Cameron’s Gay Witch-Hunt

LesAbbey on November 21, 2012 — 5 Comments

David Cameron

When David Cameron was ambushed by Phillip Schofield on daytime TV he must have been pretty annoyed. That didn’t follow the Tony Blair rule book that sitting on a sofa in these shows was a safe bet. No big questions need be answered and it’s so much easier than being in with the likes of Jeremy Paxman.

The ambush for those who didn’t see it was fairly amateurish. Schofield passed a piece paper to Cameron with the names of establishment child abusers he had found on the internet in just a few minutes. Cameron ignored the list and said that he feared it could turn into a ‘gay witch-hunt’.

Now why did he have that fear and use that term?

In no way is my following answer meant to be moralising on either homosexuality or even on the despicable treatment of vulnerable children by those with some power over them. What I would like to point out is that embodied in Cameron’s fear is the double-standard demanded by our political class.

Anyone surfing the internet at that time, just a couple of weeks ago would have seen a number of names of Tory politicians rightly or wrongly identified as being involved in breaking the law. Two of those names were of men working in Thatcher’s Number 10, one an MP and the other a political appointee. The charge being leveled was the police had turned a blind eye to them breaking the then laws in having sexual relations with young men, sometimes in a public place.

Now this wasn’t just a Tory phenomenon in our recent political history. Certainly before the 1967 legalising of homosexuality in Roy Jenkin’s Sexual Offenses Act there were well known offenders in parliament. Labour’s Tom Driberg and the Tory Lord Boothby were notorious.

In 1967 the age of homosexual consent was set at 21 years. In 1994 it was changed to 18 years and in 2000 to the present 16 years. Now whether the laws were right or wrong is whole other argument, but my argument is the law should be enforced equally on whether you a bus driver, an MP or a lord. If the police were charging ‘normal’ people for offenses then our political classes should be equally charged. If in the records of the Met we find that some were not treated equally but given privileged treatment because of who they were, then it should be made public.

Why would Cameron fear our political class being held to the same standards that they themselves set in law for the rest of the population. We have seen in the expense scandals, right up to recently David Laws cheating the public purse, that the politicians demand a different set of rules for themselves.

Of course the real shame in recent weeks is that we seem to be more worried by the political fallout and harmed reputations, rather than the suffering endured by children at the hands of predatory figures of authority. I’m sure those wrongly accused will end up with more money than those child victims let down so badly by society.

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  • Anonymous

    I suspect Scofield fell for the same list that’s been doing the rounds now for a while. The list which is now freely available , has names that we already knew about like Edward Heath, who it’s stated kept MI5/6 very busy warning him many times, was it true you’d have to ask the people at the ministry. Scofield of course did the easy bit went onto the internet down loaded the names from one site then did not bother digging up the dirt, he believed what others had written silly boy.

    Children we all know that go back to the fifties and sixties we all lived in a different world, secret societies of child abuse, but the problem is it’s still going on and that the Labour party and Blair and the police did not take seriously enough, but then again when the leader of the labour party slaps a D notice on the case it pretty much ended the investigation of 7,500 named people from the FBI who are they we will not know until the D notice is lifted in 75 years time.

    I can say one name is that of one Tony Blair and the case goes back to 1983, but when reporters tried to trace the court proceeding they have gone, does this mean it’s been hidden or it did not happen, until proved I would say it did not happen.

    But now look at those who it did happen to the list is pretty scary and most are Labour Tory and liberals these names are all guilty because they were found guilty, many of them MP’s or councilors the list is long and again it can be seen easy.

    seems children and women are not safe in this modern world.

  • swatantra

    Good to see Les on his high horse again, proving that there is still life left in LH. From small acorns oak trees grow.

    But its pretty underhand to ‘ambush’ the PM in a TV Studio, when you know that he can’t possibly comment; Dave handled that with his usual aplomb I thought and gave a generalised response adding that we can’t have a witch hunt etc, and trial by TV.

    And neither can we have names passed around willynilly on twitter or TV. Its for the police to investigate and name names and possibly charge.

    But I am more worried by Les’ last paragraph and the morality behind saying in effect: sorry we made a mistake in accusing you; you can pick up your damages on the way out; no harm done, eh. The fact is we should be equally concerned about the wrongly accused as with the victims. Its rather like hanging the wrong man and saying sorry afterwards.

    Dave’s moustache I thought looks quite fetching; I often think that EdM would look more Statesman like if he sported an Abe Lincoln.

    And there is a way for Newspapers to get around pointing fingers at errant politicians. It was done at the time of Lord Lampton. You run two stories side by side on the front page and make no accusations but let the public draw their own conclusions. But you have to be absolutely certain you’ve got the right man.

    • Anonymous

      Well of course we do not know whom is involved as we know about compensation it can be repaid if proved wrong at a later day date.

      But of course we will have to wait under Blair’s D notice is removed or of course seek to find out as most of have by looking at the American blogs from the FBI .

      Now of course the FBI may well have got the news wrong and the people be totally innocent, sadly they or we will never know because of a D notice, but some of the names which cannot be repeated due to that notice are dam interesting.

      Then again if the names were Joe Blogs from nowhere street I’m sure dear old Blair would not have slapped the notice would he.

    • DevonChap

      Good post Swat.

      I fear Les has fallen into the trap of looking for outrage. Cameron asking for the peado scare not to become a gay witch hunt is taken as evidence he wants a gay witch hunt. So his words meant the opposite of what he said then?

      Or a more logical explanation. In the 1980s gay Tories generally stayed in the closet and there were lots of rumours. In the way of rumours they have got exaggerated and some of those the idiots on the internet are calling Tory peados are only under suspicion because they were gay. It is the morons of the internet who like homosexuality to child abuse. Cameron has seen this, doesn’t think its fair they should be slandered like that and says so. You got to want it for that to be offensive.

      I’d say the recent events have shown the sagacity of Cameron’s reply to Schofield’s little stunt. People should be treated as innocent until proven guilty. The police can cock up, like the did in thinking that the McApline who abused Steve Messham must have been the Tory peer, not the one who lived locally. I know that Tory heaters just love the idea of linking paedophilia to the word Conservative but unless new evidence turns up, it is false.

      If the Met hid evidence, chase them up. But then don’t put your faith in the copper’s words

  • DevonChap

    Cameron’s Movember tache has gone really well.