There is a huge amount of dancing on eggshells going on today in the media about the dossier on paedophile activity with which Leon Brittan came in contact in the 1980s. It is pretty plain there is a subtext here.
A number of people have contacted me for some years over the Elm Guest House paedophile ring. Frankly I did not particularly believe it, or thought it was exaggerated. But I confess my eyes have been opened by the Jimmy Savile, Cyril Smith and Rolf Harris affairs and the extent of complicity and even protection which they received from the establishment.
I have blogged before that, in the Savile case, as his behaviour was apparently compulsive and constant, I found it hard to believe it was not known in the very senior societal circles in which he spent so much of his time. I am convinced that perception was right.
Savile is not linked in to the Elm House paedophile ring, as far as I know, but Cyril Smith is. So were the then head of the Royal Protection Unit and of Special Branch. That to me raises all sorts of queries about whether they were not just participating themselves but protecting someone very senior indeed. I have been convinced that it is true that social workers interviewing child victims were indeed threatened with guns by Special Branch to drop it, and that paperwork has been confiscated and destroyed.
On Cyril Smith, Channel 4 Dispatches on 12 September 2013 reported that:
‘Speaking for the first time, former CID officer Jack Tasker tells the programme that Special Branch officers arrived at his office, told him to halt his investigations and demanded that the file be handed over to them,.“They made it quite clear that anything that was kept by us would bring repercussions if we didn’t hand it over; that as far as we are concerned, the inquiry is finished … you will take no more inquiries into Cyril Smith
Compare that to what happened to child protection officer Chris Fay in his Elm House investigation, as reported in the Express:
Mr Fay, 67, of south London, said: “It became very dangerous. People seem to forget that Special Branch could do what they liked, they were a law unto themselves.
“At one point they had me up against a wall by my throat with a gun at my head telling me in no uncertain terms that I was to back away if I knew what was good for me.
“A colleague of mine had the same treatment, as did a number of the volunteers. Victims who were actually abused at Elm House were also physically stopped from coming to speak to us at the NAYPIC office in north London.
“I witnessed Special Branch officers manhandling them and turning them away with a warning to keep their mouths shut. It was blatant, it was open, they were acting like gangsters.
In both Rochdale and in North London, Special Branch intervened to block the appropriate authorities on the ground from investigating what was a genuine paedophile scandal. I can see no other possible explanation than that the scandal involved figures a great deal more senior than Cyril Smith. From the Elm Guest House we have a pointer who some of those people were.
I really don’t want to blog any more about this, and I recommend you to have a search online. That involves trawling around some of the less pleasant parts of the internet, and I have seen material that is horribly anti-Semitic and anti-gay. But after years of dismissing the stories, on the grounds that they are promulgated by unpleasant people, in unpleasant newspapers, or cannot be true, I realise I was wrong.
Baal
“Wormsgame”
?? Sorry, that’s lost on me.
No 10’s Patrick Rock charged and will appear at Southwark Crown Court in a fortnight.
Patrick Rock: Ex-Govt Aide Faces Court
Patrick Rock is charged with making and possessing indecent photographs of children.
http://news.sky.com/story/1294388/patrick-rock-ex-govt-aide-faces-court
I notice ‘ex-Govt’. Gone off with the pension and goodies one assumes.
Has Pete ever commented here before?
You all seem to have taken leave of your senses. Even the more sensible people who comment here appear to have truly bought into this absurd fairytale. Perhaps you all now believe in giant alien lizards in high places, too? Wake up !
“Ray Wyre was, until his early death, the most highly-respected expert on the treatment of paedophilia in this country”
Not exactly. His techniques were controversial. His use of group therapy was not widely supported and his plan to position a clinic for child abuse victims next to his clinic for sex offenders was considered daft and was rejected.
“He was involved in the PROSECUTION of many paedophiles, and was doubtless hated by those who rejected therapy and wished to continue their activities without interference”
Proves nothing. And why “doubtless”? Such a position would be ideal for a serious paedophile. Before becoming a social worker Wyre was a priest.
“Even the more sensible people who comment here appear to have truly bought into this absurd fairytale”
Which absurd fairy tale did you have in mind?
Lone Dissenting Voice
“You all seem to have taken leave of your senses.”
So you have said. Twice. I am definitely open to not believing this but you offer nothing except your indignant incredulity. Got an argument?
@Mary, odd question you ask, but yes I have commented here before, though I doubt if I will bother to do so again. Will still read Craig’s blog of course, as he is genuinely very knowledgable and intelligent even when I disagree with him.
@Phil, I don’t normally reply to verbal abuse, but in answer to your question about Broadmoor, due to the nature of the patients treated there, no staff member is ever left alone with a patient. Even more so someone was not a health professional but a volunteer.
