Talk:Oliver Baldwin, 2nd Earl Baldwin of Bewdley

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'He frequently addressed crowds from a socialist platform at Hyde Park Corner.' Is this supposed to mean Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park? Badgerpatrol 03:26, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Inaccurate claim that Baldwin was "outed" by The Daily Mail

There are a couple of websites that peddle this story:

The front page of the Daily Mail for Wednesday 5 August 1931 was dominated by a news story claiming that Oliver Baldwin, the Prime Minister's elder son, was living with a man named John Boyle. The story said:

We do not know if Mr. Oliver Baldwin and Mr. John Boyle are indulging in unnatural vice, but if they are committing criminal acts the police should be informed and a criminal prosecution brought. The fact that Mr. Baldwin is a son of the Prime Minister should not allow him to escape the law.

That afternoon a very angry Stanley Baldwin gave a press conference on the steps of 10 Downing Street. With him were Lucy, his wife, and Oliver. He said that Oliver had the love and support of himself and his wife. They knew that he and John Boyle were close friends and were living together. What they did in their personal lives was no one's business and certainly not a matter for the law. He said that Lord Rothermere had descended to the gutter in publishing that story. He would appoint a Royal Commission to investigate the laws relating to Sexual Offences.

This is pure fiction. I have checked the Daily Mail archive and there has never been a mention of Oliver Baldwin together with John Boyle in its columns. Stanley Baldwin was not PM in 1931. This supposed press conference is not reported in The Times, The Manchester Guardian, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Express, The Financial Times or The Daily Mail, all of which have online archives that I have checked. Editors who run across this nonsense are earnestly requested not to fall for it or add details from it to the WP article. I'm adding a hidden comment in the text to that effect. Tim riley talk 19:06, 5 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

It's overtly fiction. The originating source is an "alternate history" forum[1]. In this scenario, the writer/writers imagine Stanley Baldwin won the 1928(sic) General Election, and so by coincidence/narrative convenience is the sitting PM in 1931, when William Lygon, 7th Earl Beauchamp is threatened with public exposure as homosexual. In sober history, Beauchamp quietly left the country for a few years, and the matter was hushed up by the British establishment. In this scenario, the writer imagines Beauchamp instead chose to stay, which earns him public arrest and a prison sentence. This in turn (imagines the writer) leads to Stanley Baldwin emerging as a (frankly unlikely) champion of tolerance and gay rights...

It's an entertaining work of fiction (though highly implausible, given his role in the Abdication Crisis); but there's absolutely no historical reality to it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 148.253.221.44 (talk) 21:46, 8 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]