 The writer and former MP Matthew Parris describes Thorpe as one of the more dashing among the new MPs elected in 1959. Thorpe's chief political interest lay in the field of human rights, and his speeches criticising apartheid in South Africa attracted the attention of the South African Bureau of State Security (BOSS), who took note of this rising Liberal star. Thorpe was briefly considered as best man at the 1960 wedding of his Eton contemporary Antony Armstrong-Jones to Princess Margaret, but was rejected when vetting checks indicated that he might have homosexual tendencies. The security agency MI5, which routinely keeps records on all members of parliament, added this information to Thorpe's file.
