Simon Danczuk on his appearance before the home affairs select committee

Danczuk writes in this morning's Guardian:

In advance of the home affairs select committee session on child abuse, which was trailed as an opportunity to discuss historic sex abuse involving politicians, pressure was applied to everyone not to bring up any living politicians. 

A senior Tory apprehended me inside parliament and warned me not to name a former cabinet minister. The matter had been put to bed years ago, he said, and if raised now it would probably kill the former minister. But he wasn't the only one applying pressure. Party whips, Lords, MPs and others were all involved in cajoling, arm-twisting and bullying committee members to stick to a carefully choreographed script.

As he goes on to say, since then the wheels have more or less fallen off the political establishment.

I have been blogging and tweeting about the issues Danczuk raised since the end of 2012, when I wrote: "This one will run and run." It is certainly running now.

There are dangers here. Everyone seems to have a different idea of what an inquiry should cover, and it could all  turn into a silly-season story, as happened in the case of Madeleine McCann. Then, the press collectively lost of all sense of reason and competed to bring us more and more lurid conspiracy theories without bothering to report the basic facts of the case.

But if the current outcry can right some injustices, bring some perpetrators and focus interest on the protection of children in public care, then it may do some good.

Perhaps my point of view is partly determined by living in Market Harborough, where the local children's home and exclusive prep school were once simultaneously rife with sexual abuse.

Anyway, you can also listen to Simon Danczuk and Matt Baker's appearance on The World This Weekend yesterday, when the spoke about the select committee hearing: