-minutes documentary on the Armenian genocide. It is an English-language version of the German original Aghet – Ein Völkermord.

The last years of the Ottoman Empire are an obscure corner of history for us in Britain, yet they saw the mass slaughter of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians. The attitude of the government of modern-day Turkey is hard to understand when Atatürk's seizure of power marked such a clean break from the Ottoman past.

When Lord Avebury was Eric Buttock

At Harborough Antiques Fair on Sunday I bought a copy of Private Eye on London. Published in 1962 and written by Christopher Booker, Willie Rushton and Richard Ingrams (with photographs by Maurice Hatton), it was the magazine's first book.

It features Willie Rushton's cartoons prominently and tells the story of a man called Gnittie who visits the capital.

He visits Westminster and comes across "a little man in shorts and a schoolboy cap":

my name's eric BUttock and i'm a liberal MP. Evry few yeres evrybody get fed up with the other two parties and hav a Liberal REVIVAL. Then Jo - he's Hed of our party - sa yaroo now we are going to replace both the other parties, we got orl the right polerices for Britern etc. and then along come the Genral Elekshun and we get about o votes. It's jolly well unfair.

Eric Buttock, of course, was inspired by Eric Lubbock, the Liberal victor in the famous Orpington by-election. Today he is better known as Lord Avebury or Eric Avebury.

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"Football like boxing or rowing is a game where the team that is leading at the first stage isn't always the winner at the end. As Kris Akabushi said when he appeared at a Yes2AV event even in the 100m at the Olympics there are the first and second round and semi-finals. It is rare that the eventual champion will have won every round of that race. What is important is that they win on the final round." Stephen's Liberal Journal has little time for the sporting analogies being deployed by the No2AV campaign.

Eric Avebury visits Rolls Royce in Derby, where he worked 60 years ago after leaving the Army.

The Blairite group Progress is publishing its Purple Book in the autumn. (I wonder where they got that idea from?) Writing on Liberal Conspiracy, Don Paskini cannot decide whether to be intrigued or outraged.

Under a Watling Street Tree believes public libraries have lost their way: "Our local libraries appear to be stacked with CDs, cheap paperbacks, celebrity cookbooks and other publications, that are, in many cases, of dubious educational value. Many such items could be bought in local charity shops at give-away prices."

The prospects for the campaign to restore Leicester's Braunstone Hall are examined by Mr Black's Blog.

Silent UK has some marvellous photographs of the disused Post Office railway under London. (I am sure I used to have a Blue Peter book with an article about it.) You will see that I have appropriated one of those photographs.

Eric Avebury on Coalition overseas development policy

Eric Avebury has a piece on Liberal Democrat Voice looking at the Coalition government's policy on overseas development. He writes as joint chair of the all-party parliamentary group for global action against childhood pneumonia:

My view is that if the Coalition Government continues to support countries such as Bangladesh then dramatic reductions in key disease such as pneumonia will continue. The Government have made a good start, but they need to ensure that in this climate of cuts, international development remains protected for the full five years to give the best possible chance for the MDGs to be met.

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1. Reviewing the Scottish Liberal Democrat Conference in Perth from the comfort of her couch, Caron's Musings finds it to be chiefly concerned with schools, fairness and Viking dress.


2. Norfolk Blogger reports the welcome news that Tesco's attempt to take over the known universe had been stalled in Sheringham.


3. The Turkish genocide against the people of Armenia during and after Word War I is in the news. On Friday Eric Avebury attended the showing of a documentary on the subject.


4. Madame Arcati reviews the front cover of Tony Blair's The Journey: "Notice how the corners of his mouth level off against the suggestion of a promised smile from the parted lips: it's the look of someone no longer certain of his reception. He looks you straight in the eye but he's wary. Not to be confused with contrition."


5. As a service to my readers in Hertfordshire I pass on the Boho Boxmoor guide to the top 10 real ale pubs in the Hemel Hempstead area. When I lived there I was too young to enjoy them.


6. In April New York's Museum of Modern Art is showing a series of films to celebrate the centenary of the birth of David Niven. Its website does not say which films will be shown but it does supply this fine still from A Matter of Life and Death.

Does Eric Avebury own a big cat?

The latest issue of Fortean Times carries the news that an American tourist saw "a largish, dark creature moving slowly up the mound" of Silbury Hill back in July. The magazine also has pictures showing "the usual ambiguous black blob against the famous prehistoric hill".

As we revealed a couple of years ago, Silbury Hill - a man-made earthwork - belongs to the Liberal Democrat peer Eric Avebury.

This is a good opportunity to send our best wishes to Eric Avebury, who is recovering after breaking his hip last month. He has recently posted X-rays of his injury on his blog - this is the sort of transparency we should encourage in our politicians.

The oldest surviving former Liberal MP

The death of Bert Hazell the other day made we wonder who the oldest surviving Liberal MP is (leaving aside a certain peer from Rutland).

Having looked up the obvious candidates, my oldest three - in reverse order - is:

• Emlyn Hooson (born 26 March 1925)
• Clement Freud (born 24 April 1924)
• George Mackie (born 10 July 1919)

Unless, of course, you know better.

Jeremy Thorpe, Eric Avebury and Cyril Smith are all younger than this trio, but there may be others I have forgotten. I was surprised to discover that Roderic Bowen had still been alive when he died a few years ago.

Pleasing Trivial Fact of the Day

The Liberal Democrat peer Eric Avebury owns Silbury Hill.