The Political Thread

[JPMaybe]

Interesting views on crime on the thread. There is the argument supported by a lot of statistical evidence (you laugh, I know) that Crime is falling year on year. As part of my job, I like to keep abreast of the current theories. One that facinated me was that, so the argument goes, violent crime has actually increased and the only reason society isn't dealing with a murder pandemic is due to the impact of more effective medical treatment, from the initial response through the treatment process. Z

This interested me- and to be honest made me instantly wish it wasn't true, as I found Steven Pinker's case quite convincing.

I found this abstract on the subject.  It's a US based study, so I'd hope that a British based one wouldn't show the same amount of murders becoming aggravated assaults with better medical technology, but afaik nobody's done one. 

Given the USA's enormous wealth inequality and proliferation of guns I'd hope that it's a special case, but then again, given our own piss-poor Gini-coefficient, we might well find something similar here.

[Frank]

With the news that the former Home Secretary who can't remember being handed a dossier * naming government figures who were members of a paedophile abuse ring is himself accused of raping a teenager, the whole Elm Guest House thing appears to have reached a tipping point, as the mainstream media begin to take up a story which had previously been dismissed as the paranoid fantasy of Icke and the tinfoil hatters.


* which has now gone missing

[JOE SOAP]

With the news that the former Home Secretary who can't remember being handed a dossier * naming government figures who were members of a paedophile abuse ring is himself accused of raping a teenager, the whole Elm Guest House thing appears to have reached a tipping point, as the mainstream media begin to take up a story which had previously been dismissed as the paranoid fantasy of Icke and the tinfoil hatters.


* which has now gone missing

Allegedly it got mislaid somewhere between Westminster and his own visits to Elm Guest House.

[Leigh S]

Maybe they mistook it for a brochure rather than a dossier..... wonder if the public will let this evaporate in the same way the expenses scandal did.

[Professor Bear]

I suppose it puts Call Me Dave's call for restraint during the Yewtree witch hunts in perspective, too.
I can't see a pedophile ring being covered up doing the Conservatives any harm in the same way that hundreds of dead babies buried in a shitter did the church any harm in Ireland.

In other news: Daily Mail scamps pretend to be Islamic extremists on an Islamic forum: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:QDDb7ydcC5kJ:www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php%3F408155-i-am-pledging-allegiance-to-the-caliphate+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk

I can't imagine why.

[Frank]

wonder if the public will let this evaporate in the same way the expenses scandal did.

It's already surfaced in the media a few times - if you Google the name of the guest house you'll find articles with photographs of tabloid spreads exposing seedy goings on there from the eighties and nineties - but without being able to name the big names involved it seems to peter out. SOAP's link claims tabloid's are desperate for MPs to name those said to be involved under the protection of Parliamentary privelege, because once that happens they can all report those names without fear of legal action.

That's what's kept something which appears to have been an open secret for decades out of the papers, and the biggest incentive for the government of the day not to toss this onto the too difficult pile is the fact that by Monday morning even folk who aren't on twitter and Facebook are going to know exactly what's being alleged. Nobody wants to be left looking like they were soft pedaling - or covering up - kiddie rape; especially not in the year before a general election.

The thing that sustained the expenses scandal was the Telegraph getting their hands on official documentation and releasing new details in a slow drip that stoked public fury. That's why there's a focus on locating the dossier Geoffrey Dickens is on public record as having handed to Leon Brittan. Folk eventually forgot about expenses because they all knew MPs were on the fiddle anyway. Child rape, or facilitating child rape - as the outrage concerning Savile and the BBC attests - is a different matter.

[Leigh S]

wonder if the public will let this evaporate in the same way the expenses scandal did.

It's already surfaced in the media a few times - if you Google the name of the guest house you'll find articles with photographs of tabloid spreads exposing seedy goings on there from the eighties and nineties - but without being able to name the big names involved it seems to peter out. SOAP's link claims tabloid's are desperate for MPs to name those said to be involved under the protection of Parliamentary privelege, because once that happens they can all report those names without fear of legal action.

That's what's kept something which appears to have been an open secret for decades out of the papers, and the biggest incentive for the government of the day not to toss this onto the too difficult pile is the fact that by Monday morning even folk who aren't on twitter and Facebook are going to know exactly what's being alleged. Nobody wants to be left looking like they were soft pedaling - or covering up - kiddie rape; especially not in the year before a general election.

The thing that sustained the expenses scandal was the Telegraph getting their hands on official documentation and releasing new details in a slow drip that stoked public fury. That's why there's a focus on locating the dossier Geoffrey Dickens is on public record as having handed to Leon Brittan. Folk eventually forgot about expenses because they all knew MPs were on the fiddle anyway. Child rape, or facilitating child rape - as the outrage concerning Savile and the BBC attests - is a different matter.

