AIBU to think there would be more uproar If this was the Tory's

[trampstamp]

Have I missed something here why is no one bothered that labour pretty much lobbied for a group that would see that the age of consent is lowered to 4 years old ffs


If this was the Tory's there would be up roar and the fact red ed is silent on this is shocking

[limitedperiodonly]

But what I do know is that if this was a Tory male politician Harman would be at the front of the queue calling for resignations in her usual plummy self righteous tones

Really? When has she ever done that?

The worst I can recall is her calling Danny Alexander a ginger rodent A stupid insult for which she apologised, as she should, and that he rightly rose above.

But I'm not the expert on Harman's history you seem to be, so do tell of her other transgressions.

[limitedperiodonly]

Quangle I had to have a lie down.

[Quangle]

yes that's made me feel a bit weird. Am struggling with the cognitive dissonance. But good for her.

This whole story is so silly I'm even hesitating to post on a thread about it.

[AngelaDaviesHair]

The Labour Party is simply not in this, however much Tories would like them to be.

There is no indication HH ever lobbied for anything that would even potentially have allowed adults to have sex with children or anything remotely similar. At most, the NCCL position (if I've got it right) would have decriminalised sex between children over 10 but under 14 provided neither had coerced the other.

No one (not Harman, Hewitt or Dromey) is suggesting the NCCL was anything other than fuckwitted even to allow the PIE to affiliate with them, and HH says that Dromey immediately challenged this on becoming NCCL chair in 1976.

I'd be first in line to decry these people if they had promoted paedophilia in any way, but the evidence just isn't there. And the story is not a new revelation but is being cynically put forward now for political reasons, I suspect.

[Lovelybitofsquirrel]

Yes OP, you have missed something, the actual facts.

[limitedperiodonly]

Also I'm so bored with the idea that you can only be a Labour voter if you've touched Keir Hardie's cap.

I grew up on a council estate; I've also drunk champagne and eaten caviar. Get over it. It has more to do with it than that.

[KissesBreakingWave]

Just in case anyone missed the petition about the REAL enablers of sexual abuse of children here.

One of their victims was eight. EIGHT!

[hackmum]

I am also surprised but pleased at Nadine Dorries. Good for her.

It's not just that this was 40 years ago. It's that she really didn't do very much at all. A pro-paedophilia organisation was affiliated to an organisation she worked for. That's pretty much it. At about the same time as this was going on (or shortly after) Mrs Thatcher was inviting predatory paedophile and rapist Jimmy Savile to parties at number 10. There were almost certainly paedophiles at senior levels in the Tory party (and the other parties too - look at Cyril Smith, and what the Liberal leadership did about him, ie nothing). Nobody comes out of this smelling of roses but frankly Harman looks a good deal better than many others.

[Catkinsthecatinthehat]

So how come Harman personally signed a motion protesting against child pornography laws?

Do you actually have a link to the motion (in full) that she apparently signed? Because there's a world of difference between a letter saying "the proposed law would have the unfortunate effect of criminalising parents snapping their children" and "I think it's a great idea to allow 6 years olds to be used in porn".

The fact that the text of the letter is not available (or my google skills have failed) leads me to suspect its the former. If it were the latter the Mail would publish it in full wouldn't they?

[BackOnlyBriefly]

I think the reason we're not excited about it is mostly because it didn't happen. That's always a deal breaker for me when asked to get angry about something.

I'm not a Labour supporter as I think they are just as bad as the Tories, but if you want to criticise them there's loads of much more recent stuff that they actually did do.

[KatnipEvergreen]

I think there would be more uproar if it actually involved paedophillia, not some tenuous link to it.

[BackOnlyBriefly]

I found the child child pornography thing and at first glance it looks like she was saying that taking a picture of your baby on the rug should not automatically be child porn.

Still looking for more information on that if anyone has anything more substantial than wishful thinking.

[AngelaDaviesHair]

As reported in The Guardian:

"But Harman insisted that the affiliate status, granted in 1975, three years before she joined the NCCL as legal officer, was "immaterial" to her work."
...

"In a series of articles, the Mail had accused the three senior Labour figures of working for an organisation with a relaxed attitude to paedophilia, as it claimed the NCCL proposed legalising incest and wanted to lower the age of consent to as low as 10 in a 1976 submission to MPs. The Mail accused Harman of signing a document in favour of watering down child pornography legislation in 1978.

Harman said the Mail was trying to make her "guilty by way of association", while Dromey, also a Labour MP, said the paper's allegations were "beneath contempt" as he had been at the forefront of public condemnations of the PIE and their "despicable views".

Harman said she had supported the equalisation of the age of consent for gay sex, but never campaigned for the age of consent to be lowered to 10. She also rejected the idea that she opposed the law on incest, saying the document referred to by the Mail was written before she started to work at the organisation.

On the allegation that she was seeking to water down a proposed ban on child pornography, Harman said the NCCL had argued for measures to stop the criminalisation of pictures used for sex education or those taken by parents of their children on the beach or in the bath. She said anyone could apply to join the NCCL on payment of a fee and the PIE was just one of nearly 1,000 affiliated organisations.

"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," she said.

In a separate statement, Dromey said he personally "took on" the PIE when he was chairman of the NCCL in 1976 and defeated a "loathsome motion" on the "so-called rights of paedophiles".

"As a lifelong opponent of evil men who abuse children, the accusations of the Daily Mail are untrue and beneath contempt," he said.

Labour sources said Miliband had also looked into the claims made by the Mail and "regards them as complete nonsense". Hewitt has not commented on the story.

