Paedophiles rule Westminster.

[Aggers]

It's becoming a sad world to live in, isn't it?

I love little children, in the most honest and proper way, yet I often have to
remind myself not to look admiringly, or even speak to one, lest my attentions
be misinterpreted.

[Workingman]

I did think that the initial responses to this thread were getting confused with what was happening in Westminster and by MPs, and an errant hand on the knee or a surreptitiously touched boob: I am now convinced.

To clear things up.

The link in my OP was to a report of allegations that a dossier regarding the operation of a paedophile ring within Westminster was handed to former Home Sec, Leon Brittan, in the 1980s and was not acted upon. Brittan then made a series of confusing statements: there was no dossier; he couldn't remember a dossier; a dossier was passed on; he could not remember when; he could not remember who to. Brittan's reminiscences had to be forced out of him using a hot poker. His actions raised further questions.....

Now, after an initial internal review, it is revealed that 114 potentially incriminating files out of 527 looked at have gone missing. Lord Tebbit has said that the culture at the time was to protect "the establishment" rather than delving "too far" into such claims. Keith Vas said files had been lost "on an industrial scale". Margaret Hodge, said there had been a "veil of secrecy over the establishment" for far too long. Yet calls for a public inquiry have been dismissed by the government.

It appears that the establishment is still protecting itself.

If a paedophile ring was operating from Westminster, at any time, we have a right to know 'When', and by 'Whom'. Names need to be named and prosecutions brought. The allegations, btw, are that MPs and Civil Servants were taking young children, mainly boys, to guest houses and other locations in order to sexually abuse them.

[Diflower]

Thanks for that WM, I didn't have the energy to point it all out properly.

[cromwell]

The link in my OP was to a report of allegations that a dossier regarding the operation of a paedophile ring within Westminster was handed to former Home Sec, Leon Brittan, in the 1980s and was not acted upon. Brittan then made a series of confusing statements: there was no dossier; he couldn't remember a dossier; a dossier was passed on; he could not remember when; he could not remember who to.....

That's the thing. Even after this length of time, surely you would remember who you gave the dossier to?

[Suff]

I don't think I strayed from your original posted link WM.

Let's take a broader look at this.

I would suggest that each of these 114 files would have taken an absolute minimum of 4 hours to compile. Being ridiculously optimistic.

That is nearly 3 man months of work. pretty much a man year for the entire 527 files. And we are expected to believe that no records were kept, that nobody who worked on this kept any records at all. That the entire dossier was handed over in original format with no copies.

That these originals disappeared and nobody questioned it?

No copies surfaced and it was _NEVER_ approached again until we are less than 1 year from an election.

To this day the 114 files have never been submitted again and are not, currently, being reviewed.

As you can imagine from my statements above, I have a serious concern about the validity of these accusations and the way that they have been presented. That they were presented by a Labour MP in the 1980's and that they have never been mentioned again. That a Labour MP has brought them up again at a time when it would be extremely damaging to the Tory party, on the back of their coalition partners revelations.

As I said above. If abuse has happened, produce the evidence, go to the police and get them questioning people ready for arrests if that is warranted.

But what do we see? A media circus. Mud slinging. Waiting for more mud to stick. Get people taking about how evil the Tories are without one single shred of evidence to back up their claims (that I can determine). Follow this up. Make sure you follow this up. It will vanish at the next election. I am convinced about it.

[Workingman]

Suff, the compiler of the original dossier was Conservative MP, Geoffrey Dickens, now deceased, who had long campaigned about child sexual abuse by members of The Establishment. He even named a former diplomat in the House of Commons. He presented his dossier to the then Conservative Home Sec.

The latest hoo-ha has nothing to do with an upcoming election. It is not an attack on the Conservative party, either. It comes on the back of the Savile, Hall and Harris trials, the cover-up over the paedophile actions of Cyril Smith and the North Wales care homes' scandals where many "men in high places" were accused - including MPs and Lords. None of them, not one, was adequately dealt with at the time. They were all kicked into the long grass in the hope that they would be forgotten.

There is a feeling that perverts within the system are, or were, being protected by the system. If an over-arching inquiry proves that not to be the case, that is good, it is how the process should work. If, on the other hand, the accusations are true we are entitled to know and to have action taken. What cannot be allowed is for things to be brushed under the carpet simply because the PM and a few Ministers say that there is no case to answer.

[Suff]

OK so I mixed then and now.

But, again, where is the source media for the dossiers? It can't have been given to the leadership. It's quite simple. If there are accusations and things to answer, then produce them.

If there are not, then there is no reason for all this uproar now. What happened to evidence, proof, case?

This level of investigation does not just happen and the evidence does not just vanish with the death of the person who presented it to parliament. Bring the missing dossiers forward and it can be dealt with. Don't and there is no categoric evidence just hearsay.

BTW, of the other 413 dossiers, how many convictions were there??

To start saying that Leon Brittan is covering up because he can't remember who he passed the documents too is another attempt to sway those who do not know how parliament works. There is no way Brittan would have dealt with these dossiers himself. They would have been handed to whichever ministerial aid was responsible for this kind of investigation and simply left with the responsibility chain as it is with hundreds of thousands of other dossiers in the ministerial term of a minister. Remember, these were dossiers containing information which "might" lead to a case. If the MP was so disturbed, why did he not go to the police in the first place? Although in the 80's I can understand some of this reluctance.

The whole thing stinks. The way the dossiers were handled, the lack of corroborating evidence or file copies, the fact that they were not handed direct to the police and also the way it has suddenly sprung up in the wake of the Saville and Smith revelations. It has the consistency of greased oil. Nothing is going to be firm and no solid evidence is being given, such as copies of the files....

I'm pretty sure that abuse has happened to some degree or other.

I'm also sure that a public enquiry circus, on the evidence produced so far, is not the way forward.

Now if the abused start to come forward, that's another matter....

[KateLMead]

I would put Harman, Dromey , Patricia Hewitt, and their close colleagues in the dock who now pretend they knew nothing of the workings of PIE when they were in government. PIE the sordid bunch of perverts who graced the halls of Westminster and actually received grants to help with regard to furthering their disgusting aims.

[Suff]

We have lived in stranger times with stranger attitudes.

There was a time when to be a paedophile was to be "weak" but to be homosexual was to be a "monster".

I hope that something more concrete than the current media circus comes out of all of this. I doubt it but I can still hope.

[Suff]

more

So am I just a suspicious GOM or did the incredulity of the accusations simply not make sense....

From the article.

In her statement to MPs about historic child abuse allegations, Theresa May, the Home Secretary, scotched several myths. She said the late Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens had never handed in a single “dossier” of evidence in the mid-Eighties but had sent a number of letters to ministers containing allegations that were looked into.

Material relating to 13 items of information was handed to the police, who were already aware of nine of these cases and mounted inquiries into the other four. While 114 potentially relevant Home Office files from this period were no longer available, an independent investigator found no evidence that they had been inappropriately removed or destroyed.

So do we really need another inquiry into precisely the same matters?

Everything I would have expected in Maggie's government. But what will people remember come polling day? Oh, yes, that the Tories are a bunch of kiddyfiddlers who hide evidence. Score one more to the dirty politics of the current era.