As to your remarks about having “skimmed” the Duncroft articles on the annaraccoon site, in the less than 2.5 hours between my post and yours you would not have had the time to even “skim” these very long articles, let alone to read them properly. And they’re not the kind of articles you can “skim” anyway.
@MJ The fact that Ray Wyre was an ex-priest doesn’t “prove” anything either.
Fool
“I conclude that if you take such a step it is a slippery step.”
I am way out of my shallow depths discussing philosophy but I think your comment touches on a well trodden tension exemplified by the polar perspectives of utilitarianism and Immanuel Kant.
Like you seem to be, Fool, I am in the Kant camp (although for possibly different reasons). Never take action to abuse an individual in the name of a greater good.
https://www.google.com/search?q=utilitarianism+vs+immanuel+kant
Pete
Well I don’t normally reply to whiny types with zero to contribute. I do have a naturally course tone and will say the s word when someone says idiotic untruths as if they had meaning. Don’t be so easily offended and try not to talk nonsense instead. Almond and Boy George were so out in the 1980s. It makes you look a ridiculous to say otherwise.
OK thanks for this response but Edwina Curry and others have said Saville had a set of pass keys and the run of the place. So any rule about being alone would seem fairly irrelevant.
You must be a slow reader. I can skim tow articles in 2.5 hours.
I notice you again fail to explain how she destroys the case against Saville or provide a link to her “exhaustive analysis”.
Instead of tone trolling why not provide some reason for your assertions. Otherwise you come across as full of the s word stuff. Now f word off and cry to your mum.
Ahhhh. Blockquotes format error. Mods any chance of a preview button?
MJ:
“Which absurd fairytale did you have in mind?”
The fairytale about conspiracies between evil, supernaturally libidinous child-abusers in positions of great power, obviously.
Step back and look at it for a moment. It is utterly implausible.
And, yes, Phil, that is the sum of my argument. It is unbelievable, so I don’t believe it.
Occam’s Razor is an essential tool of sanity. Discard it at your peril.
@Lone Dissenting Voice
You mean like the child sexual abuse crimes committed by Catholic priests and nuns and covered up for years and years by the church?
Lone Dissenting Voice
I think you’ve misunderstood Occam’s Razor. It doesn’t mean unyielding cling to the easiest answer.
It is uncomfortable to consider that those who run this country are up to such tricks but Occam’s Razor is moot facing a growing weight of evidence.
Have you actually listened to people such as Graham Power or other people who ruined their establishment careers to speak out. Why would these people do this?
“The fairytale about conspiracies between evil, supernaturally libidinous child-abusers in positions of great power, obviously”
With the debris removed that means conspiracies between child-abusers in positions of power. Why is that obviously a fairy-tale? it’s wholly consistent with the known facts.
“Step back and look at it for a moment. It is utterly implausible”
I’ve stepped back and I’ve looked at it for a moment. Still don’t see why it’s utterly implausible. Please give your reasoning.
@Phil. I’m sure you can read several articles in 2.5 hours, if by “read” you mean “look at”. But you can’t actually think about them in so short a time.
Your remark about pass keys suggests you have never been to Broadmoor or any other secure institution. Whereas I have spent years working in such places. You don’t just wander round Broadmoor, pass keys or no.
I distinctly remember BG and MA denying they were gay in the early 80s, in any case you know very well that being gay was still considered scandalous by many people at that time.
“Whiny… zero to contribute… full of shit… tone trolling… fuck off and cry to your mum…” Blimey, Phil, whatever must it be like to be you? To be so full of hate for people you’ll never even meet? But hey- that’s the magic of the internet! Have a good evening now and try not to burst a blood vessel.
Pete
I said I can skim two articles in 2.5 hours and I can. I did. I am unsure why you find that surprising.
Well you distinctly remember wrong. Which you know. It’s why you backtrack. I cannot be held responsible for not taking into account something you say later. You do understand that don’t you?
Mostly, I again note you offer nothing to substantiate your assertion that the case against Saville has been demolished. Instead you prefer to continue your whiny tone trolling.
concerning the Tory fundraiser last summer:
Conservatives refuse to reveal guestlist for summer fundraising party
Matt Prodger of the Beeb has interviewed GD’s son, Barry-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28141531
“I would like Lord Brittan to name the very next person he handed it on to.
“And where did it end up?
A pertinent question unlikely to elicit a straight answer from Brittan, given the response of Mr Pantling, as linked to by Ba’al Zavul earlier.
Phil:
“Have you actually listened to people such as Graham Power … Why would these people do this?”
No, I haven’t, but the same thing can be said of various fervent UFO enthusiasts, 9/11 ‘truthers’ and the like. And indeed also David Icke, who abandoned a successful career to tell us about alien giant lizards.
These people all earnestly believe what they are saying, but that doesn’t prove they are right.
