Jeremy Thorpe, racism and rock and roll

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Here, photographed backstage at the Royal Festival Hall in 1967, are Jimi Hendrix and the then leader of the Liberal Party, Jeremy Thorpe. Other photos taken on the same occasion show Hendrix tutoring Thorpe in playing the guitar.

So was Thorpe keener on rock and roll than Cyril Smith was?

Judge for yourself. Here he is talking about the film Rock Around the Clock on BBC Radio in 1956:

"I am a lover of music; therefore I am prejudiced and don't like jazz. Jazz to me comes from the jungle, and this is jungle music taken to its logical conclusion. This is musical Mau-Mau."

The racism here makes you catch your breath, particularly as Thorpe was a principled opponent of Apartheid in South Africa.

I remember hearing this extract played on the radio more than once when I was a boy - it may be that John Ebdon used it in his creative archive programmes.

In his book The Restless Generation - How rock music changed the face of 1950s Britain, Pete Frame suggests that it comes from an edition of Does the Team Think (DTTT), but that sounds unlikely. DTTT was a sort of parody of Any Questions? with comedians on the panel, so it's more likely that it comes from Any Questions? itself.

Cyril Smith vs rock and roll

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Britain was a little wary of rock ‘n’ roll in January 1957. The previous autumn had seen the film Rock Around the Clock spark riots across the land, and next month the stars of that movie, Bill Haley and His Comets were to land in Southampton, bringing real-life rock to Britain. The consequences were uncertain.

In the lull before the anticipated storm, the spotlight turned on various dancehalls that were running lunchtime rock ’n’ roll events. These were simple affairs: admission cost threepence, tea and soft drinks were available, records were played, and people danced. A good time was had by all.

But, as this old post by Alwyn Turner on Lion & Unicorn tells us, not everyone was happy with these lunchtime events.

Among the critics was a 26-year-old -Labour councillor from Rochdale called Cyril Smith. He was chairman of the governors of two technical schools - one for boys, one for  girls - a "stone’s throw" from the town's Carlton Ballroom:

"Rock 'n’' roll is hitting youth club work," he said. "At the Lea Hall Youth Club we have had to recruit a completely new netball team. The first team are rocking 'n' rolling on Saturday afternoons. Youth club attendances have dwindled alarmingly.’

Smith’s main concern, though, was the age of the dancers at the Carlton:

The management assured me that only those of sixteen would be on the dance floor, but that was not so, for I recognised many as schoolchildren under sixteen. The girls had changed quickly into dresses from school uniform to deceive the management. And on the balcony, to where the under-sixteens were directed, there were twenty-five couples, many as young as eleven, rocking 'n' rolling.

His conclusion was that this had to be stopped. "I propose to recommend that the premises should be placed out of bounds to schoolchildren during school hours," he told the press, and he was as good as his word. The following month, the Carlton’s licence came up before the Rochdale Licensing Justices, and Smith was there to make his objections.

Smith was successful. Alwyn Turner records that the Carlton's music licence was amended to stop the lunchtime dances, permitting it to open only between 2 pm and 11 pm (or 11.30 pm on the weekend).

Turner wrote his post in 2019, when Smith's career as an abuser of boys and young men was in the headlines. 

He tells us that Smith

retained his interest in youth activities, however, and by the beginning of the 1970s – now returned to the Liberal Party, whence he had come – he was chair of the council’s Education Committee, its Youth Committee and its Youth Employment Committee, while also serving on the committees of the Rochdale Youth Opera and the Youth Theatre Workshop. 

Where he had been a governor of two schools, he was now on the board of twenty-nine. And then there was the Cambridge House hostel that he had helped found and that was the site of much of his abuse.

When Cyril Smith died in 2010 I blogged that I had heard him

address a public meeting in Sutton Coldfield in 1982 and he was a terrific speaker. His style of oratory, which no doubt came from Nonconformist preaching, now seems a world away from today's culture of soundbites and glottal stops.

What I remember more today is that he began his speech by saying that he had attended the ninth World Scout Jamboree in Sutton Park in 1957.

This won him murmurs of approval and pleasure from around the hall, but it makes me cringe today,

Francis Wheen on David Steel and Cyril Smith

Private Eye produces a regular podcast called Page 94.

