John Profumo (1915-2006)

John Profumo will always be remembered as the British Cabinet minister whose liaison with a prostitute who was also screwing a Soviet secret agent brought down Prime Minister Harold McMillan's Conservative government.

But we should be reminded on the occasion of Profumo's death yesterday of two other things:

* Although he was independently wealthy, he served long years of unpaid penance at an almshouse for the poor and a social club for alcoholics in London's East End.

* He cast an important vote in Parliament at the outset of World War II and was the last surviving Tory MP to have voted against Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, clearing the way for the ascendancy of Winston Churchill.

As The Guardian's Martin Kettle put it:

He may have helped to wreck his party in the 1960s, but in May 1940 Profumo helped to save his country. That's worth remembering too.

The Guardian News Blog and Daily Telegraph remember Profumo here and here.

(Incidentally, that's Queen Elizabeth with Profumo in the photograph, not Christine Keeler.)