Having done more than anyone else to bring this story to light over the last decade, I shall take the Daily
Mail more seriously when it also condemns Margaret Thatcher, whose pursuit
of Victoria Gillick secured a change in the law, effectively lowering the age
of consent to 13 or below, and that without any reference to Parliament.
The age of first intercourse fell dramatically during Thatcher’s Premiership, and she surrounded herself with figures such as those whom she ensured were dubbed Sir Jimmy Savile, Sir Cyril Smith, Sir Peter Morrison and Sir Laurens van der Post. Morrison even organised her 1990 Leadership Campaign, so great was her dependence on that notorious pederast.
It is now impossible to deny that sex between adults and those in early adolescence was simply normal behaviour in the 1970s and 1980s. Jokes about gymslips and what have you were the stuff of primetime, mass entertainment.
Sentences were quashed, or extremely lenient ones were imposed, for sex between even middle-aged people and anyone from the age of 13 upwards.
On the rare occasions when prosecutions were brought at all, which especially in cases involving women and young boys, they almost never were. Or, for that matter, are.
(For that matter, just how old, or young, are the three boys sentenced today in Peterborough for grooming? There is a long and ongoing history of prosecuting boys even when they were younger than the girls involved, and indeed the law used to require that.)
Even The Sun and the News of the World published articles calling for the age of consent to be lowered to 14, if not abolished altogether.
Media attitudes changed in the late 1970s, culminating in the enactment of the Protection of Children Act 1978, a Private Member’s Bill of the lately deceased Sir Cyril Townsend, who was then still a Conservative, but to which Jim Callaghan had given Government time.
However, that covered only images, and the Thatcher years saw the proportion of those losing their virginity before the age of 16 increase to one in two.
In every single one of those years, she spent New Year’s Eve with Jimmy Savile.
The age of first intercourse fell dramatically during Thatcher’s Premiership, and she surrounded herself with figures such as those whom she ensured were dubbed Sir Jimmy Savile, Sir Cyril Smith, Sir Peter Morrison and Sir Laurens van der Post. Morrison even organised her 1990 Leadership Campaign, so great was her dependence on that notorious pederast.
It is now impossible to deny that sex between adults and those in early adolescence was simply normal behaviour in the 1970s and 1980s. Jokes about gymslips and what have you were the stuff of primetime, mass entertainment.
Sentences were quashed, or extremely lenient ones were imposed, for sex between even middle-aged people and anyone from the age of 13 upwards.
On the rare occasions when prosecutions were brought at all, which especially in cases involving women and young boys, they almost never were. Or, for that matter, are.
(For that matter, just how old, or young, are the three boys sentenced today in Peterborough for grooming? There is a long and ongoing history of prosecuting boys even when they were younger than the girls involved, and indeed the law used to require that.)
Even The Sun and the News of the World published articles calling for the age of consent to be lowered to 14, if not abolished altogether.
Media attitudes changed in the late 1970s, culminating in the enactment of the Protection of Children Act 1978, a Private Member’s Bill of the lately deceased Sir Cyril Townsend, who was then still a Conservative, but to which Jim Callaghan had given Government time.
However, that covered only images, and the Thatcher years saw the proportion of those losing their virginity before the age of 16 increase to one in two.
In every single one of those years, she spent New Year’s Eve with Jimmy Savile.
Except PIE didn't advocate sex between adolescents and adults.
ReplyDeleteIt advocated lowering the age of consent to four.
And, failing that, lowering it to ten.
That was not "completely normal" then or now.
And as for Harriet Harman, Jack Dromey and Patricia Hewitt's refusal to even answer, let alone apologise, any decent party would have put them into the outer darkness by now.
That Miliband hasn't even demanded they even apologise for this disgrace, says it all.
The paedophile-loving Deputy Leader indeed.
That reads as if you are on the side of the social and legal normalisation of sex with early teenagers. No wonder that you are such an admirer of Thatcher.
ReplyDeleteThe BBC has not picked up this story, so, even though I have spent 10 years trying to get it known, I am no further forward than I was. That is how news in Britain works: there is really only the BBC.
Oh I couldn't agree with you more about the BBC.
ReplyDeleteBashing the Catholic Church after spending 20 years in bed with Saville, what do you expect?
Read the alternative media about James Rennie and Matthew Byrne of Common Purpose and about Oxford and Cherwell Valley.
Indeed, read about the Labour council's cover-up of Islington in the early 90's.
No I do not advocate sex with adolescents.
I was responding to your claim that Harriet Harman's views were "normal" in the 80's.
They were.
ReplyDeleteMore is the pity, but they were.