The latest edition looks at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse and allegations aginst politicians.

In particular, and with the help of Francs Wheen, it looks at David Steel's odd defence of his lack of action over Cyril Smith.

But it would be unfair to blame Steel alone for this. Liberals of my generation all read the report of Smith's activities in Rochdale in Private Eye, believed it and did little.

Lord Steel resigns from the Lib Dems and the Lords

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The party's former leader David Steel has resigned from the Liberal Democrats and the House of Lords following today's report on the Westminster strand of the Independent Inquiry on Child Abuse.

You can find the chapter of the report that covers Cyril Smith and the Liberal Party on its website.

It's verdict on Lord Steel runs:

Lord Steel should have provided leadership. Instead, he abdicated his responsibility. He looked at Cyril Smith not through the lens of child protection but through the lens of political expediency. 

As suggested in the written closing submissions on behalf of the complainant core participants, when attending the Inquiry, far from recognising the consequences of his inaction, Lord Steel was completely unrepentant.

Jonathan West, who helped expose abuse at Ealing Abbey and St Benedict's School, has expressed dissatisfaction with the inquiry's recommendations in a thread on Twitter.

He call for the introduction of mandatory reporting of suspicions of child abuse :

I'm seriously disappointed with the recommendations in the @InquiryCSA Westminster report 1/10 https://t.co/kItHhnKJYQ

— Jonathan West (@JonathanWest_) February 25, 2020

Lord Steel 'facing expulsion from Liberal Democrats'

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This morning's Telegraph reported that Lord Steel - the former Liberal Party leader David Steel - faces condemnation from the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

It also said a committee of senior Lib Dem MPs and peers is being convened to discuss Lord Steel's future in the party once the inquiry's finding is made public.

The question at issue is Steel's failure to pass on Cyril Smith's alleged confession of abusing boys to the authorities.

After that the article quotes the inevitable 'friends' of Steel disparaging the inquiry.

As an antidote, let me point you to an interview with its chief psychologist, Dr Rebekah Eglinton:

Often we hear from survivors who disclosed the abuse as a child, but were met with disbelief or dismissal. This response is hugely damaging to self-esteem and trust in authority. 

Some survivors told us it took a long time to feel worthy of a Truth Project session, having internalised a sense of being ‘not good enough’ or of minimising the true nature of the abuse perpetrated against them. ... This self-doubt and low self-esteem is a common legacy of child sexual abuse.

David Steel's suspension lifted as Lib Dems "recast" investigation

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From BBC News this evening:

The Liberal Democrats have lifted the suspension of former leader David Steel, according to a senior party source. 

Lord Steel had the whip removed over comments he made to a child abuse inquiry about the late MP Cyril Smith. 

The source told the BBC that the whip had now been restored while the party recast the procedure being followed in its investigation into the comments.

Lord Steel was suspended after telling the inquiry that Cyril Smith had admitted abusing youths to him.

One odd thing about this affair is that Steel told us the same thing back in 2014 and no one turned a hair.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Suspended by the bigwigs

I managed to put him off yesterday, but I am afraid it is time to spend another week with Rutland's most celebrated fictional peer.

He begins with some characteristically trenchant views.

Monday

Meadowcroft emerges from his potting shed displaying an unwonted sense of urgency. “Steel’s been suspended by the bigwigs,” he informs me. “I’m not surprised,” I reply. “Do you remember when he persuaded us to stand down in half the seats in the country to make way for the SDP Party? No good came of it. Well I never thought it would.”

It turns out that he has been suspended for quite another reason. It has emerged that all those stories one heard about the appalling Cyril Smith were true and, what’s more, he admitted as much to Steel, who promptly did chuff all about it and later nominated him for a knighthood. No wonder E.W. Swinson was up in arms.

Smith, whom I once described as “Extremely Large”, was one of many politicians I was at pains to keep away from my Home for Well-Behaved Orphans. There were times when I had a whole phalanx of gamekeepers deployed with their orchard doughties to keep these undesirables away. All power to this inquiry’s elbow, I say.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West, 1906-10.

