To wonder why no one seems bothered by links to labour MPs + paedophile rights organisation?

[starlady]

The Mail has published new claims about Harriet Harman, Jack Dromey and Patricia Hewitt supporting The paedophile information exchange. Thought it was a rehash of an old story, but I've looked at the evidence published, and it looks as if harriet etc do have some explaining to do. I won't link to the Mail, but the Guardian gives a more nuanced point of view here

www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/feb/20/dailymail-harrietharman
What I'm finding puzzling is twitter is not bothered! And I haven't seen anything on mumsnet. Isn't anyone bothered? No wonder jimmy Saville et al got away with their actions. I am a labour voter myself, so I'm not trying to be partisan and stir up trouble, but the silence on this disturbs me.

'I remember being shocked about the Mandy Smith and Bill Wyman story in the 1980's.'

I was a child then and all of us were shocked. Our parents and neighbours.

But the great and the good were not shocked. That is what created the climate where PIE could be affiliated to any organisation at all.

This seems consistent with this, putting paedophiles in positions of power and then blackmailing them to do what you want.

' it's pretty clear that Harman at least had no idea about this having happened'

'I was aware that because NCCL opposed censorship and supported gay rights, paedophiles had sought to exploit that and use NCCL as a vehicle to make their arguments.

But by the time I came to work for NCCL this vile organisation had already been vigorously challenged within the organisation'

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2567098/Not-one-hint-remorse-Harriet-Harman-Jack-Dromeys-statements-Mails-replies.html

Yes and high profile people who claim to be unfairly accused of such heinous behaviour will turn out to have beennot so innocent after all.

"But she faces fresh criticism from Opposition MPs and campaign groups after The Daily Telegraph obtained documents showing that she called on ministers to make sexually explicit photographs or films of children legal unless there was evidence that the subject had been harmed."

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/4949555/Harriet-Harman-under-attack-over-bid-to-water-down-child-pornography-law.html

Maybe she did have a view on this?

Oh god. It couldn't be worse then could it if that Telegraph article is accurate.

Not really. I'd expect a trained lawyer to be able to notice that the government was about to make it (technically) illegal to take photos of your own kids in the bath.

claig, you seem to be using the phrases, "the NCCL were affiliated to the PIE", and "the PIE were affiliated to the NCCL" interchangeably. They mean very different things.

Slippery thing, language, isn't it.

I mean that PIE was affiliated to the NCCL, not the other way around.

That Telegraph piece seems to want readers to be left with the impression that HH was behind this:

In NCCL’s official response to the Government’s plans to reform sex laws, dubbed a “Lolita’s Charter”, it suggested reducing the age of consent and argued that “childhood sexual experiences, willingly engaged in, with an adult result in no identifiable damage”. It claimed that children can suffer more from having to retell their experiences in court or the press.

without stating that she was involved with that response.

Looking at that piece, HH's involvement seems to be along the lines of the post by BoulevardOfBrokenSleep.

Having had a look on the Internet (not using a work computer!), the identifiable damage response seems to date from two years before HH joined NCCL. That Telegraph piece is well slippery.

The 70s really was quite horrible you know.The Mandy Smith/Bill Wyman affair was public knowledge but no one seemed to be bothered.

The stuff about John Peel was known by anyone, like me, who read any of the cool musical press.

There is a line in a Who song from that era , "5.15" which was played on Radio 1 about "girls of 15 sexually knowing"

Google the lyrics of Led Zeppelin's Sick Again from their 1975 album Physical Graffiti about the underage teenage groupies in LA. Hell,google pictures of the Sunset Strip groupie scene of that era.

No one saw these girls as victims-they were no better than they should be.

We are far less tolerant of certain sexual behaviour now than in the 70s.

I bet if you were to examine a list of NCCL affiliates you'd find any number of barking organisations.

Allowing a group such as PIE to be affiliated to a respected organisation such as NCCL gives them the propaganda value of pretending to be in some way to be respectable or legitimate. They were totally illegitimate and should not have been allowed to be affiliated.

Shami Chakrabarti said "It is a source of continuing disgust and horror that even the NCCL had to expel paedophiles from its ranks in 1983 after infiltration at some point in the 70s."

I don't think the NCCL and any of its senior members supported the PIE, but they made a great mistake in allowing it to be affiliated.

I would think the same thing if the EDL were allowed to affiliate to any respectable political party.

In the 70s, rather than Childline we had admonitions from parents to avoid the strange bloke down the road who was "a bit funny around little boys/girls". We also had the warnings from school friends telling us which teachers you needed to be careful around.

'I bet if you were to examine a list of NCCL affiliates you'd find any number of barking organisations.'

This is the problem. It is about judgement. Why allow "barking organisations" to be affiliated if you want to be taken seriously?

Yes, I also spotted that the phrasing of the Telegraph article was a bit awkward, nauticant.

It manages to imply the words in paragaph 8 ('Lolita's Charter') are HH's, but without actually stating it. The unusual arrangement of that section makes me think it probably pre-dates or post-dates HH's involvement with NCCL.

I could be wrong, but it's a style of writing you often see in the Mail when they are trying to cover up the fact their article has more holes in it than a chocolate fireguard.

Oops, sorry, you already found out it pre-dates her

Wow 100% backing of HH going after the DM.

It seems to Boulevard but I'm now seeing it crop up all over the Internet that the "Lolita’s Charter" was HH's work.

For a hamfisted smear, this is being rather effective. But it is a high risk strategy by the Daily Mail; the outcome could be a view that the DM promotes the sexualisation of children.

Of course the Daily Fail promotes the sexualisation of underage human beings.

Putting a 'shock horror' headline on a photo inviting sexual evaluation of a teenager doesn't make it any the less disgusting.

why the daily mail is evil

www.change.org/en-GB/petitions/daily-mail-mailonline-stop-the-daily-mail-sexualising-children?recruiter=46131466&utm_campaign=twitter_link_action_box&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=share_petition

What I would like to happen now: Harriet (and the rest of them) to give either

a) A complete transparent explanation, explaining what she was aware of / wasn't aware of, and if needs be, say I'm sorry we were naive etc, talk about the political climate at the time etc, whatever ( I thought her TV interview was extremely evasive. A lawyer on Sky News has just said the same).

or

b) Sue the arses off the Mail.

End of story. Then we could put this to bed and be done with it.

Yes, the Mail is dodgy and woman-hating, but the question we need answering is how much Harriet, Jack and Pat knew, and were aware of PIE.

I still maintain that being overly tribal and loyal just because someone shares the same politics and we don't want to be horrible, is a big mistake.

This is the error made in the Islington/ Margaret Hodge case.

Labour party are foolish in thinking this will go away. Unless it's dealt with decisively, it will keep popping up.

She was extremely unconvincing on TV and now she's gone on the bluster, something is rotten behind all this.