Tuesday, February 25, 2014

It's not a smear if it's true


The links between Harriet Harman, her husband Jack Dromey, a former Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt and the National Council for Civil Liberties (a left wing pressure group) to the odious Paedophile Information Exchange have been hitting the headlines for a week or so now, though to me this is old news as The Slog had more or less exposed the entire sordid episodes several years ago although then the MSM didn't want to know and their discovery really wasn't as it was no secret.

Still we do have the usual damage limitation exercise going on...BBC.
Harriet Harman has accused the Daily Mail of running a "politically-motivated smear campaign" against her.
The newspaper has reported that a civil liberties group she used to work for had links to paedophile rights campaigners in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Labour deputy leader told the BBC she had never been an "apologist for paedophilia" and had sought to protect children from abuse during her career.
But the newspaper said she had failed to answer its questions.
From 1978 to 1982 Ms Harman was legal officer at the National Council for Civil Liberties, which was the predecessor to campaign group Liberty.
The facts remain that PIE was granted affiliated status before Harman, Dromey and Hewitt's watch, afterwards however they may not have known (as unlikely as it seems) about PIE's agenda, indeed, the NCCL described PIE – granted formal ‘affiliate’ status from 1975 to the mid-Eighties – in glowing terms as ‘a campaigning/counselling group for adults attracted to children’. Yet nothing was done and no, despite Harman's claims there weren't thousands of affiliates either.
If anything what the NCCL did was typical of many left wing groups looking for votes under any circumstances by allying themselves to the most odious of people or causes, you can see it today with their slavish support of Islam despite Islam's misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia towards anything other than Islam which has meant the left dropping like a stone their previous support of gay and Women's rights in their scramble to make new friends and use them.
Should Harman and the others apologise?
Well the current chairman of Liberty who developed out of the NCCL has apologised for past links and as Harman and co were enablers to a certain extent of PIE's status in the NCCL then perhaps yes they should. But they also know the price of an apology, apologies means the mud has stuck and it would be difficult for Harman to ressurect her career if she did apologise.
So expect a lot more weasel words before anything concrete happens.

4 annotations:

Anonymous said...

Yes, but.

PIE got affiliate status in 1975.
Harman became NCCL legal officer in 1978.
To what extent did she have power to change the status quo of the organisation?
That's a known unknown.

Quiet_Man said...

Unfortunately the known unknown does not appear to hold water either.

http://order-order.com/2014/02/25/the-nccl-penguin-guide-to-paedos/

JuliaM said...

The 'Mail' is clearly going with the death of a thousand cuts. Each day they keep the story in the headlines, she bleeds a little more.

Good. Couldn't happen to a more deserving woman.

Kath Lissenden said...

Harriet Harman is a nasty piece of work, my mother had several run ins with her in the days of the GLC.
It's almost academic if she knew or not, the fact remains she has a link to this mess and it is part of the Left's philosophy to make these strange bed fellows and then deny the consequences when they finally catch up with them.
I agree whole heartedly with your comments.
I have no sympathy for Harman she has pulled some strokes in her time using the press when it suits her, then cries wolf when she gets the same treatment dealt to her that she has inflicted on others.
Her underlying aim has always been to be the first woman to lead Labour,and if this story finally puts the nail in that coffin of dreams, thank goodness. It would be like putting someone with an eating disorder in charge of a restaurant.