Child abuse

Monday

Ed West

I’d like to nominate myself as Britain’s Paedofinder-General

Now that Elizabeth Butler-Sloss has stood down as head of the inquiry into historic sex abuse, I’d like to nominate myself as Britain’s new paedofinder-general. If I got the job, I would use the latest scientific techniques to track down every single sexual wrongdoer in Britain, alive or dead. Firstly I would type into Google the names of every person involved in the entertainment industry or politics between 1965 and 1990, followed by a ‘p’; if the word ‘paedophile’, ‘paedo’ or ‘pedo’ comes up in the top ten suggestions then the chances are that the person in question probably is one, so the CSI crime squads can turn up at

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lady Butler-Sloss steps down from child abuse enquiry

It is not a surprise that Lady Butler-Sloss has stepped down as chair of the independent inquiry panel into child abuse: a critical mass of stories had built up against her which meant it was impossible for her to continue leading an inquiry that is partly about conspiracy theories without herself becoming the target of conspiracy theories which would eventually weaken her findings. A resignation before the inquiry has even kicked off is a serious blow to the government, which had been trying so hard to play conspiracy whack-a-mole, to stay ahead of the critics by acting fast and appointing big names to lead big investigations into historic allegations. But

Thursday

Lara Prendergast

Podcast: paedomania, the next EU commissioner and the National Theatre

What kind of idiot tries to stand in the way of a national child abuse panic? Matthew Parris, that’s who. In this week’s Spectator, he suggests that the panic about paedophilia is careering right out of control. Dr Liz Davies begs to differ. In her view, the inquiry is 20 years too late. In this week’s View from 22 podcast, they discuss whether Westminster needs to calm down. For the next EU commissioner, Cameron needs a Eurosceptic Nick Clegg, says James Forsyth. But would the real Nick Clegg accept the role? The Prime Minister doesn’t have long to make up his mind — the makeup of the next commission will

Nick Cohen Nick Cohen

Lady Butler-Sloss should not lead the child abuse inquiry

Last week, Nick Cohen suggested that Lady Butler-Sloss was not the correct person to lead the child abuse enquiry. She has now resigned from her role.  The Guardian says today that Lady Butler-Sloss cannot be the right person to lead the inquiry into alleged child abuse. ‘Not only was her brother, Lord Havers, attorney general – and briefly lord chancellor – at the time of some of the allegations of cover-up. She is also of the same generation as those around whom rumours swirl. If she were still sitting as a judge, she would never contemplate being involved in a case that might touch, however remotely, on family or friends.’

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

Inside the whips’ ‘dirt books’

So all three parties are to trawl their ‘dirt books’ held by the whips and disclose any evidence that they find of child abuse. The role of the whips was raised by Lisa Nandy in the Commons on Monday, when she quoted former Tory chief whip Tim Fortescue, who told Michael Cockerell’s documentary on the whips: ‘Anyone with any sense, who was in trouble, would come to the whips and tell them the truth, and say now, ‘I’m in a jam, can you help?’. It might be debt, it might be… a scandal involving small boys, or any kind of scandal in which… a member seemed likely to be mixed

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Ed Miliband needs to mix things up to avoid Cameron’s PMQs attacks

Ed Miliband’s first few questions to David Cameron today were about the various inquiries into child abuse. Miliband wasn’t interested in creating controversy: he didn’t ask about whether Lady Butler-Sloss was the right person to run the inquiry given that her late brother was Attorney General when Geoffrey Dickens handed his file to the Home Secretary. But then Miliband turned to the NHS and the atmosphere in the House flipped. listen to ‘PMQs: Cameron and Miliband’ on Audioboo Cameron defiantly defended his use of statistics from last week. But it was once Miliband had asked his last question that Cameron went into full attack mode. He started denouncing Labour and

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

The Home Office acts busy, hoping to avoid a ‘tide of public anger’

Theresa May updated the Cabinet this morning on the inquiry she has launched into how public bodies have dealt with allegations of child abuse. The name of the inquiry panel chair and the terms of reference haven’t yet been announced, but when the Prime Minister’s official spokesman was asked when they might emerge, he said ‘I would expect an announcement on the chair of the panel soon’. Asked to define ‘soon’, the spokesman said ‘pretty soon’, which suggests that we will get more answers either before the Home Office Permanent Secretary Mark Sedwill sits down at 3.15pm to give evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, or that these announcements

Monday

Isabel Hardman

Theresa May announces independent inquiry into child abuse allegations

Theresa May has just given as comprehensive a response as possible to the allegations of child abuse in the Commons. Insisting the government will leave no stone unturned in pursuit of the allegations, the Home Secretary told MPs that there will an independent inquiry panel, along the lines of the Hillsborough inquiry, which will examine not just how the Home Office dealt with allegations, but also how the police and prosecutors dealt with information handed to them. As a non-statutory inquiry, it will be able to begin its work sooner and will be at a lower risk of prejudicing criminal investigations because it will begin with a review of documentary

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Theresa May to give ‘significant’ statement on child abuse row

