Patrick Rock, Daily Mail, etc.

Bournemouth Addick

I'm aware that we've had several fairly heavy going threads recently so Admin feel free to close if you would rather not have another but does any one else think that the timing of things is just not quite right?

We should absolutely NOT discuss Patrick Rock's individual case, he's not even been charged after all, but the timing of the Mail's recent 'disclosures' about Harriet Harmon, etc is deeply suspect IMO i.e. it took place after a senior aid and close friend of the PM was arrested. The PIE links to the National Council for Civil Liberties story has been in the pubic domain for years and years so why did the Mail only now decide to bring it up in the period between Rock's arrest and it becoming pubic knowledge? The cynical view is clearly that it was very helpful to the government to pre-empt any potential criticism in the wake of Patrick Rock's arrest by associating leading Labour figures with such a deeply unpleasant organisation. I believe Cameron is on record as ordering his MP's not to make any political capital out of the Mail's recent story and now we know why.

I know that some will say that it was also the Mail that broke the Rock story but from what I can gather other media outlets were starting to ask questions as to his unexplained whereabouts and in fairness, having read the coverage in the Mail today it's about as 'good' as it could possibly be under the circumstances e.g. there's no mention whatsoever that his career in government goes back to working directly for Margaret Thatcher or how he managed to get presumably a very high level security clearance.

It seems clear to me that there has been a quid pro quo arrangement with the government and the Mail operating in the last couple of weeks and with what's been going on in Ukraine in the last few days one might also say it was a good time to release such bad news.

I'm not prone to conspiracy theories but it all seems rather too convenient for my liking and if half of what I've read and heard elsewhere turns out to be true I think we might be in for a very, very vicious run up to the next election.

LuckyReds

Wait... Have you started a discussion to urge us not to discuss something?

One word: inception.

Bournemouth Addick

LuckyReds said:

Wait... Have you started a discussion to urge us not to discuss something?

One word: inception.

Nope the Patrick Rock 'case' discussion is a very different subject from the discussion around whether Downing Street has been using the Daily Mail as a deliberate pre-emptive strike against the opposition. As in the 'well you lot can't talk, look at what Harriet was involved in' type of thing.

FWIW I've never been brave enough to watch Inception, I fear I might end up with a very bad headache if I did :-)

theeenorth

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/10675036/Who-is-Patrick-Rock.html

stonemuse

Could be wrong but I thought that Rod Liddle started the current PIE media interest with an article in the Spectator

Leroy Ambrose

stonemuse said:

Could be wrong but I thought that Rod Liddle started the current PIE media interest with an article in the Spectator

Rod Liddle. The most effective argument for contraception in history.

Absurdistan

Bournemouth Addick

stonemuse said:

Could be wrong but I thought that Rod Liddle started the current PIE media interest with an article in the Spectator

Don't know about that but it's certainly the Mail group leading on it in the mainstream. Make no mistake this info has been out there (even on Wikipedia in fact) for ages, as in years. Hence my suspicion as to why the decision to run with it at the time was aroused.

Steve Dowman

yawn, I blame thatcher etc etc etc

soapy_jones

Daily Fail... blah de blah de blah de blah de blah

Bournemouth Addick

Hmm...as I said earlier in the thread I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories but with this disclosure that the Home Office has 'lost' the Dickens report naming prominent public figures and politicians involved in these activities in the 70's and 80's it is deeply suspicious.

I think we are seeing the build up to a very dirty election campaign run through the media with some old names from the past and some still involved in top level politics getting 'outed' as to what they did or what they knew.

Dippenhall

From what I have heard there was certainly a pedophile ring operating. I was given a second hand account of two brothers whose aristocratic mother took them to be abused at parties attended by the great and the good. One brother wants to out everyone the other wants to protect the family.

Bournemouth Addick

Looks like it might be starting to unravel at last. A few household names in politics will not be sitting comfortably tonight...



Lots more to come out around this in the next few months if what I've been led to believe is true.

Bournemouth Addick

All starting to unravel a bit faster than I thought with disclosure this morning that the Home Office lost/destroyed 114 files relating to paedophile activity in and around Westminster and that Geoffrey Dickens submitted evidence to more than one Home Secretary.

telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10949117/Whitehall-child-sex-inquiry-the-114-files-lost.html

This all has the potential to make Watergate look trivial in comparison.

I-SAW-POUSO-PLAY

Shame a certain ex pm is now dead.

soapy_jones

I see the muck raking has started to schedule. At least it sells papers eh? Let's not wait for any official initial investigation, that won't sell any papers, fill news segments or serve any deep seated political prejudices! Victims? nah we'll get around to those poor bastards at a later date.

Oggy Red

Link not working, Mr Bournemouth.

kentaddick

Looks like the press are taking their revenge for leveson. The "real world" really is like some playground squabble.

SantaClaus

Looking at this from a political point of view I can see a huge swath of UKIP voters who might have come back to the Tories for the general election staying put and quite lot of the true blue faithful either abstaining or looking for alternatives (likely to be UKIP again). Who wants to vote for a party that covers up child abuse? The conservatives are toast next year.

