The public’s perception of events is the political reality

In the mid-1960s, the Harold Macmillan Conservative government in Britain suddenly collapsed in the aftermath of the Profumo/Christine Keeler sex scandal.

John Profumo was Macmillan’s Secretary of State for War. He slept with a prostitute and later lied to the Commons.

The fact that his lover, Keeler, was also sleeping with a Soviet diplomat added Cold War dimensions to the sex scandal.

The tabloid press and television coverage of the sensational story finally ...