Hedonist ex-MP Victor Grayson tried to expose corruption and scandal. Then he disappeared forever

Right now, as I type this, the Great Powers are trying to reshape the world so that it better suits their interests. Trying to enforce a peace deal on warring European nations in a way that divvies up some of the world’s most crucial assets between them. And the trepidation the rest of us feel as they do this is heightened by the knowledge that the people leading those powers are deeply flawed individuals.

It is, of course, not the first time such a thing has happened.

From 1919 through to 1921 beginning at Versailles, the victorious allied nations met to decide on the harsh peace terms they would impose on Germany. And the UK representative, Liberal Party prime minister David Lloyd George, had psychological frailties that would have made the public very nervous had they known about them. (In those more deferential times the press left political leaders alone to get on with their dirty dealing much more than they do now.)

• Scandal after scandal plunges UK to lowest-ever position in corruption index: ‘The wrong direction’
• ‘We are turning into a corrupt country’: Jeremy Irons and Robert Harris on their new Netflix film
• Harold Wilson’s mistress-cum-secretary Marcia Williams was more trailblazer than troublemaker

Lloyd George was corrupt. It was alleged that he used a party fixer, Maundy Gregory, to sell honours to raise funds for his party. The going rate for a knighthood was apparently £10,000 – about £480,000 in today’s money – and £40,000 for a baronetcy, which would be almost £2m today. He was also sexually promiscuous and notoriously ‘handsy’. These were vulnerabilities that would make any security chief nervous.

Lloyd George attended the peace conferences with his long-term mistress, Frances Stevenson, who acted as his private secretary and whose political advice he relied on more than he did on that of his cabinet colleagues.

Frances Stevenson was 25 years younger than Lloyd George and had in fact been a tutor to his daughter. Fiercely loyal to her lover, Frances did much to protect Lloyd George – from his own dangerous appetites as much as from external enemies.

This was the background that informed my latest novel Green Ink. It was, I felt, already a potentially irresistible story. And then I read about Victor Grayson.

Grayson was a firebrand mob orator who had, at the age of 26, sensationally snatched a Yorkshire parliamentary seat for Labour in the 1907 Colyne Valley by-election. Young, good-looking with a capacity for inspiring adoration among the left, Grayson was a bisexual hedonist for whom the temptations of Westminister were just too much. His incendiary language got him expelled from the parliamentary chamber more than once, while his inability to say no to an offer of a drink or a new bed for the night meant that his effectiveness as an MP was, well, somewhat reduced let’s say.

By 1910 he was out of parliament and in August 1914 he was declared bankrupt, which came just in time for him to accept a gig acting as a recruiting sergeant for the government during World War I. Desperate for cash, Grayson campaigned hard in support of the war, causing outrage among his former comrades on the left, most of whom saw it as an imperialist conflict fought for the benefit of the ruling class.

It is, of course, possible that Victor Grayson did genuinely believe that the war was a just cause. He did join up himself, after all, and was even wounded at Passchendaele.

After the war, when his services as a cheerleader were no longer required, Grayson may have received money from the Secret Intelligence Service to keep tabs on his former comrades.

Despite this, Victor Grayson was looking for a way back into politics, looking to rekindle the love the young left had once felt for him. Revealing the names of those who brokered the sordid cash-for-honours deals seemed like the ideal opportunity to make himself relevant again.

In a series of speeches through the summer of 1920 Grayson hinted that he would soon unmask all those who were involved in the crass trade for honours.

And then he vanished.

Victor Grayson headed out for a drink on 28 September 1920 and never returned. No body was found. The disappearance remains unsolved.

Get the latest news and insight into how the Big Issue magazine is made by signing up for the Inside Big Issue newsletter

There are a number of theories. He could have fallen into the Thames drunk. He could have gone to ground to escape the growing pressures of what was becoming an unbearably stressful life. There were rumours that he’d gone to New Zealand, stories that he’d become an antique dealer in Margate.

But he may well have been murdered. There were enough candidates after all. Establishment figures fearing exposure. The Secret Service acting to protect Lloyd George (possibly with the help and direction of Frances Stevenson, saving the PM from himself once again). Former colleagues on the left who may have discovered the extent of Grayson’s betrayals.

The relevant files are in the Home Office somewhere. And they remain sealed even after more than a century. I dare say it’s still possible that we might find out the truth one day, just as our descendants may one day find out about the machinations going on right now between Russia and the United States. And our children’s children might learn the terrifying truth about the full extent of the character defects of those in whom we are forced to place our trust.

Someone might even write a novel about it.

Stephen May is the author of seven novels, including the Costa shortlisted Life! Death! Prizes!

His latest novel,Green Ink, is out now (Swift Press, £16.99). You can buy it from the Big Issue shop on bookshop.org, which helps to support Big Issue and independent bookshops.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. Big Issue exists to give homeless and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy of the magazine or get the app from the App Store or Google Play.