Tory by-election worker says police threatened to bar from Rochdale anyone who mentioned Cyril Smith's predilection for boys

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A remarkable document has appeared on the website of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

It is a witness statement from Christopher Horne, a former Conservative parliamentary candidate and local councillor.

He was a friend of David Trippier, the Conservative candidate in the 1972 Rochdale by-election, and took an active part in his campaign. The contest was won by Cyril Smith for the Liberal Party.

His statement reads in part:

Early on in the campaign many party workers - both Conservative and Labour - became aware that it was - in the good Scottish phrase - the "talk of the steamie" that Cyril Smith had had the opportunity to commit sexual offences with young boys and had taken advantage of those opportunities. 

This talk became general knowledge, and was in danger of becoming officially into the public domain, and, by definition, would then have become an issue in the by-election. However the local police, who to the best of my election (sic) then were the Lancashire Police took action to ensure it was not disseminated. 

The instruction not to mention the matter was conveyed to the Conservative Party workers by a police visit, to the campaign office at which I, the local agent and a number of other party workers were present. I have a vivid memory of the meeting. 

A police officer arrived. He informed those present that "any mention of Cyril Smith's predilection for boys" (his words) would be regarded as conduct likely to lead to a breach of the peace and could well lead to an injunction and an order to stay out of Rochdale during the election. ... 

He was very clear than any mention of this issue would be treated as an office and acted on accordingly; he indicated that the same information had been given to the Labour Party.

Liberal Democrats launch investigation into David Steel

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From BBC News:

The Liberal Democrats are investigating former leader David Steel over remarks he made to a child abuse inquiry about the late MP Cyril Smith. 

Lord Steel said he asked Smith in 1979 about claims he abused boys at a Rochdale hostel in the 1960s. 

He said he came away from the conversation "assuming" that Smith had committed the offences. 

But he claimed it was "nothing to do with me" as it had happened before Smith joined the party.

I blogged about David Steel's appearance before the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse yesterday.

But it seems that Lord Steel made the same admission five years ago.

Here is a Daily Telegraph report from April 2014:

Cyril Smith confessed 30 years ago to spanking boys and conducting intimate “medical examinations” on them but was allowed to remain as a Liberal MP. 

Lord Steel, the former Liberal leader who has defended the party’s refusal to hold an inquiry into sex abuse allegations, said on Tuesday that he had confronted Smith about his “unusual” behaviour with teenage boys at a hostel in Rochdale. 

An article in Private Eye in 1979 alleged that Smith, who was secretary of the Cambridge House boys hostel, put teenagers across his knee, pulled down their trousers and spanked them as a “punishment” in the 1960s. 

Lord Steel said: “I asked Cyril Smith about it. I was half expecting him to say it was all wrong, and I would have been urging him to sue to save his reputation. To my surprise he said the report was correct.

I suppose you have to ask why there wasn't similar outrage then.

David Steel tells inquiry that Cyril Smith admitted the abuse allegations against him were true

It was an extraordinary day at the Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse.

As the Guardian tells it:

Lord Steel, the Liberal Democrat peer, has admitted believing in 1979 that child abuse allegations against Sir Cyril Smith were true, but did nothing to assess whether he was a continuing risk to children. 

The former Liberal party leader said the late MP for Rochdale confirmed in a conversation that reports of child sexual abuse in the media were accurate. 

But rather than suspend and investigate the MP, Steel allowed him to continue in office. Smith stepped down as an MP in 1992 and died in 2010.

You can download a pdf of the day's evidence from the inquiry website, and I would recommend anyone interested in the last years of the Liberal Party to do so.

The three people giving evidence were Sal Brinton, Des Wilson and David Steel.

Much of Sal's evidence involves her being questioned about a written submission to the inquiry by Michael Steed, which details the organisation and culture of the party in the 1960s.

Des Wilson came and went from the party during the 1970s and 1980s, but he was the darling of the activists when he was around.

His evidence lays bare the divide between party's the MPs and activists in that era. The activists were more often in the right, but it is MPs' memoirs that are consulted by the historians.

Perhaps I should start reprinting extracts from Liberator from the past 40 years to show what really went on?

Wilson is also very convincing when he talks about Smith's bullying character.

Finally, there is David Steel and his startling admission.

