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.

[sallymanda]

Devora,

Homosexuality amongst men (sorry, I do not include homosexuality amongst women here because I believe that men -regardless of sexuality- have the upper hand in most spheres of life above women regardless of women's sexuality) was not discussed widely and brushed under the carpet.

So people who were largely ignorant about it when hearing that PIE was conflated with gay liberation could be forgiven that the two were somehow connected.

They were wrong, of course, and they would be wrong to think it given the knowledge of homosexuality that is available today.

I can acknowledge they were wrong without agreeing with them.

We don't rail against people for thinking that the world was flat, do we? We just think they went with what people told them to be true at the time.

All I'm saying is that some understanding is required

[starlady]

devora I don't think I said anything that defended section 28. Perhaps my post sounded sarcastic. It actually wasn't meant to be.

Of course you could argue that section 28 made children vulnerable. Yes, because young gay people were left vulnerable without access to info and role models, but also because it made people who frankly should have known better collude with paedophiles under the misapprehension that they were an 'oppressed minority'.

[SauceForTheGander]

Did I hear it right on radio 4 news that Harman has said this is a right wing smear campaign?

[Martorana]

She said it was a smear campaign orchestrated by the Daily Mail. Which it is.

[starlady]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26320942 she's spoken out at last, that's good. Now we can look at the evidence, and make up our minds. But Mantorna just because the Daily Mail has published something and we don't like its general stance of policies, doesn't mean it should automatically be ignored. Especially if they offer documented evidence.

That's what happened Hodge/ Islington affair, and we know what happened there.

[FloraFox]

Does anyone know if there is a source of her point by point rebuttal of the claims? I read this from the Guardian:

www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/24/harriet-harman-daily-mail-paedophile-campaign-allegations

I'd like to see her detailed rebuttals. For example, it says:

On the allegation that she was seeking to water down a proposed ban on child pornography, Harman said the document she signed makes it clear that the NCCL "deplores the exploitation of children whether in the form of use in commercial pornography or as victims of sexual assaults".

I'm wary of this language. What about non-commercial pornography that does not involve sexual assault?

It simply argued for amendments to stop parents being criminalised for taking pictures of their children on the beach or in the bath, the use of pictures in sex education being criminalised and the use of the word "obscene" instead of "indecent" as that could be considered too broad, including page 3 of the Sun.

The timing here isn't quite right. In the 70s everyone took photos of their kids in the bath and on the beach. It wasn't until the 80s that became questionable or unacceptable. Is she really saying her defence is that she was just trying to stop page 3 from being criminalised?

Patricia Hewitt hasn't responded yet, I don't think.

It's not enough to dismiss these claims as smears, even if it does come from the Mail.

[FryOneFatManic]

Florafox I think Harriet's answers are very evasive, and as you say, don't seem to match the history I remember.

I don't recall campaigns against photos in the 70s. I do recall them in the 80s, Jan Leeming being an early example of a celeb being caught out regarding kids-in-baths photos.

I have heard about some of these allegations before, and not from the Daily Mail. I was also aware at a very early stage that the PIE were something nasty. Certainly by the early 80s they were being vilified.

[Catkinsthecatinthehat]

Harman's full statement is on her website here

[Catkinsthecatinthehat]

The full text is as follows

^In recent days I have been the subject of a politically-motivated smear campaign by the Daily Mail.

They have accused me of being an apologist for child sex abuse, of supporting a vile paedophile organisation, of having a relaxed attitude to paedophilia and of watering down child pornography laws. These are horrific allegations and I strongly deny them all of them.

This is not the first time the Daily Mail has made this horrible and untrue allegation. And, this is not the first time the Daily Mail has attacked me. The editor and proprietor of the Daily Mail are entitled to their political views and they are of course entitled to oppose what I stand for but they are not entitled to use their newspaper to smear me with innuendo because they disagree with me politically and hate my values.

I sincerely hope people won't believe these smears - I suspect even the Daily Mail doesn't believe them to be true. But given the seriousness and the aggression with which the Daily Mail are pursuing me, I feel that I need to put the facts in the public domain.

1. Allegation that I supported the lowering of the age of consent to 10
   

This is not true. I supported the equalisation of the age of consent (as set out in NCCL document “priorities and strategy for the executive committee June 1981") by making the age of consent the same for homosexual as well as for heterosexual sex.

1. Allegation that I opposed the law on incest
   

This is not true. The document they refer to was written by NCCL in 1976 before I started to work there.

1. Allegation that I was seeking to water down a proposed ban on child pornography.
   

This is not true. I supported the Protection of Children Bill 1978. At the start of the document it makes clear that “The NCCL deplores the exploitation of children whether in the form of use in commercial pornography or as victims of sexual assaults"

The submission argued for some amendments to guard against unintended consequences including:

- Parents being criminalised for taking pictures of their children on the beach or in the bath

• The use of pictures in sex education being criminalised
  

• We also proposed that the definition of indecent was too wide and instead proposed "obscene" as indecent was very broadly defined and could include Page 3 of the Sun.
  

The Mail have tried to make me guilty by way guilt by association.

NCCL was an organisation which anyone could apply to join and indeed any organisation could apply to be "an affiliate" on payment of a fee. When I was at NCCL there were around 6,000 members and nearly 1,000 affiliated organisations of which PIE was one.

