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.

This is clearly a story, and should be covered. But in relation to each person involved the allegations against them should be clear and what they are being asked to apologise for plainly stated. It hasn't been, in my view.

I also think that we are in that stage of a story where the opponents of the politician(s) in question and the media generally are now obsessed with wringing a concession/apology/resignation from the person in question regardless of the seriousness of the wrongdoing and whether the concession/apology/resignation is merited or proportionate or worthwhile.

The Left and the Right do this in British politics. It is incredibly irritating whoever does it and only fuels public cynicism regarding both journalists and politicians. Meanwhile, more serious or fruitful avenues of investigation and coverage are being ignored.

exactly angela.

and 'that's not the point' or not people are starving, terminally ill lifetime tax payers are being denied benefits and told to get a job, disabled people are being thrown out of their homes for having an extra bedroom, children are being made homeless because their parents can't afford to pay their rent etc etc etc.

the idea that THIS is the big moral issue that politicians should be made answerable for is.... it's sick to be honest and will just prove further that the media and the political class have removed themselves from the reality so far that they have become.... a pantomime spectacle? certainly not anything that can be relied upon in any way shape or form.

there are petitions with thousands of signatures asking facebook to take down pages where paedophiles are sharing pictures of abused children that have been reported and reported.

there are children being gang raped and judges saying they were asking for it and letting their rapists off with a slap on the wrist.

not front page news in the DM or anywhere else.

of course many of us are hugely cynical of their pretense of giving a flying fuck about anything other than their political games.

Maybe HH had absolutely no idea what PIE was about and that the NCCL were publicly defending having them as a member until 1983, now she knows, why not apologise.

But why? If you found that someone you were employed by 30 years ago was doing something objectionable at the time but you knew nothing about it, would you seriously feel you had to apologise? What on earth would you be apologising for?

HH may yet turn out to have something to apologise for, but I don't think it is acceptable to try and pressurise someone into doing it based on a rather shifting and innuendo-laden set of stories, given it was 30 years ago and HH does not have access to the contemporaneous documents.

This is why it's important to really crystallise what the wrong doing is said to be and set out one's analysis.

Yes. Politicians should be kicked out of public office according to what they can be shown to have done wrong and not according to the level of pressure a newspaper, be it the Daily Mail, The Sun or The Guardian, can apply.

If i found out that somewhere i worked in my past had any affiliation with a group of paedophiles that were actively campaigning for the age of consent to be reduced and God knows what other things then i would be shouting from the rooftops how sorry i was and trying my best to explain how the hell i missed that whopper bit of information when it had been covered in the news extensively, had protests on the street and had Paedophile in the name.

Bit of a clue in the Title what the paedophile information exchange was all about. You dont need to be Poirot to work it out let alone a very educated Legal advisor.

Nennypops, I really don't think it will wash that HH knew nothing about PIE and what they stood for. I knew, in the early 80s anyway, and I was not politically active, just a member of the public who came across references to them in the papers and on the radio and TV news.

At the start of this story, I assumed that NCCL was a big organisation and that the legal officer would know very little about their activities in areas outside her own immediate field. The media reports, however, say that NCCL had fewer than 12 employees at the time, of whom HH was one. In those circumstances I would expect a politically ambitious, legally qualified officer to have had a good broad awareness of everything the NCCL was involved in.

I am quite certain that HH has never done anything to promote paedophile rights but for PR reasons I think she would have been very well advised at an early stage of this nasty DM attack to respond with something along the lines of Shami Chakrabati's strong apology for the fact that it was ever thought appropriate for the NCCL to have any links with the PIE. Regardless of the fact that it wasn't HH's decision to have those links, regardless of the fact that she did not support them or assist them in any way, she would have come across better if she'd apologised. Her responses so far have come across as arrogant and that just reinforces the public persona she already has.

