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 think that anyone who breaks the law needs to be prosecuted. People can campaign to change the law, but as long as the law stands, then people have to be prosecuted if they break it.

Talking of banning campaigns and groups reminds me of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir.

After the 7/7 bombings there were calls to ban it in the UK. It was considered by the then Labour government but it was decided against after advice - not just from civil rights groups but from the security services.

They thought it would backfire. The Home Office were also concerned that a legal ban wouldn't stick. HUT express abhorrent views, to my mind and I guess to millions of other people, but I think the thinking is that they stop short of incitement.

And perhaps it's better that you know where to find these people.

As leader of the opposition, David Cameron, pressed for a ban. Now he's Prime Minister, he hasn't done it. Perhaps he should be asked why.

We don't prosecute everyone who breaks the law.

The CPS makes a considered judgement. Their main point is whether a prosecution is in the public interest and another major consideration is whether there is a reasonable chance of conviction.

I broadly agree with that.

But the wonderful thing about this country is that if you don't claig, you are free to campaign against it.

I don't know how the CPS works, but I presume that it does not prosecute if it thinks the case is not strong enough.

i think i'd consider keeping the age of consent 16 for peers but higher where there is a considerable age gap. don't know if that is anything like possible in legal terms but ideal world wise i'd have it fine to have sex at 16 with another 16-18yo but illegal for someone of 21 or above to have sex with someone 18 or under. full of pitfalls i know.

I don't know how the CPS works, but I presume that it does not prosecute if it thinks the case is not strong enough

That would be the reasonable chance of conviction test.

There are lots of people, not least alleged victims, who are infuriated by those decisions.

But the CPS decide for us on cost grounds and also whether bringing a prosecution might bring the law into ridicule or disrepute.

Some people have said their decision to bring sexual assault charges against Dave Lee Travis, and to continue with two further charges following his acquittal, has done just that.

Should they be stopped from saying that?

I like debating with you claig btw.

And I have nothing to do this Sunday except for a long overdue paperwork clearout and ploughing through the backlog of recordings on my Sky Planner.

But if you have a life...

"Once again, meditrina, if you think Harman should follow Hewitt's example, precisely what is it you say she should apologise for?"

Chakrabarti and Hewitt are a good clue as to what to apologise for.

What do The HH apologists think legal officers do for their organisation? She would have been in the thick of all this.

What do we think should have happened to this UKIP bloke?

I think expulsion from the party is enough, and may have caused some tears to be shed.

But if I'd been inundated with filthy water since before Christmas I might feel incited to go down to Soho and smite a few sinners.

Just putting it out there before I get on with cooking lunch.

"Should they be stopped from saying that?"

No. Campaigning is fine. Everybody's voice should be heard, and I include the executive committee of the NCCL in that.

I don't think paedophiles should be listened to or should be affiliated to anything and I think the following is wrong

"In the same year Hose also attended a conference organized by Mind, the national mental health organization, where it was suggested that PIE should submit evidence to the Home Office Criminal Law Revision Committee on the age of consent. PIE submitted a 17-page document in which it proposed that there should be no age of consent, and that the criminal law should concern itself only with sexual activities to which consent is not given, or which continue after prohibition by a civil court."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paedophile_Information_Exchange

lazyjaney Who knows why Shami Chakrabarti chose to apologise?

Maybe it's a response to the prevailing public view or because her views have been shaped by changing attitudes that debate in the '70s and '80s brought about.

I also guess she could afford to do it because of a judicious tightening up of fellow travellers as the NCCL became Liberty and made a conscious decision to become more professional.

She might even have personal enmity towards Harman. Or maybe she cares less about throwing someone under a bus than her reputation and that of the organisation she heads.

She is in charge of Liberty, a large organisation with an international reputation in her late 30s, I think, not its 28 year old legal officer (I didn't Google so I apologise if I got that wrong) when it was run on a shoestring in a different political climate.

I still think NCCL and Liberty are essentially good things.

great britain was a colonial empire before i was born. perhaps i should apologise and burn my passport?

and people who worked at primark before becoming MPs should definitely apologise for their part in child labour.

personally i'd rather see judges who call 12yo victims of gang rape 'willing participants' apologise and be strung up first.

'She is in charge of Liberty, a large organisation'

We have become aware that the "National" Council of Civil Liberties at one point employed fewer than 12 people, and I am beginning to wonder just how many people Liberty employs. I know they get lots of TV coverage, but are they a large organisation?

'Who staffs Liberty's advice services?

Liberty's advice services are staffed by two fully trained lawyers, who are assisted by a small team of legally trained volunteers.

Will Liberty be able to offer me legal representation?

