Kray twins Party, in power from October 1964, but with a wafer-thin majority in the House of Commons and the prospect of another General Election needing to be called in the very near future, did not want Driberg's connections to Ronnie Kray (and his sexual predilections) to get into the public realm. Ronnie Kray shot and killed George Cornell, a member of the Richardsons (a rival South London gang), at the Blind Beggar pub in Whitechapel on 9 March 1966. The day before, there had been a shoot-out at "Mr. Smith's", a nightclub in Catford, involving the Richardson gang and Richard Hart,
Kray twins party. Upon entering the premises, he saw Ronnie Kray seated in the front room. As Ronnie approached him, he let loose a barrage of verbal abuse and cut him below his eye with a piece of broken glass. It is believed that an argument then broke out between the twins and McVitie. As the argument got more heated, Reggie Kray pointed a handgun at McVitie's head and pulled the trigger twice, but the gun failed to discharge. McVitie was then held in a bear hug by the twins' cousin, Ronnie Hart, and Reggie Kray was handed a carving knife. He