I blogged about the allegations against Cyril Smith in 2012:

I first heard of the allegations against Cyril Smith when I read them in Private Eye in 1979. The Eye had picked them up from the Rochdale Alternative Press (RAP - those were the days when any self-respecting town had an 'alternative' newspaper). Northern Voices reprinted the original RAP story in 2010. 

My instinct has always been to assume that they were true, if only because I could not see why anyone would trouble to invent anything so tawdry - he "'told me to take my trousers down and hit me four or five times on my bare buttocks" - about someone who was then only a local politician.

My memory of 1979 is that the story about Smith was widely known in the party, which has always made me a little sceptical of Liberals of the era who claim not to have heard it.

You can read more about my reasons for this view in a 2015 post on this blog.

Anyway, you can read the Private Eye story from that year above and download a pdf of the full RAP story on which it was based.

Six of the Best 797

David Steel still believes the allegations made against Cyril Smith are "scurrilous hearsay". Ruth Bright says he is wrong. She is right.

David Boyle watched A Very English Scandal: "I’m not sure if I was weeping for myself or for my party. Or indeed for Thorpe and Scott, who both seem to me – and the series portrayed this even-handedly – the victims of forces beyond themselves."

Let's keep with the Seventies theme and read Ed Barrett on the Grunwick dispute.

Andy Boddington believes it is time for South Shropshire to be designated a national park: "Not everyone will welcome the extra traffic or our quiet landscape becoming better known.  But it will a boon to the economy of South Shropshire. It will give greater protection for our precious landscape and environment."

"56 years later they are still performing. Sure, the tunes have changed and they have lost a few members along the way, but essentially this is still The Rolling Stones. Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, the two childhood friends from Dartford in Kent still front the greatest rock ‘n roll band in the world." Nigel Carr goes to see the Rolling Stones at Old Trafford.

A London Inheritance is never less than fascinating. Here we are taken on a hunt for a lost well off the Gray's Inn Road.

IICSA report on child migration programmes

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The Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse is not attracting much media attention, even though its hearings on Cyril Smith and Knowl View appear to have led to the resignation of the Labour leader of Rochdale.Borough Council.

It has now produced its first report, which is Child Migration Programmes and it appears to be a good piece of work.

It bears out what another of my alter egos, Professor Strange, has argued. These programmes were not a secret, as later commentators so often maintain: they were widely discussed and controversial at the time.

Here is the report on the response to this of Her Majesty's Government:

Many reports on child migration were available to HMG during the 1950s. Perhaps the most significant was the Ross report (1956). Ross visited 26 out of 39 institutions in Australia to which British child migrants were sent. 

The reports on many of these places were extremely critical. The conditions at several of them were judged to be so bad that they were put on a ‘blacklist’ and regarded as not fit to receive any more child migrants. Still, HMG did nothing effective to protect the children. 

We concluded that the main reason for HMG’s failure to act was the politics of the day, which were consistently prioritised over the welfare of children. HMG was reluctant to jeopardise relations with the Australian government by withdrawing from the scheme, and also to upset philanthropic organisations such as Barnardo’s and the Fairbridge Society. 

Many such organisations enjoyed patronage from persons of influence and position, and it is clear that in some cases the avoidance of embarrassment and reputational risk was more important than the institutions’ responsibilities towards migrated children.

The evidence in the Rochdale child abuse inquiry is online

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One of the 13 individual strands that form the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse concerns Cambridge House, Knowl View and Rochdale.

These are matters in which the former Liberal and Liberal Democrat MP Cyril Smith is implicated.

The Rochdale strand finished hearing evidence last week and you can find transcripts of all the evidence on the inquiry website.

For a good summary of the evidence, see the article by Daniel De Simone and Jonathan Ali on BBC News.

Ruth Bright calls on the Lib Dems to apologise over Cyril Smith

The Chief Executive of Rochdale Council has apologised for letting down the victims of Cyril Smith. It is time that the Liberal Democrats, as successor party to the Liberal Party made an apology to the victims too.

So says Ruth Bright, former councillor in Southwark and parliamentary Candidate for Hampshire East, on Liberal Democrat Voice.

She goes on to detail the action she wants to see from party:

An apology from the Leader of the Liberal Democrats that the party was unknowingly used as a front for Smith’s respectability. 

