No Sleaze Please, We're Lib Dems

It's a good job those Lib Dems are such a force for honesty and decency...



Ah...

Bully Balls

Labour are attempting to blame Ed Balls' poor performance in his response to George Osborne's Autumn Statement yesterday on his stammer and, what they want people to believe was, "nasty" mocking by the Tory front bench.

Not content with attempting to smear the Thatcher cabinet with the Paedo tag (something he's gone very quiet about since the McAlpine debacle), Tom Watson is now chucking stones from within his glass house at Osborne and co, accusing them of bullying poor defenceless Balls. Of course, he, his parties' Shadow Chancellor and his ex-boss, Gordon Brown would know nothing about that kind of behaviour.

But let's not forget a genuinely nasty moment in the House of Commons that happened not too long ago. The moment when Labour MPs mocked Tory MP, Paul Maynard who has cerebral palsy, for the way he spoke.


Mr Maynard spoke subsequently about the attitude of some Labour MPs who take offence at the fact he, a disabled man, should have the temerity to be a Conservative. In their warped minds, the disabled should only consider Labour for their political home. Failure to comply with their thought policy immediately renders you a traitor to your "kind". You've got to wonder at the hypocrisy of this kind of nasty, myopic prejudice.

So, perhaps the likes of Tom Watson and his Watsonettes on Twitter should consider their own side before making ludicrous accusation about others.

Dial C For Conspiracy

The Jimmy Savile revelations were shocking. I can't say I ever liked him much myself, I always thought he was a bit of a weirdo. But I didn't imagine he was a serial sex offender. And, if other allegations are to be believed, a murderer and a necrophiliac (presumably in that order).

How he got away with this for so long became a real focus for attention. The fact that ITV broke the story after the BBC suppressed it last year, was another. We learnt that Savile had access to vulnerable young people in hospitals and schools as well as the opportunities his work for the BBC gave him. All this led, unsurprisingly, to criticism of the institutions implicated.

At no point did I consider that politics might enter this scandal. I had failed to analyse the situation thoroughly enough. Had I reflected on the institutions involved I might have predicted a defensive political reaction. Those institutions being: the BBC, the NHS and a state run school. What was, at times over the top, but justifiably very angry criticisms and questioning of these organisations, was being interpreted by some as a right wing conspiracy to destroy institutions that the left hold dear to their hearts. 

For the most part, the criticism was no such thing. If David Cameron was gunning for the Beeb, as some would have you believe, he would have gone along with Ed Miliband's, by now automatic response to all occurrences, a call for an independent inquiry into Savile and the BBC. He didn't. But this didn't stop the defensive response from the left. Twitter was ablaze with outrage at the "evil Tory" attacks on the BBC. Anybody who generally held views right of centre, that dared opine on the possible failings in the BBC, or any of the other institutions involved, were accused of waging an ideological war. But, apart from in the minds of some of the more paranoid on the left, there genuinely was no political dimension to this. Just outrage at what had happened and at the failure of the BBC to expose a man who many within its employ suspected (even knew) was an abuser, even after he had died and the threat of litigation had disappeared.

As the scandal unfolded, the BBC started to turn on itself. For a little while it looked like it might implode. But then, out of blue, allegations of a Tory paedophile scandal started to emerge. I say emerge, but I mean re-emerge as these allegations have been around for many, many years. There is a mini-conspiracy theorist universe that exists in the darkest reaches of the internet where the same stories are circulated over and over again. Some are wildly fanciful, like David Icke's Paedophile Lizard people. Other's take a more analytical approach (you know like the best conpiracy theorists do in the USA - 9/11 was US Government not al-Qaeda , Elvis is Alive, Obama isn't an American etc etc).

But it was when the deputy chair of the Labour Party, Tom Watson, stood up in Parliament to announce that he had evidence that a paedophile ring had existed with links that went to the heart of 10, Downing Street, that the game changed. I started to question my cynicism at the theories on the net. The separate North Wales care home scandal that involved a "high profile politician from the Thatcher years" fitted perfectly with Watson's accusation of a national Paedophile ring. Indeed, in the rumours and innuendo I had seen on the web, they were part and parcel of each other. Was he on to something? Surely, Ed Miliband would not have sanctioned such an explosive allegation without being certain that his deputy chairman had water tight evidence.

But then the North Wales care home allegations about a senior Tory abuser fell apart. The Guardian reported that the allegations were wrong, a case of mistaken identity. For The Guardian, Tories can only be found innocent when the evidence proves them so, beyond reasonable doubt. Newsnight's decision to run the totally unverified allegation plunged the BBC back into crisis. A crisis that this time cost it's Director General his job (if not a year's salary). With the North Wales allegations against Lord McAlpine in tatters the wider allegations that can be found on the web start to look shakey, as Alastair McAlpine is a fairly consistent character across most of the theories.

None of this deterred the intrepid Mr Watson. His accusations about a "Thatcher era senior Tory" were, he said, separate from the obviously false "Thatcher ere senior Tory" made by Newsnight with back up from the likes of Sally Bercow and George Monbiot. He continued brief newspapers and blog about his concerns, expanding on the allegations, hinting one of the perpetrators was a senior Thatcher government minister who is still alive, even still "powerful". His blog doesn't miss the opportunity to make it clear how brave he's being:

"I’m not going to let this drop despite warnings from people who should know that my personal safety is imperilled if I dig any deeper. It’s spooked me so much that I’ve kept a detailed log of all the allegations should anything happen."

Some say he's an attention seeking egotist acting to further enhance his crusader image garnered from his successful execution of the Gordon Brown initiated war on News International via the phone hacking scandal.