Bournemouth Addick

soapy_jones said:

I see the muck raking has started to schedule. At least it sells papers eh? Let's not wait for any official initial investigation, that won't sell any papers, fill news segments or serve any deep seated political prejudices! Victims? nah we'll get around to those poor bastards at a later date.

Muck raking? The whole point of this story is that there has been no official investigation despite a (Tory) MP's efforts to raise this over many years with successive Home Secretaries. This is nothing to do with Leveson either IMO but lots to with the fall out from Savile and victims finally feeling like they have a voice.

tangoflash

SantaClaus said:

Looking at this from a political point of view I can see a huge swath of UKIP voters who might have come back to the Tories for the general election staying put and quite lot of the true blue faithful either abstaining or looking for alternatives (likely to be UKIP again). Who wants to vote for a party that covers up child abuse? The conservatives are toast next year.

Think you're right. I've never voted for them personally, but really can't bring myself to vote for Daffy Duck Ed Milliband. UKIP can just f**k right off.

Pity screaming lord sutch is no longer with us..............

The Red Robin

Bournemouth Addick said:

Hmm...as I said earlier in the thread I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories but with this disclosure that the Home Office has 'lost' the Dickens report naming prominent public figures and politicians involved in these activities in the 70's and 80's it is deeply suspicious.

I think we are seeing the build up to a very dirty election campaign run through the media with some old names from the past and some still involved in top level politics getting 'outed' as to what they did or what they knew.

I think you're right there. Both campaigns are being run by ex-Obama staff (Messina and Axelrod) and they will not be afraid to sling some mud. They did it to Hillary Clinton and then John McCain.

Uboat

I-SAW-POUSO-PLAY said:

Shame a certain ex pm is now dead.

No it isn't.

kentaddick

SantaClaus said:

Looking at this from a political point of view I can see a huge swath of UKIP voters who might have come back to the Tories for the general election staying put and quite lot of the true blue faithful either abstaining or looking for alternatives (likely to be UKIP again). Who wants to vote for a party that covers up child abuse? The conservatives are toast next year.

yeah, not like labour convinced us to enter a conflict under false pretences which has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Not to say that paedophilia isnt a despicable perversion, but it puts it more in perspective. Funny how if it happens thousands of miles away you can simply ignore it when going into the polling station.

I-SAW-POUSO-PLAY

Uboat said:

I-SAW-POUSO-PLAY said:

Shame a certain ex pm is now dead.

No it isn't.

He definitely is dead

Bournemouth Addick

I-SAW-POUSO-PLAY said:

Uboat said:

I-SAW-POUSO-PLAY said:

Shame a certain ex pm is now dead.

No it isn't.

He definitely is dead

I don't think the timing of all this is entirely coincidental either. Very much easier to get cross party support for an investigation if MP's are not seen to be sticking the knife into previous PM's.

Goonerhater

How is this "party political" no nonces in the good old moral and upstanding Labour party ?

It was files assembled by the Tories ( G Dickens MP) on both Houses that have been "lost".
Lord Tebit said its a massive scandal on TV yesterday.

The level of mis-trust the public have for our MPs after the expenses BS will be a fraction if its discovered that they knew nonces were active for decades and did nothing.

MuttleyCAFC

There has been a lot of partial information that has got out that suggests there could be something major behind all of this. The thing that has puzzled me as it puzzles a lot of people is the question - how did Saville get away with it/have people covering up his actions to the point where he could do as he chose to do? The explanation is generally about the power he had- but he was a DJ and a bit of a joke figure as I remember him - far more feasible is that he was kept safe/protected because of what he knew rather than what he was.

To me, for him to be so open and prolific suggests he knew people with power had his back. I don't know the facts and don't claim to, but this makes more sense to me than any personal influence he could use to supress the truth of his crimes. There are stories out there that he acted as a pimp. If you act as a pimp to powerful people, you gain their power and protection as long as they trust you. Saville would have been particularly reliable because of what they knew he got up to himself - he wasn't going to expose anybody.

A Peado who gets away with it needs three things - Desire, Opportunity and the complicity of others - those with only the first two will be more likely to get caught. But if people with the first two were offered the last, a very dangerous and powerful club could be formed. One where they think they are unstopable.

To find the truth you need to have a theory and test it. I just think this stacks up more than the Saville acting alone version does. But the thing that I have trouble is - this is generally a private activity - how does this ring get formed. Maybe by powerful people who are party to security information. So if you know a minister say may like young boys from something on his record, maybe you try to set him up with something he can't resist. Then he is part of your ring and it gains his power. If I was investigating this, I would want to have some questions explained better - not saying they can't be - but we need to demand to know how Saville could possibly have got away with what he did in a better way than we have had so far.

Covered End

A whole load of assumptions made there Muttley.

MuttleyCAFC

Yes, which is what we should be doing and why there needs to be an enquiry. That nobody had Saville's back is an assumption. My point is, what is the most realistic one? Surely you investigate from there.