What can we expect from the government response to the growing child abuse dossier row? Government sources are stressing this morning that Theresa May’s Commons statement will be ‘significant’ and that its content will be broader than simply naming the QC looking at the Home Office dossier. Based on David Cameron’s handling of previous historic cases such as Bloody Sunday and Hillsborough, the Prime Minister will want to give every impression that this government is doing everything it can to go where previous governments may have failed to or refused. It’s clear from the briefings and readiness of ministers including George Osborne and Nick Clegg to go on the airwaves

Monday

Ed West

The state is the worst wicked stepmother of all

What a fantastically stupid idea, I thought, reading the paper this morning.  ‘Parents who fail to show love and affection towards their children could be sent to prison for up to 10 years under a “Cinderella Law” to be announced in the Queen’s Speech in June, according to a report.  ‘The move will make “emotional cruelty” a criminal offence for the first time. The decision was hailed as a “monumental step” forwards by a children’s charity, which said children could grow up with “lifelong mental health problems” or end up taking their own lives.’ The law would make it a criminal offence for any parent to impair a child’s ‘physical,

Monday

Nick Cohen

When is a scandal not a scandal?

When it involves metropolitan left-wingers, says the Daily Mail. For a week, it has been exposing how Harriet Harman and Patricia Hewitt – or “Hat and Pat” as the London left of the early 1980s knew them – committed the National Council for Civil Liberties to the cause of helping the Paedophile Information Exchange. The Mail showed that while at the NCCL (now Liberty) * Hewitt described PIE in glowing terms as ‘a campaigning/counselling group for adults attracted to children’; * The NCCL lobbied Parliament for the age of sexual consent to be cut to ten – if the child consented and ‘understood the nature of the act’. * It

Thursday

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s Notes: French presidents used to have a touch of the monarch. Not any more

When I interviewed Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the former president of France, for my biography of Margaret Thatcher, I asked him why, when she lunched with him at the Elysée Palace for the first time, he had been served before her: she had been offended. M. Giscard explained that no slight had been intended. It was a matter of protocol — the president is the head of state, the British prime minister only the head of government. ‘You must remember,’ he added, ‘that the president is in the line of sovereigns.’ I recalled these words when reading about President Hollande and his amorous adventures in his helmet. To the British, it is

Monday

David Blackburn

David Cameron’s crackdown on child porn is not over yet

Parliament returns from a three day break today, but the headlines this morning are dominated by the international crackdown on online images of child abuse on the ‘dark internet’. Technology companies have made significant progress since July, when David Cameron urged them to do more to eradicate these ‘depraved and disgusting’ images. For example, 200 employees of Google have been targeting 100,000 search terms in order to locate pictures of child pornography. YouTube engineers have found a way to identify videos created by and for paedophiles, and Google and Microsoft have been collaborating to identify pictures of child pornography. This announcement has come before a meeting in Downing Street about joint

Sunday

Douglas Murray

A crisis, yes. But let’s not all shoot the BBC.

I have just returned from two hours of broadcasting on the BBC World Service. It is an odd time to be inside the BBC, not least because reporters from the organisation itself, as well as its rivals, are standing outside the studio doing pieces to camera about what is going on inside. Anyhow – having dealt with some web and print-press troubles in my last post, I wanted to jot down a few thoughts on the BBC’s troubles. 1) The first is that the Newsnight McAlpine story is devastating. How any news organisation, let alone the publicly-funded (and compared to its commercial rivals extremely well-funded) BBC could have run such

Friday

Isabel Hardman

Lord McAlpine: Abuse allegations ‘wholly false and seriously defamatory’

Lord McAlpine has broken cover this morning after the Guardian named him in its story claiming the peer is a victim of mistaken identity in the swirling allegations about a Tory paedophile. He has released a lengthy statement, which you can read here, denying the ‘wholly false and seriously defamatory’ claims, and adding that he never visited the children’s home where the abuse is alleged to have taken place: ‘The facts are, however, that I have been to Wrexham only once. I visited the local Constituency Conservative Association in my capacity as Deputy Chairman. I was accompanied on this trip, at all times, by Stuart Newman, a Central Office Agent.

Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Rob Wilson attacks Tom Watson on child abuse claims

After Lord McAlpine’s statement this morning about the allegations and rumours of child abuse surrounding the Tory peer and other figures, Tory MP Rob Wilson has gone on the warpath and written a stern letter to Tom Watson, who first raised the possibility of a paedophile ring linked to Number 10. Wilson doesn’t hold back in the letter, which you can read in full here: ‘MPs can and do play a vital role in bringing such matters to public attention. However, as a result of your repeated and sensationalist public claims of the involvement in abuse of a ‘senior aide of a former Prime Minister’, ‘a former cabinet minister’, and

Tuesday

Isabel Hardman

Calls grow for a wider public inquiry on child protection

The government is moving at a swift pace over the allegations of child abuse at North Wales children’s homes: yesterday it announced an review of the Waterhouse inquiry, today Theresa May announced National Crime Agency head Keith Bristow will lead a new investigation into the allegations of child abuse, and the Prime Minister’s official spokesman has just announced that the honourable Mrs Justice Julia Wendy Macur will lead the review of the Waterhouse Inquiry. But these inquiries announced in the past 36 hours are examining specific allegations, and MPs from across the house are starting to call for an over-arching inquiry which will incorporate those investigations into the BBC, the