The Jimmy Saville case has opened a can of worms. This reaches beyond the BBC into the political establishment. Ever since the Waterhouse enquiry into the North Wales abuse scandal in the late 1990s, the names of certain senior Conservatives have been mentioned as being at the centre of a notorious paedophile ring.
Sir Ronald Waterhouse ruled that the names of alleged abusers remain anonymous during four years of hearings that ended in 2000, so none were mentioned in the press reports of the time. Only a handful of low-level abusers were convicted. The big names escaped justice.
The Guardian's Nick Davies did some deep digging into the case, and refers to the main figures involved without naming them. Scallywag, the defunct muckraking journal founded by the late Simon Regan, named names in a series of shocking but unprovable claims that can be read in this blog. (This blog has no new entries this decade, so I am not sure if this means it is written by Regan before his death aged 58.) If even half of what it claims is true, the exposure of such scandals to the public would make MPs expenses and the hacking affair seem like the most piffling of non-events. These allegations implicate Lady Thatcher in a cover-up. Will David Cameron's new enquiry deal with this and potentially see his party's name ruined like the Catholic church in Ireland?
Jimmy Saville's crimes are now being exposed. Meanwhile the Prime Minister has announced a new enquiry to re-examine the work of the Waterhouse enquiry and allegedly uncover what it missed.
The problem with public enquiries run by establishment figures is that they tend to bury the really bad stuff in a sea of data and mind-numbing detail. But make no mistake, the North Wales paedophile ring, if exposed, will rock the establishment to its knees. The Tory grandees from Cameron down must, right now, be planning a survival and deflection strategy. That strategy will involve these new enquiries, who runs them, their remit, and how they are reported.
Tom Watson MP, who helped to give us Leveson and to ask the tough questions others were avoiding, is taking a lead in all this. We should recall, of course, that Murdoch has survived the hacking scandal and come back fighting. But North Wales and Jimmy Saville are different. Millie Dowler's phone was hacked. North Wales involved the systematic abuse, and in some cases murder, of scores, hundreds of vulnerable children. The stakes are much higher. How can a democracy be kept in the dark for this long? Can the establishment limit the damage of this scandal? Will victims and the public be denied justice again?
Sir Ronald Waterhouse ruled that the names of alleged abusers remain anonymous during four years of hearings that ended in 2000, so none were mentioned in the press reports of the time. Only a handful of low-level abusers were convicted. The big names escaped justice.
The Guardian's Nick Davies did some deep digging into the case, and refers to the main figures involved without naming them. Scallywag, the defunct muckraking journal founded by the late Simon Regan, named names in a series of shocking but unprovable claims that can be read in this blog. (This blog has no new entries this decade, so I am not sure if this means it is written by Regan before his death aged 58.) If even half of what it claims is true, the exposure of such scandals to the public would make MPs expenses and the hacking affair seem like the most piffling of non-events. These allegations implicate Lady Thatcher in a cover-up. Will David Cameron's new enquiry deal with this and potentially see his party's name ruined like the Catholic church in Ireland?
Jimmy Saville's crimes are now being exposed. Meanwhile the Prime Minister has announced a new enquiry to re-examine the work of the Waterhouse enquiry and allegedly uncover what it missed.
The problem with public enquiries run by establishment figures is that they tend to bury the really bad stuff in a sea of data and mind-numbing detail. But make no mistake, the North Wales paedophile ring, if exposed, will rock the establishment to its knees. The Tory grandees from Cameron down must, right now, be planning a survival and deflection strategy. That strategy will involve these new enquiries, who runs them, their remit, and how they are reported.
Tom Watson MP, who helped to give us Leveson and to ask the tough questions others were avoiding, is taking a lead in all this. We should recall, of course, that Murdoch has survived the hacking scandal and come back fighting. But North Wales and Jimmy Saville are different. Millie Dowler's phone was hacked. North Wales involved the systematic abuse, and in some cases murder, of scores, hundreds of vulnerable children. The stakes are much higher. How can a democracy be kept in the dark for this long? Can the establishment limit the damage of this scandal? Will victims and the public be denied justice again?
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