Lord Bonkers 30 years ago: While members of the Women's Liberal Federation beat me with rolled up copies of Pericles' funeral oration

Look, I don't really care what Lord Bonkers was saying 30 years ago either, but the old boy insists. So here is an extract from the diary that appeared in the October 1992 issue of Liberator (no. 208).

We catch him playing truant from the Liberal Democrats' Autumn Conference.

Thursday

Normally, let me say at once, I should walk miles barefoot upon hedgehog skins while members of the Women's Liberal Federation beat me with rolled up copies of Pericles' funeral oration for the pleasure of hearing one of young Ashplant's speeches. You can imagine, then, what a bitter disappointment it is that an apparent clash of dates obliges me to leave Harrogate after morning coffee.

I purchase Sir Desmond Wilson's latest opus to read on the train; his publishers, with laudable candour, describe it as "a unique and frightening book.

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

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.

Boris Johnson buried report on air pollution near London schools

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From the Guardian today:

An air quality report that was not published by Boris Johnson while he was mayor of London demonstrates that 433 schools in the capital are located in areas that exceed EU limits for nitrogen dioxide pollution – and that four-fifths of those are in deprived areas. 

The report, Analysing Air Pollution Exposure in London, said that in 2010, 433 of the city’s 1,777 primary schools were in areas where pollution breached the EU limits for NO2. Of those, 83% were considered deprived schools, with more than 40% of pupils on free school meals. 

A spokeswoman for Johnson’s successor, Sadiq Khan, said the new mayor could not understand why the research had not been published when it was completed more than two-and-a-half years ago.

This reminds me of the campaign to end the use of lead in petrol.

I remember once hearing Des Wilson, who spearheaded it, saying that the key to victory was getting the research published. So damning was it that, once it was in the public domain, the battle was effectively over.

It has been argued, incidentally, that the fall in juvenile offending in recent years can be put down to the removal of lead, and its damaging effect on the brain, from the environment.

Jeremy Thorpe and Des Wilson go shopping

View image | gettyimages.com

A scene from the Hove by-election of 1973.

Des Wilson was already well known as a campaigner, particularly as the founding director of Shelter, and joined the Liberal Party in order to fight this election. He later became a significant figure in the party and in the Liberal Democrats in that party's early years.

The Liberals had not fought Hove in 1970 (though they did achieve 16 per cent there in the 1966 general election), when the Conservatives had won 69 per cent of the vote in a straight contest with Labour.

In what was seen as a brave by-election campaign in an unwinnable seat, Des Wilson came second with 37 per cent of the vote. He was less than 5000 votes behind the winning Tory.

Today Hove is a Labour/Tory marginal. Labour won it in 1997, held it until 2010 and then won it back in 2015.

I guess the retired colonels and their ladies have died out, hitting the Conservative vote.

Six of the Best 310

Mark Pack has been reading Des Wilson's memoirs.

"Public trust in institutions is more quickly undermined than it is built. The Police and Crime Commissioners were never popular with the public, but the first actions of Bill Longmore and his colleagues across the nation are undermining trust further. Public confidence in the police fell dramatically during 2012. If one of the hopes of the Police and Crime Commissioners is to restore public confidence in policing it has certainly got off to a bad start." Andy Boddington on the problems with the new police and crime commissioners - in West Mercia and further afield.

Go Litel Blog, Go ... reviews the very damp cricket season of 2012.

"Nothing happened in April apart from a penguin standing for the council in Edinburgh. The penguin successfully defeated the Liberal Democrats but failed to be elected." Love and Garbage reviews the year on Love and Garbage.

The last days of Hurstway Street in West London, in 1969, are pictured by The Library Time Machine.

While Londonist shows us the city's lost department stores.

Des Wilson on poker

Today's Observer has a review of Des Wilson's new book Swimming with the Devil Fish. It is a study on Britain's current obsession with poker.

Young reader's voice: But who is Des Wilson?

The reviewer, Anthony Holden, helpfully provides a summary of his career:

Des Wilson is what is used to be called, appropriately, a card. After arriving in Britain from New Zealand in the Sixties, he founded Shelter before running Friends of the Earth and the campaigns for freedom of information and lead-free petrol. The election manager for Paddy Ashdown's Liberal Democrats, he also became a bigwig at the English Cricket Board, while knocking off a couple of novels. After finally making himself some money at the BAA (post-privatisation), he is now 65 and retired.

Thanks for the tip, Catherine.

Des Wilson off his long run

Just before Christmas I posted a complaint about the English and Wales Cricket Board's decision to sell the rights to home test matches to BSkyB, with the result that they will no longer be shown on terrestrial television.

Now Des Wilson, once the darling of radical Liberals everywhere, has joined the debate:

"while there have been assurances that the deal will help the developmental and recreational aspects of the game, there are no plans, let alone guarantees. In the meantime the 18 first-class counties are rubbing their hands in expectation of more money to spend on employing too many expensive overseas players and on other short-term projects."