Should Harriet Harman apologise?

Well said, POGS

Did you read the article, lily? She seems to be categorically denying "association".

Sorry went for lunch and didn't know I had posted.

I'm sorry to say but this thread has just totally cemented in my mind that the 'hate' of the Daily Mail is so obvious it clouds any rational judgement by some.

Harman and co have been spoke of for many years over this matter. She is, as has been said, digging a hole for herself. I am pleased Hewitt has now spoken out over this subject and I think she was perfectly rational and showed a sense of decency I for one would expect from any human being irrespective of their politics.

To say she and others in the NCCL possibly did not know what PIE was about is quite ridiculous. At the time I remember how disgusted I was with the whole set up. There were many angry scuffles with them by decent members of the public who considered PIE disgusting and tried to shut down their meetings and existence.

This has surfaced again because of the recent police operations that have taken place concerning historic paedophile allegations. The NCCL and PIE were major players at the time and quite rightly this association has been brought to the fore. About time, this time however the public are more aware and interested in what was going on.

I don't care what party they belong to, who the person is, nor what they are doing now to be frank. If you cannot see that even being in a room with, being connected in any way with paedophiles is abhorrent then I despair to be honest.

This might have been a Daily Mail story but for goodness sake does that have to mean it is a smear campaign. Facts are facts, truth is truth. Goodness knows Harman is no saint and can be as cutting and devious as any other politician or newspaper.

I think the longer the story has been spoken about the more her own words have been subjected to scrutiny and I don't think she is coming out of this in a good light.

I think her ability to use 3 young girls to try and turn the public in her favour shows exactly how capable she is of using below the belt tactics. What right has she got to display a picture of those poor girls in a manner which implied the photo looked depraved for goodness sake. She deserves what she gets just for being such a hypocrite and once again she showed her poor judgement. I hope those girls or their parents come out and have a go too.

Perhaps the Gingers could call her a rodent, after all she doesn't mind abusing the colour of a persons hair. All in the name of humour you know.

Ever heard of guilt by association, bags? If you don't do what you can to stop the bad people and you are in a position to do so, you must share some responsibility. As Shami Chakrabati, who wasn't even born when a lot of this was going on, and Patricia Hewitt have recognised. And child abuse was unfortunately just as common in the 1970s but the present public hysteria about it didn't exist and it was very hard for victims to get complaints taken seriously. Like rape and domestic violence. Which is why so many 'historic' accusations are being investigated now.

Article in Guardian quoting Harman seems to be saying the DM should be apologising, not her.

Oh it was definitely going on Galen. Long before the seventies. Just not so acknowledged.

She wasn't INVOLVED with the organisation! The organisation paid an affiliation fee to her employer, NCCL.

I think it was probably very prevalent, just no talked about as 'not nice'! And therefore people turned a blind eye to it.
I certainly was not aware, but in retrospect, I can now think of many cases where I'm sure it was going on. I was very naive in my 20s.
Doctors were not taught about it or child abuse.

I'm sorry to say but this thread has just totally cemented in my mind that the 'hate' of the Daily Mail is so obvious it clouds any rational judgement by some.

Harman and co have been spoke of for many years over this matter. She is, as has been said, digging a hole for herself. I am pleased Hewitt has now spoken out over this subject and I think she was perfectly rational and showed a sense of decency I for one would expect from any human being irrespective of their politics.

To say she and others in the NCCL possibly did not know what PIE was about is quite ridiculous. At the time I remember how disgusted I was with the whole set up. There were many angry scuffles with them by decent members of the public who considered PIE disgusting and tried to shut down their meetings and existence.

This has surfaced again because of the recent police operations that have taken place concerning historic paedophile allegations. The NCCL and PIE were major players at the time and quite rightly this association has been brought to the fore. About time.

I don't care what party they belong to, who the person is, nor what they are doing now to be frank. If you cannot see that even being in a room with, being connected in any way with paedophiles is abhorrent then I despair to be honest.

This might have been a Daily Mail story but for goodness sake does that have to mean it is a smear campaign. Facts are facts, truth is truth. Goodness knows Harman is no saint and can be as cutting and devious as any other politician or newspaper.

Perhaps the Gingers could call her a rodent, after all she doesn't mind abusing the colour of a persons hair. All in the name of humour you know.