An inquiry into any remaining evidence about him within the party. 

A direction to the pastoral care officer to support any party activists who wish to talk about their own experiences with Smith. 

A direction that all references to Smith be removed from the Rochdale Lib Dems website (which has an extraordinary archive with cheery references to his 80th birthday and other events),

Every loyal to the party, Lib Dem Voice (which has disabled comments on Ruth's post) adds without comment the party's response to the Cyril Smith affair.

This states:

His actions were not known or condoned by the Liberal Party or the Liberal Democrats.

But that is not true. Anyone in the Liberal Party who read Private Eye would have been familiar with the allegations.

As I blogged in 2012:

I first heard of the allegations against Cyril Smith when I read them in Private Eye in 1979. The Eye had picked them up from the Rochdale Alternative Press (RAP - those were the days when any self-respecting town had an 'alternative' newspaper). ...

My instinct has always been to assume that they were true, if only because I could not see why anyone would trouble to invent anything so tawdry - he "'told me to take my trousers down and hit me four or five times on my bare buttocks" - about someone who was then only a local politician.

Of course, I did not know the allegations were true in 1979, and what was printed in Private Eye was a tame version of what has since emerged.

But those later developments cannot have come as too much of a shock to many people at the top of the party.

Liberal Party "offered hush money to hide Cyril Smith's abuse"

View image | gettyimages.com

It may feel like the last scandal but four, but it is time to catch up with the accusations against Cyril Smith.

Back in March 2013 I quoted an account of Smith at work:

Cyril Smith sat next to a 14 year old boy (I deliberately kept him away from the young girls after his lewd comments). He bantered with anyone – old, middle aged or young… and then his left hand moved onto the groin area of the 14 year old boy. The boy jumped sky-high! 

My late hubby saw it and moved in very quickly (he sent me a signal to get the 14 year old boy into a safe space next to me). Hubby placed a firm hand on Cyril Smith’s shoulder whilst he ‘whispered’ in Smith’s ear. I believe that my late hubby told Cyril Smith to either remove himself immediately (without bother) or my hubby would remove him without ceremony. 

How my 12 stone hubby would have removed a 30 stone MP I don’t know! Maybe we are sometimes empowered by the sense of indignity, right and safeguarding of those in our care. Cyril Smith did leave my flat without a fuss. My hubby reported this incident to the local police, Liberal Headquarters and the Region.

The full account can be found on The Needle.

In April of this year the Daily Mail published an article by Simon Danczuk, which took the same witness's story forward:

The Liberals, however, realised the seriousness of the matter, and a few days later, an organiser came round to see her. He offered to give them £200 in ‘expenses’ to cover any ‘inconvenience’ they’d suffered. It was more than Julie earned in a month as a teacher. 

Julie and her husband were aghast. They knew he was trying to buy their silence and turned the offer down flat. 

‘We wouldn’t take a penny,’ she told me, the disgust still there in her voice. 

It was a watershed moment. The couple’s involvement in the Liberal Party stopped there. They didn’t want to be part of a party that brushed incidents like this under the carpet.

This is deeply worrying to someone like me, who was a member of the Liberals in those days.

Go back to The Needle and you will find the same lady leaving a comment. She does not challenge the central point that she was offered money - in fact she does not mention it, but she would surely have done so if it were not true.

But she does accuse Danczuk of embellishing her story:

• I have never met Simon Danzcuk (I met Matt Baker)

• I did not drink tea (I drank coffee)

• There is no photo of the 14 year old staring out with innocent eyes next to Cyril Smith ...

• I didn’t watch with horror (I saw the 14 year old jump up, it was my late [husband] ... who saw what had happened to cause the jump.) 

• The activists did not look around and stare with amazement and disgust (it was dealt with in a manner to cause the least amount of distress at that time). In fact, I told the police and MB that one of our older activists complained that Cyril Smith hadn’t stayed long and had only addressed 3 envelopes!

Everyone who was around in the party in those days knew their were stories about Smith - they had appeared in Private Eye. But I fear the Liberal Party high command knew more about them than the rest of us.