You would hope so, but given this has apparently been an open secret since the 80s... why did no one have the fucking moral fortitude to publish the names and be damned?  Why was it allowed to fade away with a "probably true but we cant force the issue" attitude... when Tebbitt says that's what people did back then, well, it hurts to say it, but does he have a point?  If you knew and where in a position to do something about it?  It's horrifying, but everybody knew and nothing was done = it's beyond comprehension

[Jim_Campbell]

One (admittedly fairly out there) conspiracy theory suggests that keeping this covered up was the reason Jill Dando was killed. If true, it would very likely be a contributing factor to people keeping their gobs shut.

Cheers

Jim

[Leigh S]

One (admittedly fairly out there) conspiracy theory suggests that keeping this covered up was the reason Jill Dando was killed. If true, it would very likely be a contributing factor to people keeping their gobs shut.

Cheers

Jim

Well I suppose if you are willing to cover up and condone child abuse, there's not much else you wouldn't be capable of....but it's still a sorry state of affairs that no one stepped up - it was the era of childline for example.  Didn't Esther Rantzen say she had heard the rumours of Savile?  Presumably this would ahve been floating around the same time

[Jim_Campbell]

I'll be honest: I'm not sure how much moral fortitude I could summon if a bullet in the back of the head was a real possibility for speaking out. Plus, there's the distinctly suspicious death of the wife of the Elm Tree guest house proprietor to chuck into the mix, too. I'm not condoning people's silence, but a real possibility of ending up dead would certainly make me think twice.

Jim

[Professor Bear]

If we're floating crazy theories, we may as well float the ones about the secret leaders of the world needing payment in the lives of children, or at the very least something with the Freemasons or Nessie.

Most likely the secrecy surrounding this is a matter of the press being powerless to even speak of the allegations in the face of yet another gagging order or super injunction - and to be fair, media outlets as diverse as Fox News and the Guardian have been trying to get us worried about that practice for quite some time now.

[The Legendary Shark]

I wonder if these vile rings could be traps? The shadowy elites lure in people with a certain personality type, spike their drinks, force or trick or peer-pressure them into the deed and then photograph/film/video it.
.
Blackmail factories?

[JOE SOAP]

I wonder if these vile rings could be traps? The shadowy elites lure in people with a certain personality type, spike their drinks, force or trick or peer-pressure them into the deed and then photograph/film/video it.

I think they're generally depraved individuals and their arrogance makes them ripe to be taken advantage of; coercion isn't needed for them to be perverts or compromised.

It's an old story and the US had it's own analogue around the same time- as documented by Yorkshire television's Tim Tate in his unaired 1992 documentary.

It was a pretty serious story before Icke put lizards into it.

[JayzusB.Christ]

I know I've already written about the Rolf Harris scandal, but I don't think the reality of the situation hit me till last night, when the whole thing preyed on my mind so much I couldn't sleep.  I trawled the internet trying to make sense of it all and to get used to the fact that his name in the media is now preceded by the words 'convicted paedophile' rather than 'much-loved entertainer'.  But I just can't get a handle on the whole thing.

Some of my earliest memories are my father entertaining me with a description of Jake the Peg, and my mother singing 'Two Little Boys' to my brother and me (though I was pleased to discover that Harris was neither the writer not the original performer of that song).  My job involves drawing cartoons, and when I think of it now there's no way I wasn't influenced by Rolf's Cartoon Club as a kid.  Within months he has gone from being described as a 'national treasure' to 'sinister pervert' (as the prosecution accurately put it).    It's a mindfuck; it really is, and I don't know how else I can put it.

How trivial the misdemeanours of Angus Deayton, Richard Bacon and Hugh Grant seem now:  Mere disappointment from our stars would be a welcome relief when my generation's two most popular British children's entertainers are exposed as twisted monsters (with a ghoulishness entering Silence of the Lambs territory in Savile's case).  These are crazy times.

And now this, a possible paedophile ring going to the very top of British society.  (As I mentioned in my previous post, we've already had a chance to get used to the fact here in Ireland.)  Where is it all going to end?  I remember rumours of necrophilia being connected to Savile almost 15 years ago, and if even a few of these new allegations prove to be true, it is very, very hard to see how the establishment can retain any of the people's trust.  Michael Gove doesn't want any public investigation of the situation.  Why not?  What possible reason could he have to discourage an investigation, other than to protect his peers?  That isn't a rhetorical question - I'm genuinely interested in whether anyone can suggest another reason. 

Anyway, sorry if I'm rambling; I've had the whole thing spinning round my mind all night and day and I'm hoping writing it down and discussing it with you people might help me to get a grasp on it. 

[ZenArcade]

Jazus, it is indeed mindbogglingly horrifying and disgusting. The very 'strongest' in society preying on the most vulnerable. Like yourself I'm personally struggling to grasp what has happened in Ireland over the past decades and now in GB.
I can only put it down to the possibility that many of those who fight their way through to positions of power or are bequeathed it by social background, have either sociopathic or Psychopathic personalities.
The public need transparent inquests by wholly independent scrutineers. Nothing less will suffice. Z