It seems fairly likely that the phone hacking and paedophile scandals were connected. The Savile stories had been sat on by the media until News International was threatened with court action, at which point they published what they knew about Savile as a warning to others. The bizarre situation with the late Alistair McAlpine suggested a very raw nerve indeed was touched, and the allegations raised by his accuser were never satisfactorily resolved.
What’s striking from reading the internet stories is how many senior politicians seem to have been compromised by being closet homosexuals or paedophiles. You wonder what decisions they made merely because of the threat of blackmail hanging over them.
Let’s hope all this is blown out into the open and we found out the truth.
Like you, Craig, I was sceptical to begin with about these stories, but there seems a lot of evidence. Then you start realising how many other things we believed were officially true look very shaky under the light of shared information on the internet…
LDV: if one powerful actor has intelligence on a powerful opponent or a pawn who can effect that opponent than blackmail is a possibility; hasn’t that always been obvious. As to the facts of these allegations I don’t know.
Phil: I like to keep philosophy simple – its life that is difficult; this battle between the means versus the end is with us all the time on all levels; eg shall I read and post on line, watch TV and day dream, or laugh talk compose poetry and engage with real people.
This thread has made me think about Scotland and new countries (not that I am suggesting that Scotland would be a new country). I read this thread this morning and then some of the links and its so unpleasant I thought well maybe Scotland should be independent and wash its hands of this (not that any one place is really likely to be without at least some of the depravity of the other), and then I thought about Israel and how it really had to struggle to become independent and then to stand up as a country. They were really intelligent and tough. They knew they had to fight to avoid being extinguished and I don’t know much about their tricks, I read a book on Mossad but I don’t know if it was a good one or what they really have got up to, only that their reputation is exceptionally tough i.e. they may from time to time have taken the end justifies the means approach. Surely Occam’s razor suggests that a security service (especially one dealing with foreign states as opposed to internal) may tend towards the end over the means; who would want an idealistic security service?
Anyway,all that woffle leaves me thinking how will / would an independent Scotland deal with this everlasting means/ends challenge. Good Luck.
@Fool: The ends are never justified by the means, because the act of doing it will change the end(s).
Once at war that should become obvious… the great challenge for the high officers of state in the post-1945 world is (should be) to make sure war doesn’t happen in the first place. With MAD, in a mad sort of way that seemed to work… although millions of innocents were still brutally murdered ultimately for no end reason but to prove that the end does not justify the means. Politics is obviously a very dirty business, and only now are we getting a glimpse of just how dirty it became. When will people learn?
MJ:
“It’s wholly consistent with the known facts”
What “facts” ?
What struck me about the Cyril Smith and Jimmy Savile cases is how relatively minor these figures were. If the Spy Agencies MI5 and MI6 are prepared to protect minor establishment figures like Smith and Savile from justice for horrible crimes like serial pedophilia, then the bar for Zersetzen, and other crimes of these secret police services, must be very low indeed.
I remember seeing Jimmy Savile appear on Celebrity Big Brother… the one with George Galloway, Pete something and various young things. Just seeing JS make an appearance gave me the creeps, but George Galloway seemed to receive him warmly, and proceeded to tell the young things about how great JS was with all his charity work, etc.
Conclusion: GG doesn’t grovel to many people but he was grovelling to JS. Why? Of course GG is an MP… I wonder if other MPs showed deference to JS in that way, and if they did… again, why?
Peacewisher: “@Fool: The ends are never justified by the means, because the act of doing it will change the end(s).” I agree.
Lone Dissenting Voice
“These people all earnestly believe what they are saying, but that doesn’t prove they are right.”
Ok, so how might you explain all this away.
Sure, I could go with a group of disaffected outcasts experiencing false memories. However, this is way more than that. This is people who have had their establishment lives turned upside down for some weird inexplicable reason.
Your thesis requires a mass hysteria taking in hundreds of victims, politicians, coppers (including one chief constable), social workers, journalists…can you provide any precedent for such widespread mania that runs contrary to established mores?
I can provide a very recent precedent for your refusal to listen. In fact Andy already did above. Your position echos all those who so recently couldn’t accept that a priest may abuse children.
What we are presented with now is the priest scandal with a wholly recognisable layer of power struggle thrown in. It rings true. The volume and diversity of testimonies cannot be easily dismissed.
The keys to Broadmoor were specially gold plated for him if I remember rightly.
God. The sight of a photo of him in those shorts or his shiny shell suits with that dammed cigar in his mouth makes me heave.
O/T.
Blair popped up here:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2678618/Blair-offers-advise-Egypt-despot-boost-economy-Former-ally-attacks-PM-offering-help-regime-estimated-killed-2-500-protestors.html
(Nauseating content)
I would like it on record that if there is anything I can do (not tooillegally) to wipe the smile off that lying, conniving, buttlicking fraud’s face, I’ll do it for free and without obligation.