Members and affiliates decided the organisation's policy at the AGM from year to year.

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. Jack Dromey was instrumental in that challenge when he took over the chair of NCCL in 1976

The reason I decided to go to work for NCCL was because I actively supported the work they had done and in particular the work of their women's rights committee on the Equal Pay Act, on the introduction of the Sex Discrimination Act and for greater protection of victims of domestic violence and against race discrimination.

Since being elected to the House of Commons in 1982 and during my times in Ministerial Office I have always championed the rights of those subjected to sexual abuse - especially women and children.

I hope The Daily Mail will stop this campaign of smear and innuendo against me. I have done nothing wrong and am guilty of none of their grotesque allegations.^

[DonnaDishwater]

She really is a piece of shit. She doesn't give a toss about anything but her career and family wealth.

[crispycronut]

I wonder if she's going to sue the DM

It should be very easy for her legal team to pick apart every last piece of old documentation the DM published if she's blameless and it was before her time.

[DonnaDishwater]

If I was the DM I'd state the facts on the front page then invite her to sue if she thinks anything they are saying is untrie.

[Martorana]

"If I was the DM I'd state the facts on the front page then invite her to sue if she thinks anything they are saying is untrie."

The facts, hmm? I wonder which side you're on............

[DonnaDishwater]

Not Harriet Harmans side, that's for sure.

[Martorana]

What has convinced you?

[DonnaDishwater]

I just don't like the woman, never have. She's a fake. She doesn't give a shit about any of the people she is paid to represent. Look at how she felt the need to wear a bullet proof vest while walking round her own constituency!

[Martorana]

Ah. Well thought out, measured political opinion. Thought so.

[Catkinsthecatinthehat]

She really is a piece of shit.

Or she's being smeared as a paedophile-lite for political reasons in the run-up to an election?

I've been a member of NCCL/Liberty for many years. I can quite believe that paedophile interest groups tried to ride on the gay rights slipstream in the late 70s as there have been identical attempts in recent years by Islamist groups to do the same with honourable human rights and civil liberties campaigns by both Liberty and Amnesty. It's always a risk when you are operating on the unpopular political fringe, and bodies need to be aware of this. A lot of the Mail accusations look like guilt-by-association innuendos.

[DonnaDishwater]

The story has been known about for years, I've no doubt whatsoever that the mail is printing it now due to the election coming up. But that doesn't make it untrue. Many on the left have aligned themselves with some pretty dodgy people over the years under the reasoning that the enemies enemy is my friend.

[Martorana]

Tell me what you think Harriet Harman has done wrong, Donna.

[FloraFox]

The Mail article states that Harriet Harman wrote a letter in response to the 1978 Act:

Her letter claimed that such a law would ‘increase censorship’, and argued that a pornographic picture of a naked child should not be considered indecent unless it could be proven that the subject had suffered.

‘Our amendment [to the proposed law] places the onus of proof on the prosecution to show that the child was actually harmed,’ she wrote.

I think that needs more explanation than that she was trying to protect parents taking photos of their children in the bath or on the beach. There were other organisations who were promoting the idea that there could be some images that were not "harmful", including drawn images. Someone obviously has the letter and it would be helpful if it could be printed in full, rather than having to rely on the DM or HH's version of it.

[CrotchMaven]

The DM, and the right in general, have always had it in for HH because she's firmly on the side of women. I never quite understand why other women don't get that. Is it the equalism nonsense gawn mad?

Her rebuttal seems fair enough.

[CrotchMaven]

That said, the Islington Children's Home stuff needs blowing open to the fresh air. Hodge needs to be seriously called to account on that one.

[Martorana]

" Many on the left have aligned themselves with some pretty dodgy people over the years under the reasoning that the enemies enemy is my friend."

Hmmm. Pinochet, Ghadaffi, Saddam Hussein, white Afrikaaners..........not sure the a Left had a monopoly in dodgy friends.......

[Blu]

Who has read Joe Orton's diaries?

I can remember debates - fierce ones - in the early 80s - with some very intelligent, kind, liberal, political men talking about children's 'right' to express their sexuality. It was always men. And women arguing against them. I am very sure that some of those men would not argue the same thing now, and would admit they had been wrong.

The context in those days was that sex was a Good Thing. That 'repression' was always a Bad Thing. Rape within marriage was not recognised as such, legally or morally. I can remember a stall at Pride in Brockwell Park openly selling racks of photographs of naked boys. People complained (me amongst them) and the stall was not there the next day. There were cries of censorship and oppression.

I do remember debates about the PIE and the NCCL - but it was one of those challenges - as people have mentioned. A deliberate attempt to 'play' the liberal left.

J Orton's diaries (from the 1960s) are stuffed with references to sex with young teen boys, appraisals of his colleagues young sons as potential sexual prey, accounts of 'pederasts' of their acquaintance having sex with very young boys in Tangier, with no particular horror.

Bands were notorious for having sex with young 'groupies'. The current wave of celebs going through the courts must be scaring hundreds f bands silly. Or maybe not. They probably all think it was 'normal' for then and that the girls 'threw themselves' at them.

I daresay some people got carried away with libertarian arguments.
People need to be honest where they were involved in this stuff, explain, recant and apologise where appropriate.