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What Harriet did next

commandlinegamer

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commandlinegamer
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Looks like the recent good news on the jobs front in the UK will be dented with the current Labour Party deputy leader having to look for a new situation shortly.

What I find strange is that the allegations, that Harman et al advocated in favour of adults having sex with children, were reported back in 2009 and 2012.

Why is this news now?
 
Because the Daily Mail has repeated it over and over until there's nothing else interesting on the political landscape in the UK, perhaps?
I'm still not clear what involvement she has been accused of having, to be honest.
 
commandlinegamer said:
Looks like the recent good news on the jobs front in the UK will be dented with the current Labour Party deputy leader having to look for a new situation shortly.

What I find strange is that the allegations, that Harman et al advocated in favour of adults having sex with children, were reported back in 2009 and 2012.

Why is this news now?
Click to expand...



Wait, what has she actually done? As far as I can make out the Daily Mail is holding her personally accountable for the National Council for Civil Liberties recognizing a peadophilia advocacy group called the Peadophile Information Exchange as one of a thousand or so affiliated free speech/civil rights groups in 1975. Apparently it's all Harman's fault because some years later she became the legal officer the NCCL.

She states that she has always acted and advocted against paedophila and child abuse.

From the BBC:
"I'm not going to apologise because I've got nothing to apologise for.

"I very much regret that this vile organisation, PIE, ever existed and that it ever had anything to do with NCCL, but it did not affect my work at NCCL"

She added: "They had been pushed to the margins before I actually went to NCCL and to allege that I was involved in collusion with paedophilia or apologising for paedophilia is quite wrong and is a smear.

"It is actually not me that should be apologising for something that I haven't done. It is the Daily Mail that should be apologising for their smear and innuendo."
Click to expand...
 
Carnivore said:
Wait, what has she actually done? As far as I can make out the Daily Mail is holding her personally accountable for the National Council for Civil Liberties recognizing a peadophilia advocacy group called the Peadophile Information Exchange as one of a thousand or so affiliated free speech/civil rights groups in 1975. Apparently it's all Harman's fault because some years later she became the legal officer the NCCL.
Click to expand...



It's not Harmans fault..but why in the world were the PIE ever affiliated with the NCCL? Someone (not Harman) at the NCCL must have approved it.
 
Liam said:
It's not Harmans fault..but why in the world were the PIE ever affiliated with the NCCL? Someone (not Harman) at the NCCL must have approved it.
Click to expand...

As I understand it from the news reports, there was no positive vetting process. As long as you paid your dues and your organisation had not been declared illegal then you could be affiliated with the NCCL.

I suppose this apparently lax process was part of the NCCL's inclusiveness standpoint and relied upon TPTB (the powers that be) being on the ball enough to tag illegal organisations.

A positive vetting process may actually cause more problems than it solves. If you positively vet then you're saying that "this organisation is a good group of guys/gals" which means that you're really for the high jump if it turns out later that there were some nefarious dealings.
 
Liam said:
It's not Harmans fault..but why in the world were the PIE ever affiliated with the NCCL? Someone (not Harman) at the NCCL must have approved it.
Click to expand...
Because they paid the necessary membership fee. It should be remembered that while PIE was active, it pitched themselves as arguing from a theoretical/advocacy point of view, and it wasn't until the early 1980s that evidence emerged that it was actually being run by and for the benefit of active paedophiles.
 
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The most serious allegation I've read that was specific to Harman, from one of the Telegraph blogs, was that she authored a paper to be put forward in the Child Protection Bill which was being debated in the mid-70s, basically to put the onus on prosecutors to prove that a child was harmed if nude pictures of them were found in possession of an adult. But no cite of said paper from the article I read the other day.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/d...he-nccl-and-paedophilia-my-article-from-2012/

Guardian lays out the claims and counter-claims here:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/25/harriet-harman-daily-mail-argument-nccl-link-pie
 
commandlinegamer said:
The most serious allegation I've read that was specific to Harman, from one of the Telegraph blogs, was that she authored a paper to be put forward in the Child Protection Bill which was being debated in the mid-70s, basically to put the onus on prosecutors to prove that a child was harmed if nude pictures of them were found in possession of an adult. But no cite of said paper from the article I read the other day.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/d...he-nccl-and-paedophilia-my-article-from-2012/

Guardian lays out the claims and counter-claims here:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/25/harriet-harman-daily-mail-argument-nccl-link-pie
Click to expand...

The Mail and Telegraph seem to be trying to suggest that the above argument was as a direct result of the PIE affiliation, even though it's been reported that the only one of the three now-MPs who ever met anyone from PIE was Hewitt, in a lift at a conference (!). It sounds like the above argument has more to do with avoiding the Somerville Effect than excusing actual child porn.
 
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Information Analyst said:
The Mail and Telegraph seem to be trying to suggest that the above argument was as a direct result of the PIE affiliation, even though it's been reported that the only one of the three who ever met anyone from PIE was Hewitt, in a lift at a conference (!). It sounds more like the above argument has more to do with avoiding the Somerville Effect than actually excusing child porn.
Click to expand...

Time to ban lift use at conferences, I think.
 
Slightly off topic but in the early 80's the editor of "Bike" magazine (UK motorcycle monthly) suggested that a local Hells Angels chapter were affiliated with PIE. (As a joke)
They sued, and, because everyone involved was a responsible, sensible adult, the amount (it obviously never got to court) was given to a child protection charity, with the Angels matching the magazines contribution.
Happy ending.
 
The Don said:
As I understand it from the news reports, there was no positive vetting process. As long as you paid your dues and your organisation had not been declared illegal then you could be affiliated with the NCCL.

I suppose this apparently lax process was part of the NCCL's inclusiveness standpoint and relied upon TPTB (the powers that be) being on the ball enough to tag illegal organisations.

A positive vetting process may actually cause more problems than it solves. If you positively vet then you're saying that "this organisation is a good group of guys/gals" which means that you're really for the high jump if it turns out later that there were some nefarious dealings.
Click to expand...


Fair enough, it makes more sense now.
 
The UK in general seems to be suffering from a serious lack of political leadership in all the parties.
 
dudalb said:
The UK in general seems to be suffering from a serious lack of political leadership in all the parties.
Click to expand...

I disagree with have plenty of political leadership just not leadership. :(

That semantic twiddle aside (I know what you meant and I do agree) how does this story illustrate it? All I see is a smear campaign by a despicable news paper publisher and editor.
 
dudalb said:
The UK in general seems to be suffering from a serious lack of political leadership in all the parties.
Click to expand...

That's because they've all moved into roughly the same middle ground in an attempt to appeal to the same voters and are now divided by a tiny margin.
They may as well all be renamed Corporate Party (Colour) and be done with it.
 
commandlinegamer said:
Looks like the recent good news on the jobs front in the UK will be dented with the current Labour Party deputy leader having to look for a new situation shortly.

What I find strange is that the allegations, that Harman et al advocated in favour of adults having sex with children, were reported back in 2009 and 2012.

Why is this news now?
Click to expand...

commandlinegamer said:
The most serious allegation I've read that was specific to Harman, from one of the Telegraph blogs, was that she authored a paper to be put forward in the Child Protection Bill which was being debated in the mid-70s, basically to put the onus on prosecutors to prove that a child was harmed if nude pictures of them were found in possession of an adult. But no cite of said paper from the article I read the other day.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/d...he-nccl-and-paedophilia-my-article-from-2012/

Guardian lays out the claims and counter-claims here:

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/25/harriet-harman-daily-mail-argument-nccl-link-pie
Click to expand...

These are hardly the same thing! :confused:
 
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