[I am not a Tory voter, before that's used to rubbish my point of view. I am an ex-Labour voter. I don't currently know how I will vote in the next election - Green, possibly. ]

I agree MsCuddy
and yes Allmimsy I think you're spot on

That argument (that if HH had responded with something along the lines of Shami Chakrabati's strong apology for the fact that it was ever thought appropriate for the NCCL to have any links with the PIE, this would have satisfied the calls for her resignation) suggests that her offence as it currently stands is one of having fucked up the PR aspect of this.

For HH to need to resign now because of a PR fail rather than something concrete she did at the time of her NCCL involvement seems bizarre.

I'm not asking for her to resign. I don't care what she does, to be honest. I'm just a spectator looking on in bemusement at how badly this has been handled.

The Telegraph's Dan Hodges has an article that is quite good and asks some of the right questions

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100261646/nccl-paedophilia-scandal-patricia-hewitts-apology-blows-harriet-harmans-last-defence-out-of-the-water/

claig you know I like you, but Dan Hodges is feeble.

His articles are never good. But they pay the mortgage in the Hodge household.

It's sad that his career is predicated on him reacting against his mother's genuinely held, but not entirely sound left-wing politics.

I am not a fan of Dan Hodges. I don't understand why the Telegraph has so many left wing bloggers (well I do actually, but that's another subject ), but he does make some good points. have you read it?

Last 2 paragraphs of that Torygraph article sums it up perfectly, and I'm not a fan of the Torygraph or Tories:

What is it is about all this that Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey dont get? They were senior members of an organisation that was being used to lobby for child abusers. That is all that matters. They knew PIE were members of the NCCL. They knew they were formally affiliated. They knew they were active

The fact is they should have either ensured PIE was kicked out of the NCCL or they should have walked out of the NCCL themselves. That they did neither is, as Patricia Hewitt has at last had the courage to acknowledge, something that self-evidently merits an apology. And if Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey cant see that, then its not just a question of their political judgment, its a question of their moral judgment as well

IMO the apologists on this thread are at best either incredibly naive or incredibly partisan, at worst have some very twisted beliefs about how to take bearings off a moral compass.

I'm hoping the Mail will turn the same level of scrutiny on all individuals who have let predatory paedophiles get away with it and promoted their views/given them assistance.

So everyone involved with Savile - from Thatcher down - who legitimised him and gave him numerous opportunities to abuse, in hospitals etc. All those connected to the children's homes. All those shielding Cyril Smith ie all the senior Lib Dems for the last 3 decades for a start. All those police and social workers who turned a blind eye and refused to take seriously children who had been abused.

That should keep the Mail busy for years.

But they must do this - or it will give the impression that 5 front-page splashes about Harman are a witch hunt, won't it?

And obviously that could not possibly be the case.

I have no idea who Dan Hodges is but it was a good article and covered the concerns on this thread.

trying i would have thought the Labour Party will have to throw some shit back at some point so maybe this could start the beginning of the bigger and much more important questions being asked, starting with those in your post.

Every party must be very worried at the moment and i cant help but think thats a good thing.

I'd like to believe you MrsCuddy, but suspect that if the culprit isn't a member of the Labour Party, the Mail won't want to know. Or any of the other right-wing press.

Notice how silent the Mail went when a Tory MP was accused of 100Ks worth of benefit fraud this week.

I suppose Dan Hodge is Margaret Hodge's son?

Nepotism aside, it's a good piece. He must have outstandingly good sources to draw on.

Yes, he is her son. It is a good piece.

Tom Watson appears to be trying, he got the information about Leon Brittan and Geoffrey Dickens missing dossier out there yesterday on Radio 4 again.

I just typed Leon Brittans name into Google to double check the spelling and by the time i typed Leon Bri, Google search came up with quite a few interesting endings!

No, sorry, Dan Hodges is Glenda Jackson's son.

Trying: "I'm hoping the Mail will turn the same level of scrutiny on all individuals who have let predatory paedophiles get away with it and promoted their views/given them assistance.

"So everyone involved with Savile - from Thatcher down - who legitimised him and gave him numerous opportunities to abuse, in hospitals etc. All those connected to the children's homes... All those police and social workers who turned a blind eye and refused to take seriously children who had been abused."

Absolutely.