Jeremy Thorpe 1,166. After the 1966 election, Grimond confided to senior party officials that he wished soon to step down from the leadership. Thorpe was now the senior Liberal MP after Grimond, and the party's highest-profile member, although Timothy Beaumont, chairman of the party's organising committee, noted in his diary: "I am pretty certain that he has little popularity within the Parliamentary Party". When Grimond finally resigned, on 17 January 1967, an election to replace him was arranged to take place within 48 hours, leaving little time for manoeuvring. The 12 Liberal MPs formed the whole electorate; after the first ballot, Thorpe
Thorpe affair he had lied to protect his former friend. A further concern for Thorpe was the danger that newspapers would publish letters he had sent to Scott early in their friendship. In an effort to forestall this, Thorpe arranged for the publication of two of the letters in "The Sunday Times", a paper generally sympathetic towards him. In one of these letters Thorpe referred to Scott by the pet name "Bunnies". The tone of this letter convinced readers and commentators that Thorpe had not been frank about the nature of the relationship. On 10 May 1976 he resigned as Liberal leader