Some of us have been trying to tell you for years. There are perfectly good grounds on which to criticise Tom Watson. But this is not one of them, which is why I do not.
Once you are dead, then you are an historical figure. No historical figure is automatically regarded as "innocent" simply for the want of a criminal conviction in life. Carl Beech was the last person to accuse either Leon Brittan or Greville Janner. But he was very far from the first. Let there be no whitewash here.
The Hard Rights of both main parties, and the Cyril Smith wing that is dominant in economic policy terms within the Liberal Democrats, are so shot through with the sexual abuse of children that they are more or less defined by it. And like illegal drug use, sexual behaviour is never purely "private". Both of them open up the participants to blackmail.
Moreover, the intellectual contortions necessary to justify them in the minds of those participants have vast philosophical and political consequences, taking those minds from a broadly Conservative or Labour position to an explicitly Thatcherite or Blairite one.
In each constituency in 2024, there should be one candidate, of any party or none, who subscribed to this and this. The complete list of those candidates would appear here, and anywhere else that would publish it. If I could raise enough money to be a viable candidate, then I would contest the seat where the most people had offered to sign my nomination papers. Please give generously.
Only despotisms our corpses on trial. For the obvious reason that a dead person cannot defend themselves in court.
ReplyDeleteAnd that is why, once you are dead, you are a matter of historical interest. None of the great despots was ever convicted of anything.
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