What the Liberal Party knew about Cyril Smith

Ruth Bright calls for those investigating the late Cyril Smith to be allowed to scrutinise the Liberal Democrats' archives,

I don't know that the party has or would refuse any such request, so far our reaction to the allegations has fallen short of complete openness.

As the Observer reported in April of last year:

"Cyril Smith’s acts were vile and repugnant and we have nothing but sympathy for those whose lives he ruined. His actions were not known to, or condoned by the Liberal Party or the Liberal Democrats." Party sources said there were no plans to launch further investigations.

Trouble is, at least in the case of the Liberal Party, it is not true that his actions were not know to the party.

First, there were Private Eye's allegations against him in 1979. Anyone active in any party would have read those. I have reproduced the page from the organ above and if you enlarge it you will be able to read it.

Second, there is the account of Smith's behaviour at the Manchester Central by-election in the same year that I have quoted here before:

Cyril Smith sat next to a 14 year old boy (I deliberately kept him away from the young girls after his lewd comments). He bantered with anyone – old, middle aged or young… and then his left hand moved onto the groin area of the 14 year old boy. The boy jumped sky-high! 

My late hubby saw it and moved in very quickly (he sent me a signal to get the 14 year old boy into a safe space next to me). Hubby placed a firm hand on Cyril Smith’s shoulder whilst he ‘whispered’ in Smith’s ear. I believe that my late hubby told Cyril Smith to either remove himself immediately (without bother) or my hubby would remove him without ceremony. 

How my 12 stone hubby would have removed a 30 stone MP I don’t know! Maybe we are sometimes empowered by the sense of indignity, right and safeguarding of those in our care. Cyril Smith did leave my flat without a fuss. My hubby reported this incident to the local police, Liberal Headquarters and the Region.

Third, there is the account of Dominic Carman, a recent Lib Dem candidate and the son of George Carman, who conducted Jeremy Thorpe's successful defence when he was charged with conspiracy to murder.

As the Guardian reported in February 2013:

"My father was told by Thorpe that senior Liberals knew of the serious nature of the allegations against Smith and that they dated back many years. I approached the police in December with information," Carman said. A spokesman for Greater Manchester police confirmed that an officer has spoken to Carman. 

Thorpe was cleared of plotting to murder Scott but failed to regain his political career. 

Another source who also claimed to have spoken to George Carman during the trial said that the barrister was concerned about the possible impact of further revelations in the Thorpe trial. 

"The reason that it was a genuine fear was because there were so many allegations against Smith involving boys that one assumed there was no smoke without fire," the source said.

So Ruth is right. The Liberal Democrats should do all they can to help expose the truth about Cyril Smith.

Simon Danczuk and Sir Edward Garnier

Back in July, after Simon Danczuk (the Labour MP for Rochdale who exposed Cyril Smith) appeared before the Commons home affairs select committee.

The following week a mysterious report appeared in the Telegraph:

A campaigning MP was warned not to challenge Lord Brittan, the former Home Secretary, about what he knew about an alleged Westminster paedophile ring and was told he could be responsible for the Conservative peer’s death. 

Simon Danczuk said a Conservative minister stepped in to warn him not to name Lord Brittan in a Parliamentary committee last week. 

Mr Danczuk said that members of the Home Affairs select committee received similar phone calls ahead of his appearance on Tuesday.

Today a sparsely attended backbench debate on historical child sex abuse was held in the House of Commons and it may have provided a solution to this mystery.

In the course of his speech in the debate, Danczuk said:

Earlier this year, I told the Home Affairs Committee that a dossier containing allegations about child abuse by politicians had been handed by Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens to the then Home Secretary Leon Brittan. That revelation helped lead to the Wanless and Whittam review and to the establishment of the overarching inquiry, but not everybody was pleased with the idea that I might challenge Lord Brittan. 

The night before my appearance before the Committee, I had an encounter with the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Sir Edward Garnier). After the 10pm vote, he drew me to one side outside the Chamber and warned me to think very carefully about what I was going to say the following day. He told me that challenging Lord Brittan on child abuse would not be a wise move and that I might even be responsible for his death, as he was unwell. 

I understand that people are cautious about naming parliamentarians, but I think that people who might know about child abuse allegations should answer questions, whatever their position. We should not shy away from that.

