Did previous Tory and Labour governments fund the Paedophile Information Exchange?

That is what Tom Watson asks in the Daily Mirror today.

Watson writes that a "retired insider" has told him he recalls raising his concern that the Volunteer Services Unit of the Home Office was directly funding the work of Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE). The insider's recollection is that he raised his fears with superiors but was left in no doubt that he should drop the matter. Watson says he has written to the Home Secretary asking her to initiate an inquiry.

It may sound incredible now, but I would not be at all surprised if this turns out to have been the case.

When I was working in Birmingham in 1981 and 1982, literature from PIE was on display at the city's Central Library along with that from other municipally approved right-on causes.

Less than a decade later the municipal left was cheering on the taking of children into care to protect them from satanists.