Life of Pie (2)

The Observer also picked up on the story about the NCCL and PIE although without the scabrous humour deployed by Rod Liddle through his column in the Sunday Times - which is not really surprising since the Observer is a much more Labour friendly paper. 


Labour trio can't stay silent on this paedophile claim

Patricia Hewitt, Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey should not be the subject of a witch-hunt over the NCCL and PIE, but tell their version

By Barbara Ellen - The Observer

Harriet Harman needs to speak out about the claims made by the Daily Mail. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian

Do former health secretary Patricia Hewitt, Labour deputy Harriet Harman, and her husband, Labour home affairs spokesman Jack Dromey, regret certain episodes during the 1970s and 80s when they occupied posts at human rights organisation the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL – which later became Liberty)?

Would they like to explain further the circumstances, detailed last week in the Daily Mail, that led to a notorious group called the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) achieving formal affiliate status with the NCCL (arguing that PIE also had human rights). PIE's influence was such that the NCCL lobbied for what was dubbed a "Lolita charter", where the age of consent would be lowered to 10 (if the child "understood the nature of the act"); another proposal argued for incest to be legalised.

Where the NCCL's dealings with PIE are concerned, the Mail has certainly done its research, making it clear that its information is garnered from official archives. What's more, the post-Savile "Operation Fernbridge" is now investigating PIE, probing claims that the government of the time may have (unwittingly perhaps) helped finance the group.

Hewitt, general secretary of the NCCL between 1974-83, who's reported to have described PIE as "a campaigning/counselling group for adults attracted to children", has been silent. Dromey says that he was "implacably opposed" to PIE. A spokesperson for Harman (who was not working for NCCL at the time of the lobbying for lowering of the age of consent) has dismissed the allegations as "untrue and ridiculous".

Certainly, there's a whiff of mischief about the sudden reappearance of this story (first rehearsed in the Mail late last year). You can almost picture the rightwing hatchet gleefully swinging at the "Labour grandees"-cum-"paedophile apologists". And yesterday, the paper's coverage moved from stories about PIE into large-scale child sex abuse and infiltration of children's care homes; where none of the three Labour figures are implicated in any way.

And yet the mischief does not invalidate the stories, nor mean that there are not questions to answer.

Of course, events at the NCCL need to be placed into context – taking into account the ideological spirit of the times. This was at the height of the much-lampooned "woolly" radical-left, boundary-smashing, ultra-inclusive freethinking – often admirable, but also, at times, misguided, even disastrous (as we might be seeing). Is it fair to take decisions made during this fluctuating, charged period (even very poor ones) out of context?

Then again, helping a paedophile group lobbying to lower the age of consent so drastically (and the rest) – what could they have been thinking? If what amounted to an almighty contest of progressive thought went too far, and the NCCL in any way legitimised a gruesome group such as the PIE, then this needs to be addressed.

So, while this should not turn into a witch–hunt, it does not matter that it was a long time ago (the pros and cons of "historical" issues have been amply covered with Savile, among other issues). Likewise, while the Labour trio should not be branded "paedophile apologists" on the strength of an old story, it would also be a grave mistake for them to stay silent or curtly dismissive, perhaps hoping that the claims will magically disappear. (Dream on.)

While context is required, the fact remains that some very disturbing things went down, including the legitimising of a group that wasn't even bothering to hide the word "paedophile" in its name. Who would want their own good name indelibly attached to something like this, especially without sufficient reply?

There is still space here for Hewitt, Harman and Dromey to "grab the conch", as it were, to calmly tell their version of events, in context, explaining exactly what happened at the NCCL, and, where applicable, expressing regret. A calm, thorough, intelligent response is required to cut through the smokescreen of mischief and hysteria; they should answer the myriad important questions and issues arising from that time.