Yes, training came after the development of the pioneering work that was going on in some parts of the country, nightowl. The USA was ahead of us but generous with support and in Rochdale the work began with family therapy type treatment.

As someone who was a social worker in the late 70s I think there was still a lot of confusion around sexual abise. I remember incidents being referred to as 'incest' when they involved father and daughter, and a widespread belief that adolescent girls were somehow implicit in their abuse. It was not until the 1980's that proper training began to take off and new ways of investigating allegations were developed. Some of them were additionally harmful such as the use of 'anatomical dolls' which came with the message that only children who had been abused would know how to fit the relevant parts together. I saw that proved wrong on more than one occasion. Thankfully they were discredited as a regular tool for investigation and I often wonder how many of them are languishing in some dusty cupboard in social work offices across the land.

Maybe the USA was ahead of us when, as in so many things, particularly in treatment of offenders, but victims definitely got a raw deal in those days.

None of this is an apology for HH's involvement or support of such an organisation and I do think she needs to consider being a lot clearer in condemning the group/ distancing herself now.

Yes, they did. In the USA there was a lot of pioneering work which came here in the second half of the 70s, and by the late 70s was being developed into treatment programmes for individual sex offenders, followed by groupwork programmes in the early 80s. Ray Wyre, first a probation officer and later a criminologist initiated treatment for catholic priests from Ireland, and collaborated with many other psychologists, prison governors, police, probation, social services and NSPCC in spreading knowledge and expertise about paedophiles. This was in parallel with development of legislation around child protection, age of consent, management of paedophiles in the community, and investigations into allegations of widespread child abuse by paedophile rings. Much of this whilst HH was in post at NCCL.

Did anyone know just how huge a problem paedophilia was back in the seventies? Maybe, when you are just starting out out on a political career, you can be forgiven for not noticing, or giving enough credence to, everything that is going on. Especially when it is on the very outer reaches of your organisation.

Well, I think it must have been difficult to comprehend at the time or all this would never have happened. Harman, Hewitt, and Coggins are not thick. Nor are they wicked. That's what it boils down to.

Of course WE were never naive, were we? WE always understood everything and always knew the proper way to proceed in all our endeavours

No, not simple, bags but not difficult to comprehend, either.

Sorry when im64 as you were!

"jingle and Mary Beard" I like that.

(still wish she'd get a haircut)

HH's husband is one of the people who recognised the problem for what is was and did something about PIE.

I'm with Jingle and Mary Beard on this. I think HH, like many other people at the time, did not realise the truth about PIE back then. Members of PIE had clearly not been charged with sex crimes against children. This suggests that people really were not aware. HH has expressed regret already. Regret means that she accepts, now, that perhaps she should have done something back then. At least, I think it does.

@wmarybeard: PIE obviously (as we now see) was awful; but the 1970s debate about the age of consent was complicated, silly, difficult, bold, etc, etc

It isn't as simple as the DM and some GNers seem to be suggesting.

whenim well said! I hate being lectured on right-on-ness by individuals like HH whose grasp of ethical principle is rather less than a haddock's.

PIE was never a benign organisation that went unrecognised as the dangerous collection of paedophiles that we know it to be today - it was known then. The 70s wasn't the Wild West where anything goes - we had sturdy child protection legislation and agencies that have become more effective over the years, but were in place then. Investigative journalists, criminologists, police, probation, social services were all up and running with the attempts to expose, prosecute, imprison and treat sex offenders. Not at the level we do now, but in terms of putting this issue in the public domain, PIE and its sinister attempts to groom NCCL was noticed and protested about. HH must have been going around with her eyes and ears closed if she wasn't aware of it then. Her judgement is questionable if she can't bring herself to acknowledge what others have done. What else will she struggle with if called to account?

Apologising implies that something has been done that was wrong. The obsession of PIE with young children was not as obvious then as it is with hindsight. They were thought to be resisting heavyhanded officialdom at that time.

Yes, she could have made more noise about disapproval, but she did not approve of their involvement with child abuse - they did not publicise that, naturally.

I'm just surprised that anyone feels an apology would be adequate, if they really think HH is a person to tolerate and condone paedophiles. Why not go the whole hog and demand she be shown the door of the House?

Mean? I was being polite.

jingle x