McBride exposed the depths Labour
spin can stoop to

But some might think there's more to it. A party political strategy to sound the "Tory sleaze" klaxon, so successfully deployed against Major's government in the 90's. A similar, unsuccessful attempt was made before the last election with the Damian McBride scandal. Tom Watson worked alongside McBride at the heart of Gordon Brown's spin machine at the time. He denies any involvement in the spin operation to smear Tory politicians with false allegations at the time. But questions are being asked about his approach now to these allegations. While these allegations don't directly smear anyone, they do associate his political enemies with the most heinous and hateful of crimes in the minds of the public. And of course, as Labour's ex-social media Tsar, he would be more than aware of the internet trawling his words would initiate and which names would emerge. I've subsequently seen Facebook status updates and Tweets generally associating Tories with child abuse. Although, of course, he can't be blamed for the stupidity of the likes of Schofield's list*. 

Of course, if there has been a terrible injustice, the most important thing is to investigate and expose any wrong doing of failures in the system. But, if he genuinely wants to uncover widespread wrongdoing involving child abuse, why do it so publicly? Surely, all this publicity is doing more harm than good. It's tipping off potential perpetrators, who now could be nuking their hard drives of any evidence before they're seized by police, or getting out of the country if they really thought their liberty was at risk. And it is swamping genuine victims cases by encouraging scores of false claims from the confused, unwell and even some who no doubt smell a compo claim in the offing. He could have worked with the police to build a case. He could have then emerged, once convictions had been secured thanks to his evidence, in court, as a true hero. Instead he chose to rise, in the midst of a media frenzy around the Savile paedophilia revelations, to ride the wave, dragging the Tories into the mire with Savile, redirecting focus from the BBC and rekindling the "Tory sleaze" tag in peoples minds.

But then, perhaps he's calculated that a public revelation is the only way to get action. Perhaps he believes there really is an establishment cover up so widespread that only by bringing the issue into the public domain can it be broken and the truth exposed.

Only time will tell. At the moment it feels like the most likely scenario from the above scenarios is the attention seeking egotist. The party political strategy to smear Tories sounds as much like a conspiracy theory as the nationwide establishment cover up Watson is claiming.

If nothing does come of his accusation in the weeks to come, or if potential prosecutions are compromised by his actions, serious questions need to be asked about his fitness to be in public office. But, if the information he's provided to police does lead to the exposure of a widespread conspiracy that facilitated child abuse on a grand scale, he may actually be able to justifiably claim to be a crusader for justice, something his loyal band of left wing Watson-ettes already think he is for giving Murdoch a kicking after his papers stopped supporting Labour.

*The opposite of Schindler's list - it is a list of names of people who are to be persecuted.

Estate Agents Have Some Catching Up To Do

All but one of the groups that top the public's love to hate league have accommodatingly behaved appallingly over the past few years.
MPs, investment bankers and now journalists have all disgraced themselves royally and confirmed themselves in the collective public mind as the greedy, grubby shits that they generally are.
But, one remaining group have not been keeping up in the race to plumb new depths of depravity or avarice, or both... estate agents. They continue to be untrustworthy, annoying prats but really need to get their act together if they are to keep up with those other bastards.

Hmm...

It'll have to be big to compete and overshadow the others. It wouldn't surprise me if the final News of the World edition on Sunday uncovers something like a massive paedophile ring at Nationwide Estate Agents or Mann & Co or somewhere. Perhaps it could be that these sick, slick haired Trevors are in cahoots with perverted tech-savvy online agents at Rightmove, using their web site as front for their disgusting picture trading. That'd put estate agency back in contention in the race for the abhorrence of the British people.

Come on estate agents! Sort it out or you'll start looking like saints compared to your abominable peers.

Pressure Increases for "Pontiff's Paedos" Investigation

I'm glad to see Angela Merkel has put her name behind calls for a more widespread investigation into child abuse in by Catholic Priests. What is stopping our leaders from doing the same?

Some of the revelations coming out this year are truly shocking. And yet, those who admit to, or are found guilty of, cover ups of child sex abuse are not summarily dismissed from the church or even prosecuted. Why?

I blogged the same question a while back. But as more and more revelations are being made, so the mainstream media don't seem to be bothered about reporting the scandal to any great depth. Surely, if any other major institution was found guilty of covering up the activities of paedophile staff members, allowing them to continue their abuse of children over many years, that institution would be all over the press and television news, it would be closed down and prosecutions of those responsible for management failures brought.  

But no. This is a church - the Catholic Church, so it's just a bit embarrassing. "We're all very sorry. Please forgive us, as we forgive those who sin against us".... oh, please spare us!

Yet another recent revelation is summarised in the article I link to above...

Last weekend, in a further blow to its [the church's] reputation, Cardinal Brady admitted attending meetings where two 10-year-olds were forced to sign vows of silence over complaints against Father Brendan Smyth, who continued abusing children for a further 18 years. The cardinal used his St Patrick's Day sermon to apologise for his role in the cover-up of child abuse by Father Smyth, one of the country's most notorious paedophile priests.

Apparently, Cardinal Brady is under "increasing pressure to resign". Christ up a STICK! Resign? He should be kicked out and prosecuted. He let a paedophile continue to abuse children for 18 years and he could have stopped it. These people can't be allowed to get away with this kind of thing just because they are members of a church.

There should be an international investigation, covering all counties. If it means the church get badly damaged, so be it... it deserves it. At least they may be able to rebuild a reputation of doing good in the work once they have purged themselves of all there perverts.