THERE IS A DARK cloud lingering once moreover over
Westminster. It concerns an establishment cover-up by the civil service of a
paedophile ring involving the so-called 'great and good'.
I
have just read the sentence of five years given to Rolf Harris, the latest in a
line of celebrities, since the Savile scandal, to be found guilty of various
sexual assaults against boys, girls, and women.
The
justice system has worked and the guilty have paid the price. Behaviour dating
as far back as the 1960s has been investigated by the police and evidence past to the CPS and prosecutions
have been brought. Many a celebrity has preceded Rolf Harris in the box and
been convicted in the hunt for all kinds of historical abuse against children
and women; from the pressing of a breast to rape (including homosexual) over
some 54 years.
Now
the focus is changing from celebrities to politicians; and in their case historical
abuses seem to have been covered up by the UK establishment itself. In 1983 the
Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens presented
the then Home Secretary, Leon Brittan with a large dossier detailing a paedophile ring operating in Westminster,
whose practices could have brought down the government at the time: but it now
appears Leon Brittan's civil service have shredded the documents. Brittan had
at first denied knowledge of the documents, but has now decided to come clean -
at least as far as their existence is concerned.
The documents were by all accounts toxic…for why else
would the civil service seek to protect their political masters by shredding
them? According to the press, there were ten high
profile names mentioned in the dossier; and now the former Children's Minister,
Tim Loughton, is prepared to use
parliamentary privilege to name names. But only as a nuclear option, hoping
that Cameron will get to the bottom of this. The dossier may be shredded, but
knowledge of its contents (especially the names) has, through word and mouth
over the decades since Geoffrey Dickens managed to a point finger, is still
known.
MP Simon Danczuk, who co-authored a book on the
perversions of the Liberal MP Cyril Smith, says nothing short of a public
enquiry will satisfy the public; and he is right. It was the Home office that
'lost' the dossier, and now it is this same institution that has been given the
job the prime minister investigating the dossier's disappearance.
The civil service are the servants of the politicians;
and servants serve their masters. The British civil service, is often boasted
of by their political masters, as the finest and most incorruptible in the
world. Yet it is no such thing. That our civil servants do not take bribes, of
this there is little doubt…especially at senior level.
But when it comes to protecting their political masters,
who, like them, represent the establishment; then they will do what is needed
to see that it is protected when it comes to scandal. So no, the Home Office,
or any other department of state cannot be trusted to investigate the
disappearance of the Dickens' dossier. Only a full scale public enquiry will
satisfy the British people.
Yet both Cameron and Clegg have opposed a public enquiry.
As if our political class are not already in bad odour with the public; they
now seek to test their patience once more after both the MP's expenses and cash
for questions scandal.
On Sky's Press Preview last night. One of the reviewers
told of a conversation he had with a high ranking police officer friend of his
in the Met. He was told that had as much police resources been put into the
MP's expenses investigation as had been put into phone hacking (some 200
officers), then some 50 or 60 MP's would had to serve prison sentences, instead
of the three that did.
As for Operation Yewtree, as the Jimmy Savile
investigation was called, 30 officers were involved in the investigation; and
as for Operation Fairbank the name given to the investigation into child abuse
at a guest house where rent boys entertained establishment figures including
Cyril Smith; just seven officers carried out the investigation and complained
that it was under resourced - and who was responsible for such resources? Why,
the political establishment.
It is said that Rolf Harris tried to keep his name out of
the frame early on by using his lawyers to keep the mouths of the press tightly
shut. But the Sun would have none of
it and gallantly stepped forward and called his lawyers bluff and named their
client. Now it is up to the same free press to do the same by publishing the
names in the Dickens' dossier. The names are known, and if the latest Home
Office inquiry adds little to what has already been said…then the names must be
forthcoming.
Brittan handed the Dickens' dossier over to a civil
servant. Is that civil servant still alive? To whom did he give it to enquire
into; is he or she still alive? And where did it go from there? It was in early
1980's after all, when Geoffrey Dickens presented his dossier to Leon Brittan.
So some 30 years have passed, and the names of all the civil servants involved
in the episode must be known, and some must be still alive.
THIS SCANDAL must
unravel if only for the simple reason that the law is seen only to apply to
certain people. All of those celebrities so far prosecuted have been from
working class backgrounds.
There seems to be a certain amount of cherry picking
going on; or it will seem to be if the establishment figures named in the
dossier are allowed to go unnamed; and especially if they are still alive, and
should be named as Rolf Harris[1]
was. Even if, after the 'disappearance' of the Dickens' dossier, its contents
remain known by those working in the media or among the Westminster elite; then
what they know should be brought out into the open; and if the only way names
can be produced is under parliamentary privilege then so be it.
It is easy for politicians to express their outrage and
disgust at the likes of Rolf Harris, but such sentiment will be regarded as
meaningless, if similar charges are made against their own kind and not
properly investigated.
Establishment cover-ups happen; and they usually happen when
the establishment is shown in bad odour. Civil servants near to government are
meant to serve the people; but often interpret this as serving the very
establishment they belong to culturally and socially. They need very little
instruction from politicians to shred a document, dossier, or files. Having finer
intellects than most MPs, they know better than their political masters what is
in the public interest, and the Dickens's dossier and the hundred or so files
that have gone 'missing', are exactly the kind information that the public
should never see…and the will not see.
[1] I
know that Harris was named only after his arrest. But if the establishment can
play dirty, why not the press when it comes to the establishment; sexual abuse
is after all abuse, from whatever quarter of society it seems to flourish.
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