Sir Edward Garnier (despite my best efforts) has been my MP here in Market Harborough since 1992.

Later. Sir Edward Garnier has replied via the Leicester Mercury.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The Liberal Detective Agency

Thursday

Little Steel, by contrast, has a lot of explaining to do, as he was informed long ago that Smith was far from being the clean potato. “We were a political party not a detective agency,” he has taken to whining about those years before we merged with the SDP Party. I am afraid conscience bids me explain why this is nonsense.

In the mid 1970s, when we were at something of a low ebb, I went to Steel and said: “As the politics is not going so well these days, we need a second string to our bow. What about all this crime you read about in the newspapers? We Liberals are intelligent fellows and should be able to help bring the bad hats to book.”

And so the Liberal Detective Agency was born. With Alan Beith’s sleuthing, Clement Freud’s pioneering work in psychological profiling and Nancy Seear’s willingness to play bad cop to David Alton’s good cop, we enjoyed no little success. The money the agency made was ploughed back into the party’s campaigning, with the result that we survived the 1979 general election in better shape than any commentator had dared predict.

I fear for Steel’s reputation when this comes out, and come out it will, as I am in advanced negotiations with an independent moving television production company about bringing the tale to the screen. I only hope he finds his missing locus before it is broadcast.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary

The elves in my covert

An inflatable Julian Huppert

Spotting a wrong 'un

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Spotting a wrong 'un

Wednesday 

One of the things I have acquired in my long experience of business and politics is the ability to spot a wrong ‘un. George de Chabris, Allen Stanford, Bernie Madoffwithallyourmoney… I wasn’t taken in by any of them. There are more poisonous varieties of wrong ‘un, of course, which is why Cyril Smith was one of a number of politicians, such as [names redacted on solicitor’s advice], whom I never allowed to visit the Home for Well-Behaved Orphans.

Really, I should have smelt a rat the first time I met him, as he and his mother were huddled around the hearth of their terraced house in Rochdale, burning postal votes to keep warm. This was against any number of electoral laws (not to mention the Clean Air Act), but I have to confess I was impressed that every one I saw had been cast for the opposing candidate.

Lord Bonkers was Liberal MP for Rutland South West 1906-10.

Previously in Lord Bonkers' Diary:

The elves in my covert

An inflatable Julian Huppert

What does it mean when you 'Favorite' a tweet?

From Rochdale Online:

Linda Fisher, Rochdale Council Acting Chief Executive, has been forced into an embarrassing apology after favouriting a tweet that attempts to smear Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk. 

In a tweet on Sunday (3 August), @CarlWarmington said: "@SimonDanczuk Why not go for the abusers and those in Rochdale Council who covered up? RMBC corruptees should be ignored? Why? #suspicious. 

Mr Danczuk, who has been at the forefront of efforts to expose those guilty of sexually abusing children, said: "I am disappointed that a chief executive would get embroiled in local politics in this way. My record speaks for itself in tackling child abuse both at a local and national level and it is wholly inappropriate for Linda Fisher to be supporting comments that attempt to smear me." 

It is understood that Ms Fisher never meant to favourite the tweet, it was done by 'accident'. Having realised Ms Fisher then un-favourited the tweet. 

Ms Fisher has apologised to Mr Danczuk.

In my book Linda Fisher has nothing to apologise for.

When I favourite (let's drop the American spelling) a tweet it is a way of saving it for later reference. Typically, I will be on the train or at lunch and skimming down my twitterstream looking for links that may be interesting. When I see one, I favourite it.

It is not an expression of support for that tweet. If I want to do that, I retweet it. And even then, retweeting can occasionally be a way of saying "Look at this view. Isn't it terrible?"

So on my understanding, there is nothing wrong with Fisher saving a tweet that accuses her authority of covering up abuse. That is something she must obviously take an interest in.

To Danczuk, however, to favourite a tweet is obviously to express public approval of it. He sees it as akin to liking a post or page on Facebook. So to him, Fisher is effectively agreeing with the idea that he has not gone after his political colleagues over child abuse in Rochdale by Cyril Smith and, one suspects, many others.

So am I in the minority? How do other people use favouriting on Twitter?