to think that in 2012 we are both enlightened and educated enough to tell the difference between a homosexual and a paedophile?

[isupposeimabitofafraud]

Hey Mr Cameron?

Care to explain your comments on This Morning?

The only thing I'm getting out of that, is his own prejudices and the whiff of a lack of leadership and yet another cover up.

If Mr Cameron wants to save his own neck and not drown in this sick sea of corruption then taking it seriously and not being dismissive of the claims and accusing people of homophobia, might be a good place to start...

Together with an overall inquiry into why there have been so many institutional failures with regard to child protection and to gather all the conclusions of the 6 million other investigations that have been started post Jimmy Savile, for their findings are scattered to the four corners of the country by the wind.

I'm fuming. I don't want crappy ill thought out warnings about a witchhunt, it wouldn't BE a witchhunt, if the government actually started to take control of the scandal and handle it properly, sensitively and starting taking it seriously rather than acting reactively.

For weeks it was obvious that the Jimmy Savile revelations were going to spread and given what the government do know, and the fact they have both the intelligence and foresight to be able to see the direction it was going to head and act accordingly. Instead they have sat on their hands and hoped it would all die down, go away and we'd all forget about it. Well I'm not forgetting about it. I want PROPER answers and an institutional change of attitude and action. Not more crap.

Isn't this exactly how we got into this mess in the first place, by officials dismissing those who did report or trying to discredit them?

Haven't they learnt ANYTHING yet?

/rant.

[VoiceofUnreason]

Ain't it just, Pagwatch

And why am I not surprised.

[Pagwatch]

I think Newsnight were going to name Lord MacAlpine.
Steve Meesham made a mistake. He has apologised. Newsnight have more problems.

[Pagwatch]

Poor Steven Meesham. Awful for everyone really.

[Nancy66]

I'm pretty sure Steve M was pointing the finger at Lord A

[VoiceofUnreason]

Yes, Newsnight have questions to answer. Did they really not check the facts by simply showing Steve Meesham a photo of Lord McAlpine??? I feel very sorry for that poor bloke. Actually, for both of them, as I have no doubt Steve Meesham was abused.

[Pagwatch]

Yes he was. He seems genuinely to have believed it was him for all sorts of reasons.
As I said, he has apologised. I don't know the details but it suggests that the Guardians 'mistaken identity' story may well be accurate.

[MulledWineOnTheBusLady]

I just saw this genius comment on a newspaper article:

"Who does Philip Schofield think he is? Richard Madeley?"

[Pagwatch]

[piprabbit]

Given that there I've come across young women people who think that a mother breastfeeding beyond 6 months must be a paedophile, I'm absolutely certain that many people believe homosexuals are too. .

[FairPhyllis]

Holy crap about the mistaken identity. I want all reports from victims to be fully investigated, but this is why people pointing fingers on the internet for their own self-righteous amusement are quite possibly going to ruin the lives of innocent people.

It's like when Joanna Yeates' landlord had his name dragged all over the press and internet. That was definitely in part motivated by bigotry - there were all these sly suggestions that he was gay and therefore obviously was a murderer . It's going to happen again.

[MulledWineOnTheBusLady]

Oh god yes, the Joanna Yeates thing. That was horrible. Gay and had slightly weird hair and liked poetry - case closed. He sued some of the papers as well, and got a huge fat pay-off. Good. The bastards.

[CrikeyOHare]

I was actually thinking of Richard Madeley's attempt to be a hard-nosed news hound earlier. Anyone remember the mortifyingly awful OJ Simpson interview? Not quite the same, I know, but.......

I also feel for Steve Meesham. I don't doubt for a second that he was abused. Lord Mc's name has been on the internet for a long time regarding this sort of thing, so I wonder if there's been some heavy suggestion being forced on him.

Just appalling. The whole thing.

[FairPhyllis]

I just want to make it clear that I do believe Steve Meesham was abused - but this is why the investigation has to be done properly. If he was pushed into publicly identifying the wrong person by a journalist, he will stand even less chance of getting a criminal prosecution against his abuser at some point.

[MulledWineOnTheBusLady]

His apology says:

"After seeing a picture in the past hour of the individual concerned, this is not the person I identified by photograph presented to me by the police in the early 1990s, who told me the man in the photograph was Lord McAlpine."

WTF has gone on here? The poor, poor guy. Surely Newsnight or whoever else he is talking to have something of a duty of care to someone vulnerable who agrees to speak out. Who let this happen to him?

[VoiceofUnreason]

I think if I was in charge of the BBC I'd be suspending everyone involved with Newsnight and possibly taking the show off the air. You have to seriously question what the hell these editors are doing, what with the non-broadcasting of the Saville investigation last year and now what appears to be a pretty poor job on the Meesham/North Wales edition.

That Joanna Yeats thing was appalling.

But it's probably all a Tory conspiracy anyway if you believe what you read on the internet.

[Nancy66]

very fishy.

[Jux]

There have been other Lord M's in the past. That's all.

[Besidethecoast]

I thought it was v. strange that DC went down the route of homosexual witch hunt. I agree, the sexual persuasion of an individual has NOTHING to do with child abuse. To me it is another smoke screen to deflect the REAL issue. If the government had handled these previous enquiries with integrity there would be no need for any of this now. People are getting frustrated here, and they are waking up to the abhorrent abuse of justice that has been taking place. I applaud the directness of the interview, I am fed up with everyone acting in such a covert way. People have used the most awful prejudicial language ie. yong girls throwing themselves at men, hedonistic lifestyles (all describing children being abused) and this has not been challenged by the newspapers or tv journalists (only by the NSPCC spokesperson and a load of people on twitter). Lets have some more upfront journalism please, we don't have to name names, but lets be clear that our children have been abused by people who thought they would get away with it and they are still .... getting away with it!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stop criticising Phillips Schofield and start demanding some proper journalism!!!!!!!

[VoiceofUnreason]

I see that already on Twitter some people have taken to asking the question of whether MI5 might have visited Steve Meesham to get him to retract on behalf of the Tories.... sigh.

Beside - what Schofield did was not proper journalism. what Newsnight did was not proper journalism. the Government did not handle previous inquiries into sexual abuse, the justice system did. there have, however, been some decent journalism on Channel 4 News, in The Independent and The Guardian. trouble is, a lot of the sort of people that talk the most rubbish get their info from The Star, The Sun, The Mirror and unreliable internet sources.

[Pagwatch]

'start sacking Philip Schofield and start demanding some proper journalism' maybe?

[EdgarAllanPond]

"
I thought it was v. strange that DC went down the route of homosexual witch hunt"

i thought it was very strange he was handed a list of names who were rumoured/known to be gay and asked if they were paedophiles on live telly. i find it even weirder his refutation has been seen as him taking that angle.

[perfumedlife]

'he was handed a list of names who were rumoured/known to be gay'


Late to this but how can it be rumoured/known they were gay if the names were not read out, when no one knows what was on that card?

[EdgarAllanPond]

because a quick look at twitter would tell you the same as it told phillip schofield?

[Pagwatch]

If he was given the results of phils swift googling then I imagine it was the names I was seeing via google - many of which are gay or are thought to be gay.
Unless Philip has super google talents.

[perfumedlife]

But surely their gayness, rumoured or otherwise, is irrelevant? Surely if DC read the same online rumours, the gayness of the alleged abusers was the least shocking or relevant of the hideous tale? I genuinely don't get why he needed to mention sexuality. I thought these people had advisers