Harriet Harman In Trouble !

[mikey4444]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26333558

The DM may be up to its old smear tricks here but why on earth didn't Harman just admit that the PIE shouldn't have been allowed to be an associate member of the NCCL ? She was given plenty of opportunity on Newsnight but failed to do so. Even the DM is not trying to say that she is a fan of paedophilia but a simple apology would stop the DM's smear campaign dead in its tracks. I am afraid she has shot herself in the foot here.

[anotheoldgit]

I posted about this, but it didn't receive many replies at the time.

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/News/Question1316133.html

[LazyGun]

Interesting perspective, PP. Voltaires defence.

[ichkeria]

I doubt if anything would stop the Daily Mail in its tracks.
Stories like this make me despair. The paper knows full well that headlines mentioning "paedophilia" and "Harriet Harman" will make enough of an association in people's minds. Fretting about a now defunct organisation which coat-trailed on the NCCL many years ago is just pointless.

[mikey4444]

The smear was indeed the purpose of this campaign by the DM ichkeria, but Harman could have handled herself and this whole affair with a lot more intelligence and political aplomb than she has done. I have been a Labour supporter all my life but I can't confess to being HH's biggest fan. She has all the appearance of a rabbit caught in the headlights at times, and isn't terribly inspiring.

[Peter Pedant]

LG others have recalled that they were active at a time when the age of consent was being debated.

I also recall they ran a defence on free speech on their name
there is nothing unlawful about exchanging information

I thought Harriet Harman was pretty hopeless last night on a political level
but there again I thought she was gonna say - you have no idea what it was like then and what the context was.

[whiskeryron]

The very word Paedophile says it all, does no-one think it odd that an organisation would openly present itself in such a way if it was an underground organisation? Could it not be that it was originally launched in order to search out & name known Paedophiles & bring them out into the open to be dealt with by the authorities but somehow lost its way?

[LazyGun]

"Could it not be that it was originally launched in order to search out & name known Paedophiles & bring them out into the open to be dealt with by the authorities but somehow lost its way?"

Well that a novel interpretation.As best I can tell they were an organisation set up with the express intent of legitimising the notion of sexual relationships between children and adults, and lobbied on that platform, including lobbying for a change in the law surrounding incest etc. So no, I do not think they were set up with the intent of catching paedophiles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paedophile_Information_Exchange

I do find it odd they were able to exist for a decade or more, and may even have been the recipient of government grants though. I think PPs comments about the times and the debates going on at the time to be quite illuminating though.

[mikey4444]

Can't see what you say could possibly be true WR...here is the link again :::

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paedophile_Information_Exchange

[modeller]

Is this what the discussion is about ?
//In 1976, the British political pressure group Liberty published a proposal advocating reducing the age of consent laws to 10 years of age, only when both individuals are younger than 14, with a close-in-age exemption of two years if one of the involved individuals is older than 14 but younger than 16.[20] The report was signed by Harriet Harman, who later went on to become a prominent figure in government and deputy leader of the Labour Party.[21]//

[whiskeryron]

Right, thanks for the info.

[whiskeryron]

Apologies, how naive can one be ?

[LazyGun]

A slightly more detailed and point by point rebuttal of some of the insinuations and allegations being made against her by Harriet Harmon. Had she said these kind of things on Newsnight,it would have served her better.

http://www.harrietharman.org/nccl-statement---24022014

[mikey4444]

I have now watched the Newsnight interview, and it is apparent that the interviewer, a Ms Laura Kuenssberg, a person of whom I am not familiar, gave Harman plenty of opportunities to make amends, but she continually dodged the issue. Harman can be said to be beleaguered today but at least she didn't have to face Paxo last night. Ms Kuenssberg was like a dog with a bone but Paxo would have held on until he heard the bone snap.

Lucky Harriet !

[Gromit]

I wonder why she has not sued the Daily Mail? This is not the first time they have made the allegation.

[emmie]

the same link has been put 4 times, perhaps five, it's in the title, and it isn't just a matter for the DM. And anyone who thinks that a person who says that a 4 months old baby can have sexual feeling, and that the age of consent should be 4 years is mad.

[emmie]

let them sue and be damned, it's not just the Mail, the police are investigating, as i mentioned before, they quote from official papers, is that not enough.. or is it simply because it's the Mail. If it was a lead story by the Guardian, which i have also linked to, would that make it any more palatable

[sandyRoe]

They were bad and possibly mad, agree.
If PIE had paid a subscription would anybody have checked their antecedents or could they have slipped under the radar?

[ummmm]

I guess the Mail has much more money than Harriet Harman.

[Gromit]

Sandy

At the time PIE was not an illegal group so the NCCL would not deny them a subscription. They were one voice among 6000 member organisations. As I understand it, when PIE was prosecuted, then the NCCL severed links.

[emmie]

the right to sleep with children, how did they ever get further than coming up with the name of their organisation, let alone be affiliated by NCCL

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/10653944/The-right-to-sleep-with-children-was-one-civil-liberty-that-NCCL-supported.html