Everyone has known about Leon Brittan for at least 30 years.
Anyone who grew up in an old mining area knows that references to the then Home Secretary's proclivities had to be kept out of the court records and the local newspaper reports when, as was routine, striking miners referred to them in the dock.
Private Eye also used to joke with impunity about his pederasty, and indeed about his pederasty with impunity.
Margaret Thatcher's idolised father was a notorious toucher up of his teenage shopgirls, and she went on to surround herself with Brittan, Savile (one of her very closest friends), Smith, Morrison (her closest political lieutenant), Hayman, van der Post, and all the others on whom she lavished honours and so forth.
Savile's knighthood was at her fourth attempt, when she finally overruled the entire vetting process.
That the Radical Right put out pamphlets demanding the legalisation of paedophile activity was mentioned in Our Friends in the North, which was broadcast in 1996.
Our Friends in the North is so integral to subsequent popular culture that one of its four stars is now James Bond, another was the first Doctor of this century's revival of Doctor Who, and neither of the others is exactly obscure.
That Thatcherite MPs were likely to commit sexual violence against boys with the full knowledge of the party hierarchy formed quite a major subplot in To Play the King, the middle series of the original House of Cards trilogy.
To Play the King was broadcast as long ago as 1993.
No politician or commentator of the generation that is now in or approaching its pomp could possibly have seen anything less than every minute of that trilogy.
This is not going to go away.
Oh, and of course, everyone in the media always knew about the Paedophile Information Exchange, too.
The Mail resurrected that ancient story in order to sit on the very current one of Patrick Rock, of whom astonishingly few people have ever heard.
Over, I feel, to the very great man, Tom Watson.
Oh, and of course, everyone in the media always knew about the Paedophile Information Exchange, too.
The Mail resurrected that ancient story in order to sit on the very current one of Patrick Rock, of whom astonishingly few people have ever heard.
Over, I feel, to the very great man, Tom Watson.
By "everyone has known" you mean there were rumours. That's not the same as knowing for sure.
ReplyDeleteThere is as much evidence as there is against numerous other dead people who were never charged with anything, by no means only in this sphere of activity.
DeleteAnd House of Cards was written by one of the best informed, best connected, most effective Tory backroom operators of the last 40 years. Everybody knew about the New Right and paedophilia, they thought age of consent laws were Nanny State interference like drug laws. They wanted rid of both of them in principle and they ignored both of them in practice. As To Play the King made clear they were also extremely hostile to the monarchy. House of Cards depicts their dislike of religion and so on. The original House of Cards trilogy should be shown again, it is a devastating indictment of the roots of the Thatcher and Cameron Governments by a much more traditional Tory who knew exactly what he was talking about.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is why it will not be shown again. But everyone should watch it.
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