[BoulevardOfBrokenSleep]

labour pretty much lobbied for a group that would see that the age of consent is lowered to 4 years old ffs

I think what we've established here is that once you get the OMG BURN TEH PEEDOS brigade onboard, any facts are pretty much irrelevant.

And, no, it wouldn't actually happen to a Tory, because WTF would they be doing in a group promoting civil liberties and freedom of speech?

[SeaSickSal]

Catkins the full text is on the mail article.

Basically what they were campaigning for was a watering down. With the law as it was proposed, if a person were using a photograph of a naked child for academic or health related purposes then if someone tried to bring a prosecution against them the onus would have been on them to prove that the purpose was academic or health related.

The motion Harman signed said that they shouldn't have to prove this; although in most cases where it genuinely was it would be very easy to prove. So they wanted prosectutions to be brought instead only when a child had actually been harmed.

They used the argument about academics but it's abundantly clear that it would also have created a huge loophole which would have allowed child pornography to be produced as long as the child wasn't physically harmed in the process of making it. It would have meant that some very depraved material was essentially legal.

The same motion also calls for the sentences for possession of child pornography to be lowered.

The general tone and the outcome of the motions would have been very fortuitious for people who wished to view child pornography.

[FreudiansSlipper]

it has been headline news on the bbc and itv what more do you want

it is such a non story, the dm getting their readers ready to vote next year, they will remind voters next year of what the labour party is about

and of course the paedos are everywhere brigade are getting hysterical

[Catkinsthecatinthehat]

Seasicksal thanks for that. The Mail has run a series of pictures of the original submission rather than text which is why its not googleable. Having read it, I'm not surprised.

NCCL's submission argues that the draft legislation is so loose as to be pointless, and also risk absurd prosecutions (of sex education material for example, or even non-sexual offensive material), and actually suggests alternative language to tighten it up to ensure prosecutions are successful and properly brought. It notes that the last time Parliament tried to define 'indecency' it failed, and therefore drafts a definition.

Having read the contentious quote about harm, in the context of the 4-page letter it clearly reads as 'use our amendment in the Bill and this will guarantee that prosecutions will be restricted to cases where a child is harmed" ie in child porn cases, not health or education material.

And as for NCCL's objection that under the proposed legislation the onus would be the accused to prove their innocence? I entirely agree. The entire basis of English law is that the prosecution has to prove their case. You can't reverse the burden of proof and say 'the starting point is that this is illegal - prove your innocence'.

If people want to read it for themselves Harman's submission is in the pictures in this article

[Quangle]

The stuff about the amendments to legislation was all sensible and exactly what legal lobby groups such as Liberty should be doing. Badly drafted legislation is actively unhelpful and trying to make it clearer helps everyone.

Objecting to the Dangerous Dogs legislation does not mean you think dangerous dogs should be encouraged to bite babies' heads off. This is the same.

[longfingernails]

Harrier Harman still doesn't see what she has done wrong, and feels that just because the Mail has an agenda, that she has Right and Justice on her side. She is badly mistaken in her assessment.

Let her sue the Mail if they have reported anything untrue.

And yes, if this were a story about a Tory politician, we all know how the Left would react. We know because it happened, in a case where the allegations were far worse, and the evidence totally non-existent. Thankfully Lord McAlpine cleared his name before he died.

[Viviennemary]

I agree with let her sue the Mail. Either the Mail is wrong in which case she must sue. Or the Mail is right in which case she should apologise. And how can she regret something and not be sorry for it. I supppose that's a politician's right.

[itshardthinkingofanickname]

So that would be JK Rowling and Harriet Harman suing.

So using your logic, if she doesn't sue, she must be guilty

[BackOnlyBriefly]

Gosh, some of you really want her to be guilty of something don't you. Do you really feel there's so much difference between the parties that you will go to these lengths?

I realised part of the way through that I actually remember this from the last time they tried it on. A complete non-event, but it's okay to make stuff up to get votes, divert attention or simply sell more newspapers.

As for suing, I'm not an expert, but I expect a good lawyer could claim that they didn't quite say most of what their less observant readers think they said. They really rely on the 2+2=5, crowd and there's never a shortage of those. Probably some of the same people who said "Robert Murat? I said it was him all along you know. He had those eyes! Two of them".

[hackmum]

Insinuation is what the Mail does best. Look at this:

"The Mail discovered that during the 1970s and 80s, the NCCL described PIE – granted formal ‘affiliate’ status from 1975 to the mid-Eighties – in glowing terms as ‘a campaigning/counselling group for adults attracted to children’."

"Glowing"? Really? Looks like a straightforward factual description to me.

This is a complete non-story. I imagine it's only a matter of time before someone digs out some copies of the Mail from the 1970s and finds some less-than-savoury attitudes being expressed.

[Dawndonnaagain]

I agree with let her sue the Mail. Either the Mail is wrong in which case she must sue. Or the Mail is right in which case she should apologise. And how can she regret something and not be sorry for it. I supppose that's a politician's right.
Good grief, any more complete bunkum? Why don't you just go on the Daily Fail boards where everyone will agree with you and nobody will point out the facts.
Oh, and it's quite easy to regret one's actions without having to apologise for them.

[hackmum]

"And how can she regret something and not be sorry for it."

Well, because sorry has two meanings. One is "I regret something". e.g. I'm sorry that I made the wrong career choice, or I'm sorry I was mean to my mum when I was a kid. But the other is an apology made to someone to whom you've done wrong, e.g. "I'm sorry I shouted at you."

Who, exactly, is Harman supposed to direct her apology at? Who, exactly, was harmed by the fact that 40 years ago she worked for an organisation that had an affiliation with another organisation that campaigned for paedophiles?