The Glamour Boys
By Chris Bryant, Bloomsbury
“Had it not been for the Glamour Boys’ campaign against Chamberlain we would never have fought, let alone won, the second world war,” writes Bryant in this compelling story about 10 British MPs – “queer, or nearly queer”. Bryant paints a contextual picture of Britain in the Thirties: women over 30 able to vote and wives finally able to divorce for their husband’s adultery, but London still reeling from Oscar Wilde’s trial two decades earlier. Homosexuals were already escaping to the continent, where they were generally tolerated; Berlin the most liberal city in the world. When Hitler won power and Nazis arrested friends, these brave politicians – who included author Harold Nicolson – risked exposure and repeatedly demanded Britain rearm to challenge rampaging Nazism.