Liberty receives thousands of requests for legal advice and assistance each year. Because we're a small organisation with limited resources, our lawyers are unable to take up all of these cases actively. As a result, we cannot guarantee that we'll be able to take your case on or provide legal representation.'

www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/who-we-are/frequently-asked-questions

"I don't think paedophiles should be listened to or should be affiliated to anything"

I think the difficulty is that if you are an organisation that campaigns for civil liberties you have to be very clear about why you aren't letting somebody speak.

I imagine that you could get rid of them if they had broken the law, but as far as I can see these people were openly members of this organisation for years without any one being able to prosecute them - some brave people went to great lengths to oppose them, so I imagine that if prosecution had been straightforward it would have been achieved.

I can't remember where I read this, but I think the leader didn't get a prison sentence till 2006?

'some brave people went to great lengths to oppose them, so I imagine that if prosecution had been straightforward it would have been achieved'

I don't think it was about prosecution. I think the NCCL, and its at one stage fewer than 12 employees, surely were able to decide who could be an affiliate and I think the executive committee would probably have objected if the Ku Klux Klan had enquired about the prospects of affiliation.

"And indeed, Stephen Green, the Christian campaigner and author who conducted extensive research in the NCCL archives in the mid-Eighties, says that the initiative for affiliation actually came from the NCCL itself . According to his research, the NCCL officer Nettie Pollard, who worked in the organisation until the late Nineties, ‘ wrote a letter inviting the Paedophile Information Exchange to affiliate in 1975 ’.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2570675/The-Lefts-web-shame-Its-not-just-Harman-Dromey-Hewitt-As-reveal-members-Britains-ruling-liberal-elite-held-senior-posts-NCCL-closely-linked-paedophiles.html

That's a very interesting link you've given claig in that it talks about MIND.

It appears that in 1975 MIND was discussing sex between people with mental disabilities of whatever kind and none.

That's what pressure groups are for. They want to protect people from predators but also to free them from moralisers. Some of them even shape their own policies - fancy that, eh?

Twenty-odd years ago I met someone who facilitated the marriage of her Down's Syndrome daughter to a DS man and faced disgust from neighbours at the idea that they would be having sex.

They even got a petition up to the council to try to stop this filth from happening in their street. I kid you not. It failed.

To my mind, they were disgusting, dirty-minded people who wanted to dabble in other people's private lives.

I can't begin to say how wrong that is. There was even a recent storyline based on facts on Call The Midwife set in 1961. Sadly, it didn't end as happily.

Bearing in mind it's Wikipedia, I would still take it that Keith Hose of PIE was up to no good and hijacked them. But it appears that his 17-page document proposing the abolition of the age of consent was shelved.

So, as we say in newspapers: 'Earthquake, no one died'.

I think because of the nature of their organisation and the things they believed in they would have had trouble refusing anyone. Theoretically there are all sorts of right wing groups whose freedom of speech is backed by the NCCL.

great britain was a colonial empire before i was born. perhaps i should apologise and burn my passport?

You've made me smile honeybadger.

My long-dead dad said that when he was school in the '20s his teacher proudly pointed to a map where most of the world was pink.

Despite being only nine, he was wondering when this abundant good fortune was going to strike him and his classmates seeing as many of them had 'no arse in their trousers'.

He did. And shoes. That was on account that his mother had died in childbirth so there were only four of them and consequently they were relatively well-off with a father and a hasty new marriage to a woman who was either infertile or refused to have the kind of sex that would result in pregnancy.

He didn't express it in those terms btw. He was my dad. But I've got some imagination.

I hope that the NCCL backed freedom of speech, but I think they probably had the freedom to decide who could become an affiliate. But I could be wrong. It would be interesting if a journalist asked Patricia Hewitt or some of the executive committee at the time how it worked.

"Believe in", not "believed in". The freedom of speech of all sorts of right wing organisations and terrorist organisations is supported by Liberty in theory. Whether or not they have asked to join and been refused, or are member now, I don't know.

It's not like there are hundreds of people to ask. At one point, they had fewer than 12 employees, we are told.

This business of only 12 employees cuts two ways. On the one hand there were fewer people to oversee the areas in which the NCCL were involved and so they should have had a broader outlook. On the other hand, with more to oversee, the depth of their scrutiny would have been shallower.

I'm still wondering how much HH knew about the 1000 affiliate member organisations.

"More sensationally, it (the mail) also reproduced a document purportedly showing that the NCCL lobbied for the age of sexual consent to be reduced to 10 and urged that incest be legalised."

where did that come from?

my information is that the Mail made up a misleading claim and published a picture of part of a document, because linking to the actual text would have made it easy to see what rubbish it was